Ambient Light was a different approach to the term "Game Development" for myself and the whole Twelfth Hour team. We wanted to tell a story from an educational standpoint, where even those that have never picked up a game before could understand and play through it. Through doing this, and labelling this game as more of an experience, our aim was to allow the player to sit on what they had just played and reflect on if what they had experienced had ever happened to them before.

Throughout this project, which ran from Sept 2021 - May 2022, I learnt a lot of valuable things. One I'll always take away is that a story isn't always inferred the way the writer wants it to be. Knowing this, Ambient Light's story development changed drastically. I started looking from the outside in rather than the inside out. This led me to do a ton of research on the project's theme of Gaslighting. Throughout the development of this title I was always asking myself "How do I keep the text and story minimal but also impactful?". I understood that for this project the scene itself would have to tell the story, and text only being used to highlight common phrases that are akin to Gaslighting. Through research I knew that while every new relationship starts out beautiful, for some the honeymoon phase dissipates and turns into one of horror. With Gaslighters, the main focus was convincing their victims that what they were experiencing wasn't real; so I worked with the Level Designers on a looping mechanic. This mechanic would have the player loop back to the start of the level, with the visuals being different each time. Through playtesting this was credited as a great way of showing the effects Gaslighting can have on an individual.


Members of Twelfth Hour Studios: 

Calve Cowdry - Lead Writer & Narrative Designer
Ben Farrell - Technical Artist, Level Designer & Programmer
Mika Carney - Lead Programmer & Developer Operations
Giulia Stinca - Concept Artist 
Joss Greenway - Concept Artist
Reuben Mullis - Level Designer