Design Goals:
For this level, I was looking to build tension by having the player explore the house. The atmosphere and environment was the main tool used to build tension. I purposefully made the house very tightly spaced, cramped, and somewhat confusing in order to make the player feel trapped within it. Furthermore, I wanted the player to feel scared without having their life actually be threatened.

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Challenges and Lessons Learned:
One of the primary challenges I faced when developing this level was finding ways to build tension in a methodical manner throughout the level. During some of the first iterations of the map, I noticed that I had utilized too impactful of a jump scare early on, instead of allowing the tension to build. I had to adjust certain scares and the level of these scares gradually as I worked. Furthermore, one thing that I found to be difficult was to create complex moments using the Horror Engine “horror event” system that I was available. There were times when it became very limiting as a designer to use a rigid system, rather than scripting my own events from scratch, however I chose to stick with the systems at my disposal. Overall, this project made it clear to me how difficult horror and tension can be in game development and how much planning and intention goes into the smallest of details in a horror game.