Ian Whatmough
Mature Organisms
Project Overview
Player Gazing Out the Window From the Main Space Ship The Game is Set On
Overview
Mature Organisms is a short FPS action horror game made from July to September 2026. The goal of this project was to create a simple straightforward-seeming horror setup, then subvert it at the end with a twist that recontextualizes the whole game and makes the player think about morality and if the ending can be considered happy.
The game takes place on a spaceship colonizing an alien planet. The player character wakes up with no memory, and eventually discovers they have been infected by a alien parasite from the planet. They fight through other infected crewmembers to eventually get the batteries they need to power up a machine that can cure them.
At the end, the player discovers that they were the parasite the whole time, controlling the host character, which explains their memory loss. They are then fried to death and the game ends, leaving the player wondering if this is a positive ending or not.
Early Drafts
I began by constructing a simple GDD, where I laid out the general plot and tone of the game. Though the general outline of the plot stayed the same throughout development, many other aspects changed, primarily how all the levels connect together.
A major part of this GDD was making early drafts of maps for the project.
A couple of these are pictured below:
Early Draft Of the Starting Area Where the Player Learns The Basic Mechanics and Background
Early Draft for an Area Where the Player Collects Necessary Components to Beat The Game While Fighting Enemies
These maps gave me a general direction to go once I began building the actual game. However many changes were made as I went on, such as adding in a vent section to crawl through in order to explain how the player gets from the storage room to the lab.
I also added in a new room to utilize the projector mechanic I decided to add in later. This in turn changed where in the game the player acquired the electricity blaster. In addition, I decided to have the player charge the blaster using charging ports on the walls since it was more intuitive than electrified pools of water.
Beginning of the Game
The game begins with the player character staring down a malfunctioning electricity charging port. This intro is meant to immediately disorient the player as well as ensure they are familiar with the charging ports which become important later on. The player can then turn around and discover they are in some sort of meeting room. This is a safe area designed to get the player familiar with the basic mechanics.
Walking forward will trigger text of that explains the character's amnesia and familiarizes the player with the dialogue mechanics. During dialogue segments like this, the player is frozen in place and can't move until the dialogue is finished.
The Player Turning Around at the Start of the Game and Autotriggering Dialogue
There is also a projector in the room that can be changed to display different slides. This familiarizes the player with the concept of projectors which will be important later and gives them hints as to what's going on and the lore of the game.
The Player Swapping Which Slide the Start Room Projector is Displaying Using the F Key
The player is then sent to the observation room, where they are shown a dead body to introduce the horror theme.
They can look out a window to see that they are in space. This is intended to wow the player and give them a sense of scale in regard to what is going on.
The Player Looking out to See the Skybox, with Planet Textures I Made in Blender
Player Looking at a Dead Body Early in the Game
This intro sequence is intended to intrigue the player with an amnesia plot hook, and give them a sense of horror and dread. This then transitions into gameplay and horror when the player enters the storage room and encounters the first enemy.
Enemies
The enemies in this game are the various crewmembers and civilians aboard the spaceship who have been infected by parasites. Every enemy has a unique model made with VRoid studio so that they all feel like different people and less like a horde of identical monsters. However, many enemies wear the same crewmember/security guard armor to create a sense of cohesion and to make creating the models quicker.
I also gave the enemies glowing red eyes to make them scarier and easier to spot within the dark environments.
Player Being Spotted by the first Enemy in the Game and Running Away
The enemies have very simple AI behaviours. They wander randomly within a given area, unless they see the player within a vision cone. They will then make a snarling sound and change to a different, more zombie-like walk animation with arms outstretched. In this mode, they move towards the player at a slightly faster pace. If they reach the player, they will make an attack animation. The player's movement will be disabled and blood will appear on the screen along with an eating sound effect. A couple seconds later, the character will be respawned at a checkpoint, usually right before the area with the enemies.
If the player is killed, all living enemies will be teleported to a point further away from the player's respawn point so that they can't immediately jump them again. All dead enemies will remain dead.
The Player Dying to the First Enemy in the Game and Respawning
The first enemy in the game cannot be killed, and the player must navigate around it. Instructions to sprint and jump appear, giving the player info in order to outrun the enemy, then run into a vent where they can move forward towards the next section of the game, which is the lab.
The Lab and Dialogue
The lab is the game's safe area where the player is taught the game's lore. It is filled with various science assets and props, all thrown about with the boards covered up to show the state of emergency the ship is in. The ambient light level is boosted when the player is in this room in order to make it seem brighter and safer.
The player enters this room after encountering a vent grate they can't avoid and fall through into the lab.
