A Committed Nonlinear Experience
University final project: Concept · Script · UX design · Editing
The idea
Explore freely, until something starts chasing you.
The work
You and a friend are journalists. Your friend went into a house where something strange was happening and hasn't come out. You go after them.
It plays in two halves, and the interaction changes between them.
First you explore. You move through the house clicking to open different videos of the place, piecing together what's been going on. No pressure. You look at what you want, in whatever order you want.
Then something starts chasing you, and the decisions become time-sensitive. Hesitate and you've chosen anyway.
The buttons that appear once the chase starts.
Run out of time and it picks for you.
That switch is the bit I'm proudest of. It's a simple mechanic, but it changes how the whole thing feels, because while you're exploring you're in control, and once you're being chased you're not.
It's all real footage, shot POV on a camera strapped to a helmet, and it plays like a game.
I wrote it, designed the character, designed the branching structure, filmed it, edited it to the branches (the loops, the dead ends, the timed-out paths) and designed the site. A friend built it from my spec.
The rig, a camera strapped to a bike helmet, which shot the whole thing.
Between takes.
Recording foley for the sound design.
The monster, in full prosthetics.
It's also the one that got me a first.