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Cursebreakers emphasizes tension, unpredictability, and a deliberate shift from teamwork to conflict, creating high-stakes moments driven by player behavior and social paranoia.

• Two-Phase Multiplayer Horror Loop – Matches begin with cooperative exploration and abruptly shift into asymmetrical horror once the mansion’s curse activates. Player actions secretly build toward the curse, creating paranoia and mistrust before any roles are revealed.
• Asymmetrical Roles & Objectives – One player becomes the Cursed Host with supernatural abilities, while the remaining Cursebreakers race to complete a randomized escape objective.
• Multiple Curse Host Archetypes – Three distinct monster forms dramatically differ in abilities and counterplay. Each Curse Host type has a different form and unique movement, sensing, and combat abilities.
• Puzzle, Trap, and Resource Systems – Players solve environmental challenges, manage limited inventory space, and navigate dangerous spaces under constant threats.
• High Replayability – Randomized layouts, objectives, Host types, and emergent player behavior ensure no two matches play the same.

As the Producer of Don Pigeon Productions, I:

• Managed Agile workflows using Jira, overseeing sprint planning, backlog grooming, retrospectives, and daily standups
• Fostered clear communication pipelines between 5 internal team members, 4 advisors, and 5 external contributors, streamlining feedback loops and reducing iteration delays
• Acted as the central point of contact across teams, proactively identifying blockers and facilitating quick resolutions to maintain momentum and meet key milestones
• Practiced proactive conflict resolution through regular 1:1 check-ins, creating space for team members to voice concerns early and collaboratively developing action plans to address issues before they impacted production.
• Led weekly progress meetings with four project advisors (acting as project stakeholders), providing clear updates on design, development, and risks to ensure alignment and informed feedback
• Maintained comprehensive project documentation and detailed meeting notes, ensuring decisions, action items, and design changes were clearly recorded and accessible to the full team
• Orchestrated monthly non-production team nights to foster trust, morale, and a comfortable collaborative environment, supporting long-term team health and retention
• Identified skill gaps and recruited 5 new external team members to meet evolving project needs, ensuring the team had the expertise required to maintain momentum and quality
• Onboarded new team members, aligning on expectations and responsibilities, introducing workflows and tools, and ensuring clarity around task ownership and deliverables

As the Art Director of Don Pigeon Productions, I:

• Defined the game’s visual style, ensuring all artistic elements (including characters, environments, lighting, and UI) are cohesive and align with the game’s narrative.
• Created and implemented temporary art assets to validate tone, scale, and composition during early development and playtesting
• Collaborated closely with artists to review and iterate on assets, ensuring they aligned with the project’s tone, scale, and gameplay needs

Cursebreakers was developed by Don Pigeon Productions, a 10-person team that consists of 5 core team members and 5 external artists. I served as both the Producer and Art Director, coordinating production across all disciplines while contributing to the game’s visual identity.

The project has been in development since August 2025. To keep development on track, the team is using:

• Jira: task management, time tracking & sprint tracking
• Discord: daily stand-ups & cross-discipline communication
• Google Sheets: asset tracking and prioritization
• Miro: visual design bible

Challenges & Solutions

• Cross-Discipline Coordination— Maintained a centralized design document and facilitated regular syncs to align implementation details and reduce rework on interconnected systems (curse mechanics, host abilities, objectives, networking, etc.)
• Team Communication & Morale Over Long Development — Implemented consistent production rhythms, clear ownership, and non-work, monthly team nights to maintain alignment, morale, and long-term engagement.
• Art Scope & Asset Volume — Proactively identified visual and technical gaps and recruited additional 2D, 3D, VFX artists, and animators to meet production needs. Supplemented custom assets with carefully selected asset packs where appropriate to reduce production time while maintaining visual cohesion.

For the Visuals of our game, we have decided to do a mesh of semi-realism and cartoony art styles, with the characters leaning more towards cartoony and the environment more towards semi-realism.

Environment

The manor, where most of the game loop happens, is heavily influenced by Victorian architecture and decor. One key inspiration is The Winchester Mystery House.  For the level of realism, we’re using games such as Superliminal and Escape Room as references.

Environment Design Constraints:

• Items & decor inspired by the Victorian era (1830s-1900s)
• Not lived in/ homey, but not abandoned either
• No windows that you can see out of, so as not break the illusion of the inside of the house existing out of space
• Claustrophobic
• Disorienting

Cursebreakers

For the Cursebreakers, we wanted to create more cartoon-y characters with unique silhouettes, while still feeling like they are the “humans” of this universe. Players will be able to unlock options to customize their character, such as hats and colors, so they can create a character they identify with. This decision was made from a marketing perspective, as we want the game to feel visually unique. Our key references are PEAK and REPO.

Character Design Constraints:

• Less detailed than the environment
• Must be able to be perceived as a human
• Needs to work with a human rig for animations

Curse Host

For the Curse Host, we want them to be somewhere between the level of realism of the environment and the cartooniness of Cursebreakers, in hopes that this will make it clear to players that the Curse Host has become part of the house, but is something a Cursebreaker has turned into.

Curse Host: The Beast

The Beast is a cursebreaker that has been turned into a bloodthirsty monster that is half-beast. While initially inspired by werewolves, we wanted to experiment with different animalistic beasts that the player model could be turned into. In the end, we settled on a boar, as it felt visually interesting and fitting to the mechanics we wanted for the Beast.