The Player Falling From the Vent System to The Lab
They will quickly see an NPC which they can then talk to and engage with the dialogue system. Up until this point the player has seen automatic and manually triggered dialogue where the character talks to themselves, but this is the first time the player can talk to another NPC. There are nametags at the top of each dialogue box to show which character is talking. Text is slowly typed out onscreen, but the player is told that they can left click early to auto advance the dialogue and complete the sentence before it has finished typing out.
Finally, the player is given several dialogue options with answers they can choose from a list. Though choices these don't affect the story that much, they were added to show different sides to the scientist and give the player a greater sense of freedom and control. They also serve to break up the monotony of reading dialogue, so that the player doesn't spend too long reading text without the ability to move or affect things.
The Player Talking To The Scientist NPC
The scientist informs the player of the fact they are on a spaceship aiming to colonize another planet, but parasitic organisms from the planet have infected much of the ship. The player is told to enter a parasite scanner, and is scanned for parasites. I deliberately added strange sound effects and VFX during the scanning segment to make the player feel strange and uneasy during it.
The Player Getting Scanned
After being scanned, the player is told by the Scientist NPC that they are infected with a parasite messing with their memory. They still have time to be cured, but only if they can collect 4 purple power batteries located in the security room. These are necessary to power the machine that can remove paraites. Another security door opens, allowing the player to leave the lab and embark on their new task to get the batteries and save themselves.
The Door Beginning to Open to Allow the Player to Leave
The player has time to explore the lab if they choose, and can discover things like a deactivated shockpad, a lever on the back the parasite scanner and remover labeled "Electrocute Organisms", and another projector displaying facts about the planet.
Another Projector in the Lab the Player Can Notice
Various Scientific Instuments Placed to Give the Feel of a Cluttered Lab
Once the player leaves the lab, the doors will close behind them, locking them out until the batteries are collected.
Projector Mechanic
The projector mechanic is something I decided to add later on in the development process. Originally, the scientist was going to hand the player an electricity blaster and they would go into the underbelly of the ship blasting enemies and collecting batteries right away. However, I felt this seemed too simplistic and boring, so I added in an extra room the player must traverse through first to get the electricity blaster.
I used a force field that needs to be overloaded as a weapon gate to prevent the player from moving forward and getting the batteries without the blaster, which must be collected from the projector room that they can get through by going through a side corridor.
The Force feild Blocking the Player's Path
How the projector mechanic works is that you are in a room full of projectors, intended to be an entertainment location for paying passengers aboard the ship. Several of these projectors can be changed by the player and made to display different images, as demonstrated by earlier projectors in the game.
This room is full of enemies that will chase the player. However, if the player swaps the projectors to an image of humans, the enemies will go after that instead of the player, allowing the player to pass through.
Player Distracting Two Enemies by Changing the Projector to Display Humans
In order to teach the player this concept, there is an opening area with an enemy trapped behind glass, and a projector with two images that can be swapped between. The first image shows text explaining how the parasites have a weird relationship to light and may prioritize digital copies of people as more real than real people. The second image has a picture of some of the human scientists on the ship. By swapping the projector between these two images, the player can discover that the enemy will walk towards the image when it is displaying a picture of humans.
Player Messing With The Tutorial Enemy to Figure Out the Projector Mechanic
This information can then be used to switch various projectors to pictures of humans, allowing the player to reach the end of the projector room and discover the electricity blaster pickup on the floor. This can be picked up by simply walking over it. The player can then use it to shoot down all the enemies they once ran from.
The Shooter Mechanics
The blaster can hold up to three blasts at a time. Once all three shots have been fired, it will be unusable and a "Needs Charge" message will apear. The player has been seeing charging ports throughout the whole game, including multiple times in the projector room. Upon seeing the "Needs Charge" message, the player can figure out they should using the charging ports to charge. Upon walking near a charging port, the blaster will reset back to three charges and the "Needs Charge" message will go away.
Player Firing Three Shots Then Recharging
The projector room was also designed to introduce the blaster mechanic, a very simple FPS shooter system, where the player can blast electricity spheres at enemies, instantly killing them. Upon being hit, the enemies make agonizing screams and begin a long death animation as a way to semi-humanize them and show the destructive power of the blaster.
Player Shooting Down an Enemy With Their Last Blaster Shot
The blaster also has a flashlight on it, which goes away when it is out of charge. This becomes more important during the final set piece of the game which takes place in a darker environment.
