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InVein
Development: August 2025 - December 2025
Project Type: Team Project
Description: A horror game created in Unreal Engine 5. Explore the depths of a Hospital that evolves as the days go on while you try to escape the Nurse.
Tools Used: Unreal Engine 5, Photoshop, PureRef
Project Overview
InVein is a horror game set in a 1950's hospital that deteriorates as the days progress. The player must manage their IV to make it through each day, while simultaneously avoiding the Nurse to learn how to escape the hospital.
Gameplay Overview:
- The player is tethered to an IV stand that they must maintain in order to make it through the day, finding replacement IV bags throughout the hospital
- Explore the hospital as it evolves over the course of 5 days, uncovering story elements as they go
The Evolution(s)
For this project, a major focus of the Level Design was to have the Hospital evolve/deteriorate across the playable "days" to accompany the narrative of a crumbling reality. To accomplish this, the early days change with slight deterioration and moving objects around to progressively stranger places, while the later days are severely deteriorated and objects are destroyed or floating/warped.
- A major benefit of this concept is the ability to dramatically change the player's path through the hospital in interesting ways
- Changing pathing, lighting and overall mood prevents the levels from getting stale or "same-y", a common challenge of having multiple levels in the same space
- The ever evolving Hospital utilizes environmental storytelling to help supplement the narrative
Path Progressions
Since the game takes place entirely within the Hospital, it was very important to maintain player intrigue and investment by changing the player's path each day. Additionally, the player is given many glimpses of areas early, which should give the player something to look forward to while they work to get there.
- Introduce a new path each day by allowing the player to unlock paths, or breaking open unique paths tied to the deterioration
- Allude to upcoming areas with foreshadowing, driving the player to progress to reach these areas
- Add new challenges into recurring areas to keep the gameplay fresh, usually in the form of puzzles or Nurse encounters
Paintover to show paths; Green is progression, Red is other paths that are blocked on specified days
Progression of the same room across multiple days, adding complexity with each visit
Managing the IV
From the tutorial, it is well established that the player heavily relies on the IV to get around. To maintain the IV, the player must find blood bags around the Hospital to replenish the time they have before they pass out.
IV Overview:
- The IV is the primary constraint the player interacts with, there is a 1:45 timer to navigate the Hospital in between replacing bags (top left video)
- Locations for the replacement bags change with each day to encourage exploration and to help enforce the new paths (balancing bag placements is crucial)
- The player MUST be connected to the IV, only disconnecting for brief moments; this is utilized by the use of crawlspaces, where the player must find a new IV on the other side (bottom left video)
Player Challenge
On top of IV management and an evolving environment, the player is presented with a few other challenges to keep the gameplay fresh and engaging.
Additional Challenges:
- Small sections dedicated to forcing the player to hide from the nurse; allows a change of pacing from the typical walking pace of exploration (top left video)
- Short interactive puzzle sections gating progression; engages the player beyond the intrigue of the environment (bottom left video)
- Late game chase sequences; faster paced sections that dramatically increase tension and always progress the narrative (bottom)
First major chase sequence
Final chase sequence
Research and Planning
During this stage, I was primarily focused on getting down the major points of interest and how the player would interact with them based on the narrative outline we were building off of. At this stage, we hadn't yet worked out whether the Hospital would have multiple floors that were actually playable which ended up being the most drastic change from the initial papermap, completely changing basically everything from the original idea. At this stage, we were also designing with a "lost and found" feature in mind that ultimately had to get cut for a multitude of reasons.
Whitebox Pass
After the research and planning stage, I moved on to creating the whitebox version of the main hospital layout. Many parts of this blockout accomplished exactly what was needed, but the main iterations needed were the elevator placement, the main lobby layout and the treatment theater.
Final Pass
After multiple iterations and test cycles, this is the final design of the major areas of the level.
Reflection
Overall I think this project went very well, especially considering the many challenges we faced during development. I was able to contribute a significant amount of work to the team to create levels that accentuated and sometimes elevated other team members' work. This project taught me so many things regarding teamwork, iterations, and general design elements that I simply could not have learned on my own.
Level Design Reflection:
- This project was my first attempt at creating a single major layout that would change throughout the course of the game's progression. I believe there are some really cool designs and ideas here, but I do think there are still a few more iterations that could be made to further push these ideas along
- Being able to work alongside other designers (and the rest of the team) was truly a blessing, as I truly believe the levels would not have progressed as well as they ultimately did had I worked alone
- Even with all of the positive things that came out of this project, there will always be something that could be improved. In this case, I think some of the design decisions and level pathing limited the ability to utilize some common horror game elements that could have pushed the game even further
Other Projects
From Before
2025
An environmental puzzle level designed in Unreal Engine 5, with an emphasis on interconnected puzzle sections all linked to a central location.
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