March 2026 - June 2026 | Unreal Engine 5 | Stealth Horror
March 2026 - June 2026 | Unreal Engine 5 | Stealth Horror
Project Manager, Gameplay Programmer
Project Manager, Gameplay Programmer
Embedded Files
In Smoke & Mirrors,
In Smoke & Mirrors,
You play as a mother moving into a new house. The shady realtor neglected to mention this house is cursed...
There's a veil of illusion that pours in through leaks around the house, and it's your job to plug them with your handy smoke machine leak detector.
Be careful, however—using your smoke machine leak detector also exposes the reality around you. This house is full of threats you'll need to avoid on your way to plugging the leaks!
Smoke & Mirrors Trailer.mp4
What is a Smoke Machine Leak Detector?
What is a Smoke Machine Leak Detector?
A smoke machine leak detector is a smoke pump that injects a thick, visible smoke into tight spaces (such as ventilation systems or car internals). This smoke will visibly pour out of any openings, making it easy to determine where leaks might be occurring in such systems.
As is normal for PlayStation Career Pathways game jams, our prompt was to take a normal, everyday tool and turn it on its head. In our game, the smoke machine leak detector gets a secondary, amplified magic power: when you use the smoke machine leak detector, not only does it reveal leaks in the house's ventilation, but it also reveals objects and enemies naked to the human eye!
Being the "Qwark"
Being the "Qwark"
For PlayStation Career Pathways game jams, every team is required to have a "Qwark". Each Qwark is responsible for representing their team to PSCP and updating them on the game's progress, as well as coordinating their team to the best of their ability. As Smoke & Mirrors' Qwark, it was my responsibility to ensure everyone was on track to achieve their goals.
There were unique constraints involved in the creation of this project, such as very limited development time (we only had three weeks outside of documentation due to the general availability of the team). At one point all four of us were scattered across the globe. One of us was in California, one of us was in New Jersey, one of us was in Japan, and one of us was in Costa Rica.
Despite these setbacks, we as a team were able to provide PSCP with updates on the project, seek assistance with any difficulties we had during production, meet together as a team multiple times, and ultimately submit a finished and polished product.
Designing Enemies
Designing Enemies
It was my primary responsibility as the gameplay programmer of the team to design the enemies. In Smoke & Mirrors, every time the player uses their smoke machine leak detector, enemies become visible across the map. They'll chase you down if you come into their cone of vision, and sap your machine's battery if they catch you.
In order to design enemies under this prompt, early on into the project I examined references on how enemy behavior works in similar, more venerated stealth games like Metal Gear Solid. Afterwords, I got to brainstorming enemy designs and behavior. This project was my first experience with behavior trees, and I learned a lot about enemy programming through my process. I was eventually able to create an enemy system that path finds through any area. As expected, if a player enters the enemy's cone of vision, the enemy will begin chasing the player (at increasing speeds) until the player is caught, before disappearing entirely.
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