Final Horror Set Piece
The final major gameplay section of the game takes place in the security room where the player can use the blaster to take down enemies and collect the needed batteries. After having to run and hide up until this point, this is meant to give the player a power trip moment of being able to fight back against the infected. However, there is still horror and danger in this sequence.
The gameplay of this section is simple, with the player just having to shoot the enemies in the room. There are only two on the first floor, and three on the second. However, the dark setting has the player second guessing how many enemies there are, and constantly checking around to see if they have dealt with all of them.
The sequence begins by using the electricity blaster to destroy the force field. Right behind it is the first purple power battery, which is made obvious by its bright purple glow. There is not much purple in the game so it stands out more against the background, making the batteries easy to spot. Upon collecting the first battery, the player will get a diagetic display on the gun showing how many more are needed. This is so the player cannot forget or get frustrated if they think they found all but haven't.
Player Destroying the Force Field
The security room consists of two segments, one above the other with a ramp connecting them, adding a sense of verticality the game hasn't had up until this point. To add to the sense of dread and danger, there is an invisible trigger near the door that turns down the environmental reflections of the game when in this segment, effectively making the game darker and the flashlight far more of a necessity. That being said, bright objects like the charging port and the batteries still stand out the darkness to make them easily locatable by the player.
The Location of One of the Purple Power Batteries
The Location of One of the Purple Power Batteries
The Location of One of the Purple Power Batteries
The upper floor also has screens displaying feeds from various security cameras, showing both locations the player has seen throughout the game, such as the observation room and projector room, as well as new locations such as a fancy restaurant and a safe room, meant to give more scale to the ship and imply there is much more going on that the player can't interact with. There is also a projector displaying information about the parasites that contradicts what the scientist said, hinting at the future twist.
Security Cameras Displaying Feeds of Different Locations Throughout the Ship
Projector Displaying Info About the Parasites that Directly Contradicts What The Scientist Said
Finally, one of the batteries must be collected by going down a long dark hallway. There is a dead body of a scientist at the end. There is dialogue where the player reads out a datapad left beside her, discovering more lore about the crew and mission.
On the way out of the hallway, an enemy will fall out of a vent to jumpscare the player, and must be shot down. This is the only jumpscare in the game. After that, even though the player has most likely killed every threat, the idea that an enemy could pop out of any vent keeps the player on edge and keeps some of the tension even when the threat is gone.
The Player Encountering the Enemy Falling Out of a Vent
Twist Ending
Upon collecting all four batteries, the player will be able to head back to the lab, with the door reopening for them. They are then instructed by the scientist to put the batteries into the machine, an act that will also cause the player to put the gun down then walk into the machine.
Upon walking into the machine, the player will be cryofrozen, with cool icy smoke surrounding them and the screen fading to black. Originally, I wanted to have the camera be sucked out the top of the machine and fly through the glass pipes on the top to represent the parasite the player is truly controlling being removed from the host body, however I felt that this was too silly and technically complex to pull off, so I changed it to cryofreezing in order to make the surgery less painful as an alternative, more realistic method of transitioning between the human controller and parasite controller.
Player Being Cryfrozen and Waking Up in a Smaller Body
The player will then appear inside the parasite chamber they had seen before, now controlling a much smaller body. They can see the scientist as well as a new character later revealed to be Professor Bakly, the character the player thought they were playing as. I gave the player several seconds to walk around within the container as their new body to get a feel for what is going on, before triggering a final dialogue segment. The player camera is also made to move on its own and face the two NPCs during the dialogue so the player can tell they are talking.
The Player Being Observed by two NPCs Before Dialogue Automatic Triggers
The Scientist then explains to Professor Bakly the twist about how the player was playing as a parasite with faulty memory due to the malfunctioning electrical outlet they woke up next to.
The Scientist also explains how they tricked the player as the parasite into entering the machine and being removed, reviving the real Professor Bakly. I wanted the player to feel a slow sense of dread as they figured out what's going on during this scene, so I had the Professor and the Scientist display disgust toward the player parasite, and toward the planet and its lifeforms as a whole.
The player is then briefly given control of the body again and has to watch as Professor Bakly walks around to the back of the box to flick the "Electrocute Organisms" lever the player could discover earlier. This was to give the player a greater sense of the futility of their situation before they are electrocuted and it cuts to the game's credits.
The Player Moving Around Again for a Few Seconds Before Being Electrocuted and Cutting to Credits
This harsh cut at the end is meant to leave the player stunned and questioning if the ending was a happy one, because Professor Bakly was saved and the parasites defeated, or a sad one because the parasites may have only been fighting due to being taken by the humans, and the entity the player truly played as is now dead.
The Game Can Be Played On Itch.io here: