Khion I: No Return
Game Designer at Tenjet Games
I worked as a Game Designer on Khion I: No Return, an award-winning survival horror project developed as part of U-tad’s Master’s Degree in Game Design.
My responsibilities included level design, blockout, gameplay scripting, mission design, worldbuilding, environmental storytelling, prototyping, and cross-disciplinary collaboration.
The project gave me the opportunity to explore how architecture, resource management, enemy behavior, lighting, and narrative context could work together to create tension and guide the player’s experience.
What I Did
Unreal Engine 4
Because the team needed to prototype and validate ideas before requesting new features, I developed my visual-scripting, logical-thinking, debugging, and technical-design skills in Unreal Engine 4.
This allowed me to implement gameplay concepts more effectively, communicate directly with programmers, investigate problems, and understand the technical implications of design decisions.
I used the engine for level blockouts, gameplay scripting, mission implementation, navigation, interaction logic, prototyping, testing, and iteration.
Autodesk Maya
Working closely with the Art team encouraged me to develop a better understanding of 3D production and spatial composition.
I learned to create and modify basic assets, improve the quality of my blockouts, communicate spatial ideas more clearly, and prepare level geometry that better represented the intended gameplay experience.
This technical knowledge also improved my collaboration with environment artists by helping me understand their workflows, constraints, and production needs.
Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop
My previous experience with Illustrator and Photoshop allowed me to create clear maps, diagrams, presentations, visual documentation, and communication materials.
These tools helped me explain layouts, gameplay routes, narrative intentions, level changes, and design proposals to the rest of the team.
Architecture and Spatial Design
I have always been fascinated by architecture and the way cities and buildings influence human behavior.
During the development of Khion I, I expanded that interest through independent study and applied it to worldbuilding, level composition, navigation, environmental credibility, and the creation of spaces that supported both narrative and gameplay.
Architecture became not only a visual reference, but also a tool for controlling player movement, attention, emotion, and expectations.
Environmental Storytelling
Developing a survival horror game gave me the opportunity to explore how stories could be communicated through space rather than dialogue alone.
I used lighting, architecture, props, environmental damage, composition, sound, navigation, and the placement of visual information to suggest what had happened in each location.
This project strengthened my interest in creating worlds that players could read, interpret, and understand through exploration.
GALLERY
The following images show environments from the final version of Khion I: No Return.
Atmosphere, visual language, spatial composition, and player perspective of the game’s main locations.
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GAME MAPS
Level-Design Development
Designing and iterating on the maps of Khion I taught me how strongly navigation, gameplay systems, narrative context, survival resources, lighting, enemy behavior, and player psychology affect one another.
The following principles became particularly important throughout development.
Navigation Mesh and AI Movement
Navigation was essential because the spaces needed to support both the player and the roaming enemy.
Small changes to geometry, dimensions, obstacles, doors, routes, or navigation data could significantly affect enemy behavior and the player’s perception of safety.
Understanding these relationships allowed me to design more reliable layouts, identify problems earlier, and reduce iteration time during blockout and testing.
Player Experience
When designing each space, I considered what the player would see, understand, suspect, and fear.
Architectural details, props, lighting, routes, and blocked passages could provide narrative context while also communicating gameplay possibilities.
My goal was to ensure that each environment supported both the immediate gameplay experience and the wider story of the research complex.
Pacing and Cognitive Flow
Before designing a new area, I reviewed what the player had already learned, which mechanics had been introduced, which items they might possess, and the likely condition of their body temperature and suit battery.
This helped me control the sequence of challenges and create contrast between exploration, tension, resource management, pursuit, discovery, and temporary safety.
By adjusting the demands placed on the player, the same location could create very different emotions at different stages of the experience.
Lighting
Lighting played both a practical and emotional role in the project.
It guided attention, established atmosphere, revealed or concealed information, supported navigation, and influenced the player’s sense of vulnerability.
Working closely with the Art team helped me understand lighting not only as an aesthetic component, but also as a gameplay and performance consideration.
Our first gameplay map, created to test character movement, game feel, temperature mechanics, and the relationship between the player and enclosed spaces. At this stage, the game used a third-person camera. The location helped us evaluate scale, navigation, visibility, and the initial survival systems.
In this early version, the research complex was wider, flatter, and more open. The narrative presented the facility as an isolated environment where employees both lived and worked. The main design challenge was combining the credibility of a functioning workplace with the needs of exploration, navigation, and survival gameplay.
This was the first map designed around the Nemesis, the game’s main roaming enemy. The level needed to support open exploration while allowing players to avoid, escape from, or indirectly interact with the threat. At this stage, the research complex had a more modern, high-tech architectural identity.
This area combined sustainable architectural concepts with the practical requirements of a believable material-processing facility. Its design emerged from the narrative needs of the complex and was developed to support exploration, environmental storytelling, and gameplay progression.
After major changes to the project’s narrative and the overall concept of the research complex, the Warehouse was completely redesigned. Early studies of labyrinthine layouts helped us improve encounters, navigation, tension, and the construction of surprising moments. The redesign process strengthened our level-design methodology and allowed us to iterate more efficiently.
The second floor of the redesigned Warehouse helped define the gameplay structure used in the final demo. We explored how the player should enter the area, understand its routes, manage resources, and react to the Nemesis moving through the same space. Creating a location that supported both exploration and an unpredictable roaming threat required extensive testing and iteration.
This was the final version of the Nemesis level. The location became darker, more industrial, and largely underground, combining rustic materials with selected technological elements. Rebuilding the map was an important exercise in preserving the intended player experience while changing its architecture and visual identity. A planned section on the right side was removed after we evaluated its production cost and contribution to the experience.