About

Welcome Home is a psychological horror game about an unsettling life of a secluded community preparing for its annual summer festival. Experience a chilling tale of tradition, trust, and terror, narrated through a journey of uncovering dark secrets and making choices that determine your fate.

| Key Features

  • PSX Style
  • 12 NPCs
  • Stealth & Survival
  • Multiple Endings

Game Design

As the Game Design Lead, I was in charge of creating an engaging and memorable gameplay experience. That meant figuring out how to pace the game scenario, when to scare the player, and how to guide them without it feeling forced. 

| Gameplay design

  • Developed a 3-day (with day/night scenes) progression to build story and tension.
  • Used locked areas and fetch quests to control pacing, while still giving players room to explore and think.
  • Designed branching outcomes and player-driven moments to support replayability and reward player curiosity.

| Jumpscares

  • Designed 3 types of jumpscares – visual, auditory, ambient – triggered by both scripted events and player actions.
  • Added jumpscares to the gameplay loop (exploring off-limit areas sometimes may lead to a jumpscare).
  • Focused on creating a consistent game flow by implementing jumpscares only in high-tension and unpredictable moments.

| Inventory & Environmental Storytelling

  • Designed multiple story pickups (letters, journals, bloodied items) to reward exploration and support game’s storyline without spoon-feeding its explanation.
  • Built a simple inventory system to hold items and story clues to help players keep track of pickups.

| Level Design

  • Created the village map layout with different gameplay areas, each offering different purposes and rewards for the player.
  • Designed the Final Ceremony scene with stealth segments, enemy vision cones and noise zones to encourage careful engagement with the environment.
  • Directed multiple Final Ceremony escape routes with both stealth and chase-based mechanics to finish the game with a high-stakes climax that reflects the player’s previous choices and skills.

Art Direction

For art direction I chose a PSX 5th gen graphics-inspired aesthetic – low-poly models, simple animations and low-res textures. This specific visual design decision let me work fast, stay efficient, and experiment with the growing popularity of PSX/PS1 indie horror.

| Character Design

  • Low-poly geometry
  • Uncanny-valley faces and movement
  • Realistic, homey, warm-toned color palette
  • Themed clothing

| Environmental Design

  • Focus on small narrative details (bars on the player’s room window)
  • Dynamic environmental changes based on the Day Cycle (candle lights, moving chairs, flickering lights).
  • A dense forest surrounding the village to evoke claustraphobia and the feeling of being trapped.

| User Interface

  • Main Menu – structured using the Rule of Thirds, with horizontal zones (Sky, Forest, Ground) that reflect and visually introduce the setting of the game.
  • Pause Menu & Game Over Menu – used a VHS tape-inspired aesthetic to reinforce the game’s nostalgic, horror-driven “lost tape” atmosphere.

Achievements

  • 100,000+ views and 32,000+ downloads on itch.io
  • Selected for the TAGS Student Showcase during Copenhagen Gaming Week
  • 1+ hour of fully polished, narrative-driven gameplay
  • Steam release with nearly a 100 reviews marked Very Positive
  • Covered by CaseOh on YouTube – video hit 1.5M+ views!