Il Caso Hypothalamus

For this project, I worked as:

• Game Designer (Gameplay, puzzles, level design)

• Narrative Designer

• Game Developer (Blueprint)

• Game Producer

This game was created as an entry for the Spaghetti Invasion Game Jam, launched by well-known Italian streamers Yotoby and SoloUmido.

The Jam's theme was an alien invasion set in an Italian context, and participants were asked to create an horror game.

The Jam officially lasted two months, but our team was assembled halfway through the first month, leaving us with a 1.5 month budget.

The team consisted of 10 people, roughly divided as follows:

• 2 Env Artist (Unreal) 

• 2 3D Artists

• 1 Designer / Narrative / Developer (Blueprint)

• 4 Sound / Composers

• 1 Animator

The goals of the project were:

• Finish the game within the limited time we had

• Create a game that featured interesting, non-mainstream Italian themes

• Develop a quality product that would also give us a chance to explore new technologies and techniques

• Have fun (after all, it was a Game Jam)

To achieve our goals, I adopted a few key pillars to ensure successful delivery:

Since all team members were working in different time slots, at different paces, and from distant locations, I decided to organize the project in a fully remote setup, applying Agile methodology in the form of a modified Scrum, similar to what I was using at the time in my job at Logosnet.

As the producer, I held weekly sprint meetings and managed the workflow using a shared ClickUp board.

Given that five team members were focused on the sound aspect, I appointed one of them as the lead for that area. They coordinated dedicated sprints for the audio team and reported a summary of their progress during the general sprint meetings. 

To make the project stand out, we needed a theme that was interesting and not overly mainstream, while still aligning with the Jam’s alien invasion prompt.

My proposal was to set the story during Italy’s Years of Lead, with the protagonist portrayed as a kidnapping victim of a militant group.

From a narrative perspective, my goal was to create a steady build-up of uncertainty, leading to a final plot twist. Since the alien theme was a requirement, I chose to generate ambiguity for the player, making it initially unclear which parts of the story were connected to the alien presence and which were not. The truth would be gradually revealed through the solving of puzzles.

To ensure the completion of the game, despite the limited time available, I proposed a core design based on modular elements, as I had done with 11 Years Ago, allowing us to focus on a small number of elements at a time while building on a base.

As in 11 Years Ago, the core design featured a central 'Hub' that required a series of puzzles to be completed. This time, however, each puzzle would yield a password for a document on a computer, advancing the narrative and unlocking a short cinematic.

To introduce the setting and deliver the final plot twist, we decided to rely on two cinematics. I personally handled the scriptwriting and the initial shooting list.

In addition, I prepared documentation for a series of short cutscenes (usually a single shot) to highlight the reading of each unlocked document.

These brief cinematics were designed to enrich the narrative and provide visual cues that would make the story more vivid and unsettling, without requiring excessive effort. They were planned as stretch goals, and as such, some of them didn’t make it into the final product. 

The game's narrative is mainly driven by the opening and closing cinematics, as well as by the documents that are gradually unlocked on the terminal as the player solves puzzles.

These documents are diary entries written by "The Professor," a previous occupant of the basement where the game takes place.

The purpose of the diary pages is to slowly inform the player, much like in an epistolary novel about what happened in that place before the protagonist's arrival, ultimately preparing them for the final plot twist.

However, I needed the pages to be read in the correct order. To achieve this, I implemented a system where, regardless of the order in which the puzzles are solved, the diary entries are always presented in the intended sequence. This gives every player the impression that they’ve coincidentally solved the puzzles in the “correct” reading order, even if they approached them randomly. 

The puzzles in the game are based on simple graffiti written on the walls and on the hallucinations experienced by the protagonist throughout the story:

The first puzzle to solve provides the combination for the study's lock.

A key is engraved on the lock, and three similar keys are displayed on the walls, guiding the player to connect the right clues.

Each key has a Roman numeral on the bow, indicating the order of input for the code.

When approaching and looking closely at a key, the player’s vision is gradually segmented into radial symmetry sections, the number of symmetry axes is the digit to enter.

