Night of the Living Bubble

Project Overview

Night of the Living Bubble is a first-person shooter with light horror elements that began as a Global Game Jam project and later evolved into an ongoing commercial indie game.

The original concept emphasized simplicity: adapt the Unreal Engine FPS template to create something fast, fun, and unconventional around the "Bubble" theme.

Initial jam version was created by a small team. After observing the core concept's success, development continued. The project expanded from a single level into a multi-level experience with distinct environments, enemies, and boss encounters, now available as a playable demo on Steam.

My Role & Contributions

Primary focus: creature design and animation, with expanding responsibilities as the project grew.

Specific contributions included:

• Designing enemy creatures and visual concepts
• Modeling creatures for real-time use
• Rigging and animating characters for Unreal Engine
• Creating additional environmental assets, including props and set pieces
• Producing 2D artwork such as posters, signage, and in-world textures

This was my first deep dive into real-time animation, requiring learning how to build functional in-engine rigs and animation pipelines rather than aesthetically isolated assets.

Team Structure

The team consisted of six core members, each with defined areas of responsibility:

• Programming
• Level design
• Environment art
• Creature design and animation

Despite specialized roles, collaboration was constant regarding asset requirements, performance constraints, and gameplay readability. Cross-disciplinary communication was essential for project momentum.

Outcome

Night of the Living Bubble features a public demo on Steam and has been showcased at multiple playtesting events, including DreamHack Atlanta. Player response remained consistently positive, with repeat playthroughs and direct team engagement at events.

Several hundred Steam wishlists accumulated. Development continues transitioning from prototype to polished commercial release. Full Steam release is scheduled for April 17, 2026.

What I Learned

This project taught me how much thought and structure goes into animation for real-time games.

Key learning outcomes included:

• Building rigs for real-time engines
• Structuring animation files properly
• Communicating with programmers for in-game functionality
• Cross-silo collaboration skills
• Working independently while maintaining team alignment

The experience reinforced interest in production-focused, collaborative game development.