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 was intentionally simple: take the Unreal Engine first-person shooter template and build something fast, fun, and strange around the theme “Bubble.”

The initial version was created during the jam by a small team, but after seeing how well the core idea worked, we decided to continue development. The project expanded from a single level into a multi-level experience with distinct environments, enemies, and boss encounters, and is now publicly available as a playable demo on Steam.

My Role & Contributions

I worked primarily on creature design and animation, but my role expanded as the project grew. While I was not the art director, I owned a full creative silo and collaborated closely with the rest of the team to make sure assets worked cleanly in-engine and supported gameplay.

• 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 project was my first deep dive into real-time animation, and much of my time was spent learning how to build rigs and animation pipelines that would actually function in-game rather than just look good in isolation.

Team Structure

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

• Programming

• Level design

• Environment art

• Creature design and animation

Although everyone had a primary focus, collaboration was constant, especially when it came to asset requirements, performance constraints, and gameplay readability. Clear communication across silos was critical to keeping the project moving forward.

Outcome

Night of the Living Bubble currently has a public demo available on Steam and has been showcased at multiple in-person playtesting events, including DreamHack Atlanta. Player response has been consistently positive, with many players replaying the demo multiple times and engaging directly with the team during events.

The project has accumulated several hundred Steam wishlists and continues to evolve as development progresses, transitioning from a game jam prototype into a polished commercial release. Full Steam release scheduled for April 17, 2026.