Capstone
Four years of learning came down to one project. The thing that determined whether we’d graduate or not.
The Space Between is a psychological horror game built around a unique hook: your heartbeat. The game listens, adapts, and uses your own body against you through our custom-built peripheral. As lead developer and designer, I touched nearly everything. Enemy AI, player mechanics, the full UI, our website, our itch.io page, music, sound effects, accessibility. If it existed in the project, I probably had my hands in it.
The technical side
The challenges were certainly diverse. A boids algorithm for emergent enemy behaviour. Real-time custom background blurs in the interface. A monstrous entity running two AI brains for varying behaviour. The kind of learning that only happens when something absolutely has to work.
Why horror
Horror has always fascinated me. Not the cheap scares, but the slow dread. The discomfort of something being slightly wrong. We wanted players to feel watched, to feel their own pulse betray them. I think we got there.
The project received stellar grades across the board, and later earned an honourable mention at Level Up! in Toronto. A proud way to close out my time at Carleton and Algonquin.