This puzzle was also meant to give the game a strong visual identity (radial symmetry is also referenced in some cutscenes).

Issues and Solutions

This puzzle turned out to be too difficult and confusing. The uniformity of the wall made it hard to intuitively count the symmetry axes, and the visual effect appeared unpleasant, almost glitch-like.

To fix this, I used lower digits for the combination and improved both the area design and the logic behind the effect, making it clearer and more responsive.

Future improvements could include adding graphic elements to the wall that form recognizable geometric shapes (triangles, stars, hexagons) to aid symmetry counting, and using VFX or SFX to emphasize the hallucination as intentional and significant.

This isn’t a proper puzzle, but rather a narrative device to reintroduce the hallucinations and reveal the Professor’s descent into madness.
From a gameplay perspective, it served to expand the level after the initial puzzle was solved, reducing the number of active clues at once.

In the study, a note can be found that reads “The third room exists.” From that point on, an open doorway becomes visible in the first room.

Upon entering, the player discovers hundreds of identical notes, revealing that while studying the technology, the Professor accidentally erased his own perception of the room.

It vanishes whenever someone forgets or ignores its existence, forcing him to write reminders to keep it accessible.

In the various rooms, players can find letters marked with a small subscript number, similar to Scrabble tiles.

In the office, there’s a word missing one letter, replaced by a scarab symbol.

The player must find all the right letters and read the subscript numbers in order to form the password.

Issues and Solutions

This puzzle is technically solvable even for non-Italian speakers, but making it localizable could be an interesting option.

From both playtests and live sessions, no major issues with solvability were reported.

After unlocking the third room, players can position themselves in the study to align four numbers on the wall through a forced perspective effect, revealing them as a projected image.

Issues and Solutions

This puzzle is very simple and serves to quickly reward the player with a narrative document, helping to reduce frustration for users who may be stuck.

This puzzle is based on a short phrase written in the third room.

When the player approaches it, a symmetrical hallucination appears, splitting the screen into two mirrored halves.

By standing in a specific position and aligning the phrase, four digits of the password appear vertically.

Issues and Solutions

According to playtests, this puzzle is approachable and allows for some environmental storytelling through the writing.

It could be interesting to localize the graffiti or display subtitles when it's in view.

A tree drawn on the wall in the first room is actually a network of paths and branches, with digits placed at the end of each branch.

In the study, a tape recorder plays fragments of period songs.

By listening carefully, the lyrics guide the player along a specific path in the tree, revealing the four digits of the password.

Issues and Solutions

This puzzle could be localized by replacing the audio, but adding subtitles for the song fragments may be a better choice to preserve the period atmosphere.

A significant issue is the readability of the font and color once projected onto the tall wall.

A temporary fix was to adjust the colors and enlarge key words, but a more effective solution would involve a proper visual redesign.

In conclusion, the project had mixed results: the short development time and several availability issues made it difficult to complete all aspects of the game as we had envisioned. These challenges also led to limited gameplay testing, which affected the overall smoothness of the experience.

Nonetheless, the project was completed and successfully showcased during the live stream following the submission deadline, where it was actually played, with strong engagement from the chat (particularly during Yotobi’s stream, which was our main target audience). 

After watching several playthroughs of 11 Years Ago and noticing how often the narrative wasn’t fully understood by viewers, I decided to be more explicit in this project, while still avoiding a fully didascalic approach. I’m quite satisfied with the results in that regard.

On the Unreal side, I had the opportunity to work with various post-process materials, used to create the hallucination effects. I also adopted a more scalable approach to text management, with an eye toward potential localization and easier narrative editing, by using DataTables.

Additionally, I’m pleased with how I used blueprint components with a composition-oriented approach. This allowed me to reuse many base components and implement a significant amount of logic directly through in-scene elements.

In the breakdown of each puzzle, I’ve already identified the main design issues and outlined potential next steps to address them.

As for project organization, I should have spent more time defining clear macro-deadlines for the entire team and ensuring they were met, rather than focusing solely on creating low-level tasks.