Pause & Deserve
A horror prototype where pausing buys five seconds, then permanently raises enemy speed.
What It Is
I had never opened Unreal Engine before this. Gave myself 8 weeks to learn it by building something from scratch: code, audio, level design, solo. The result is a horror game built around one bad deal: you can pause to freeze the enemy for 5 seconds, but each pause makes it 20% faster than it already was. That compounds. Use it five times and the thing is running at roughly 2.5x its original speed. Safety now costs you later.
Audio is the main navigation and threat layer - there are barely any visual markers telling you what to do. I built the atmosphere from foley and field recordings, handled spatial audio through UE5's HRTF plugin, and used MetaSounds for the SFX with Sound Cues for triggers. The technical breakdown is below.
Pause & Deserve - Gameplay
Audio notes
What It Is. Audio is the main navigation and threat layer - there are barely any visual markers telling you what to do. I built the atmosphere from foley and field recordings, handled spatial audio through UE5's HRTF plugin, and used MetaSounds for the SFX with Sound Cues for triggers. The technical breakdown is below.
Approach
Pause Mechanic
Press pause and the enemy freezes for 5 seconds. But when it unfreezes, it moves at 1.2x its previous speed. That compounds. By your fifth pause, it's at roughly 2.5x and outrunning it becomes extremely hard. Players start rationing pauses like ammo.
Forest Ambience
Layers of rustling grass, cracking branches, wind through trees. Then random paranoia sounds mixed in - a twig snap behind you, a rustle that might be nothing. I wanted players to question whether each sound was the forest or the enemy.
3D Audio
UE5's built-in HRTF spatialization. With headphones on, footsteps land behind you, wind passes from left to right, and branch cracks are positioned behind the listener to pull attention off-screen.
What I Learned
I spent days trying to synthesize creepy forest beds in MetaSounds. Recorded boots on dirt, hands on bark, and fabric rustle gave the movement cues more natural transients and texture, so I used synthesis for designed effects and recordings for the physical world.