## Overview As Creative Director for the independent video game studio startup, Unhinged Studios, I co-led development on our debut title, dev_hell—a roguelike deckbuilder that parodies startup culture and the tech industry at large. While framed as a game about workplace survival, it's ultimately an exploration of complicity, ambition, and what it means to build things that maybe shouldn't be built. Our goal was to create a game that could balance satire with compelling mechanics, blending narrative storytelling with strategic deckbuilding and emergent playthroughs. Beneath the humor, we focused on building a rich and replayable systems experience, supported by immersive diegetic UI and layered narrative design. The project was developed by a five-person indie team, combining our backgrounds in software and storytelling into a darkly comedic commentary on modern tech culture.

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FROM OUR FIRST PRESS RELEASE:
dev_hell puts players in the shoes of a recently hired software developer who has landed a job at a tech startup that's looking to change the world. The question is: is the change for the better? Unsurprisingly, the Silicon Valley fairytale company seems like it might be hiding something sinister under the barrage of motivational posters and free coffee mugs. Who is this mysterious client, and why do some of the commissioned applications seem so…insidious? Actually, never mind — as software devs in the fast-paced world of tech, the job is to code, not ask questions. Everything's fine. Probably. {" "} ![Welcome to dev_hell](/images/projects/dev-hell/screenshots/welcome.png) ## Key Features - **Innovative Deckbuilding System**: Designed a card system centered around "Code" and "Influence" values instead of traditional health or damage, encouraging diverse builds and non-linear puzzle solutions. - **Roguelike with High Replayability**: Built randomized progression systems and layered narrative beats to support unique runs and evolving strategies. Each playthrough introduces new story, strategy, card mods, and shifting coworker dynamics—supporting experimentation, varied builds, and multiple endings. - **Dynamic Build Strategies**: Cards and modifiers enable a range of viable playstyles, from performance-focused to politically strategic, with both defensive (self-preservational) and offensive (overachieving) archetypes. - **Multiple Game Modes**: Installed various game states throughout the office setting, including standard development, debugging, coworker collaboration, code review, and app deployments. - **Immersive First-Person Environment**: All interactions take place through diegetic interfaces—your company laptop (which travels with you around the office), company-issued phone, and the tools of your digital workspace. - **Original Cast of Characters**: Directed the creation and motion capture of 10 coworkers, each with distinct personalities, visual styles, expressive facial animation, and approval systems that influence narrative branches and available perks. - **Satirical Take on Tech Culture**: The game parodies corporate culture, performative positivity, and the blurred line between innovation and exploitation—rooted in real industry experiences, from Slack channels to sprint reviews to unlimited coffee. Rather than relying solely on dialogue, the critique emerges through gameplay systems: stacked deadlines, vague requirements, and the influence of coworker dynamics on success or failure. ![dev_hell Coworker Dialogue](/images/projects/dev-hell/screenshots/griffen-not-clear.png) ## Technologies Used - **Unity**: Core engine used to develop all gameplay systems, level design, and 3D environments. Unity's modular component system allowed for rapid prototyping and flexible iteration across disciplines. - **Nova UI**: Implemented for all in-game user interfaces, offering faster and more flexible layuout options than Unity's native UI tools. Essential for building responsive, diegetic interfaces like the in-game laptop and company phone. - **Notion**: Served as our all-in-one production hub, replacing traditional tools like Jira or Confluence. Used for project management, feature roadmapping, narrative development, design documentation, task allocation, and team collaboration. - **Adobe Creative Cloud**: Created all 2D assets for the game, including card art, UI icons, character portraits, and Peely (the dev_hell version of Clippy). Developed a repeatable art pipeline using Photoshop for stylized manipulation of stock imagery and Illustrator for clean iconography and layout design, with final assets refined and exported through Photoshop. - **Rokoko (Motion Capture)**: Used to capture full-body and facial performances for a cast of 10 characters, each brought to life with 5-10 unique expressions. Enabled expressive animation and nonverbal storytelling across key scenes and in-game interactions. - **Reallusion Character Creator**: 3D modeling software used to uniquely model out each of the game's 10 characters, allowing for elaborate face fine-tuning as well as hair, outfit configuration, and animation previews.

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## Challenges and Learnings One of our central design challenges was creating a world that felt deeply familiar—particularly to our target audience of people working in tech—while still making it fun to stay trapped inside of. We needed to be able to create an immersive office experience with abstract but compelling gameplay to parody the everyday struggle of working in the tech industry without losing people's attention. To solve this, we leaned into a diegetic approach, allowing the player to interact with their environment as if they were actually performing their actual job. Gameplay systems were embedded directly into in-world devices: coding happened on a desktop monitor or traveling laptop, decks were managed through a company-issued phone, and story beats unfolded through ambient dialogue and subtle environmental cues. This approach shaped everything from UI placement to level flow, requiring tight coordination between systems, story, and spatial design. At the same time, managing the scope of such an ambitious systems-driven game with a small team required constant prioritization. Balancing vision with feasibility, especially within limited time and resources, pushed us to make difficult decisions while striving to preserve the clarity of the core experience. ![dev_hell Code Review](/images/projects/dev-hell/screenshots/code-review.png) ## Outcome In the end, dev_hell became more than just a game—it was a creative experiment in systems-driven storytelling, dark comedy, and design satire. We released a fully playable demo that captured the game's core mechanics and themes, earning positive press attention and resonating with a community of fellow developers, creatives, indie gamers, and even industry veterans. As Creative Director, I learned how to scope vision into actionable steps and systems, manage interdisciplinary collaboration, and adapt design to the evolving realities of a startup production. The process challenged me to balance narrative tone, user experience, and mechanical clarity across all aspects of game design. The experience helped define Unhinged Studios' creative identity and continues to inform how I think about narrative, ethics, and systems—not just in games, but in the tools and cultures we build around them.