Tung's Nightmare
A horror survival project exploring atmosphere, tension, environmental storytelling and stealth gameplay.
THE IDEA
Tung's Nightmare is a first-person horror survival game where players awaken inside a seemingly abandoned house and must escape from a lurking entity named Tung. The goal was to build a claustrophobic, suspenseful horror experience that relies on lighting contrast, spatial awareness, and auditory cues rather than cheap jump scares.
WHAT I BUILT
Implemented the entire core prototype loop in Unreal Engine 5:
- Wake-Up Opening Cutscene: Cinematic camera pan and blur transition waking the player up in a dimly lit bedroom.
- Flashlight & Battery System: Directional spotlight with realistic volumetric fog, decay falloff, and battery toggle.
- Stamina & Hiding Mechanics: Sprint stamina bar with exhaustion states, plus interactive hiding spots under beds and in closets.
- Task & Inventory System: Objective tracker (
Pick The Garden Key, shovel pickup) and grid inventory with item drop support. - Creature AI Prototype: Initial AI behavior tree for Tung featuring player vision cones and hearing detection.
- Environment Design: Dilapidated interior house rooms connected to an eerie outdoor garden area.
TECHNOLOGY
THE HARD PART
In devlog v0.1.5, Tung's creature AI would occasionally freeze after losing line of sight with the player, and inventory slot selection suffered from index mismatches between keyboard number keys and mouse scroll inputs.
HOW I SOLVED IT
Refactored the creature's blackboard state logic with safe fallback patrol loops when the player's last known location expires. Unified the inventory controller into a centralized slot manager receiving normalized input events.
RESULT
Early playable build v0.1.5 demonstrating authentic horror atmosphere, functional task progression, and suspenseful cat-and-mouse tension.
MEDIA
