The Mariverse
The Mariverse
The Mariverse
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Jay Miles
Narrative Designer - Game Developer
My Involvement
The Bellhouse was my 12th and final game for the '12 games for 2025' that was developed in December. I was in a team of 5, and my role in the team was the 2D UI Artist and the Narrative Designer.
(Part of a brainstorming session, suggestions I mostly made on Miro)
At the start, we had to think of an idea for a Christmas-themed project that involves the theme of 'Light' and a special item 'Bell'.
So, we started brainstorming, with a range of ideas and how we can use the 'Light' theme and implement the bell. For my part, I thought of an idea of a Grinch-like that is hunting you down and you fend him off using a bell that lights up when you ring it.
In the end, we decided to combine all of our ideas, resulting in being stranded on an island, turning Halloween into Christmas, having to stay in the light using a bell to light up lamp posts while a Grinch-like character is trying to stop you.
2D UI
For the most part, I was working on UI and creating assets to be used for the game. Once we know what we are including, I start making variations of visual apperances of the UI. Such as the Sanity Bar.
First, I wanted to see what the Sanity bar should look like overall, and gave a couple of suggestions on my team.
(Seperate Layers of the Sanity bar)
(Early Designs of the Sanity Bar, top was the first draft, the bottom was suggestions with the team leaning on A.)
Once I got a general idea for the Sanity Bar, I then went to make layers. Technically, the Sanity Bar consists of three layers: the background, the foreground, and the bar itself.
I tried to give the sanity bar a sense of depth and make it work as a bar for the player to focus on, while keeping with the Christmas theme.
With feedback, I made improvements on the bar. For example, it originally had four layers. The text 'Sanity' was its own layer during early development, but I decided to merge it with the foreground layer to save gameobject space.
I applied the same method for other UI assets that uses bars, such as the Stamina bar and the Halloween Spirit bar.
Story of the Island
Once we figured out our game and what it is about, I started to think about the idea, history and story of the island. the original idea was that Santa doesn't know where to go and you have to light the lighthouse to show him the way. an idea that I thought was a little too silly. So I started to think of an idea about the island itself.
What I came up with is the 'Island of Holidays' a special island that is constantly changing depending on the holiday. Every time a holiday occurs, a special someone who has the spirit of the holiday comes to the island to change it by using the Bellhouse.
I created a Document to refine more of the idea that I shared with my team. Additionally, I thought of a couple of left-out diary logs for the player to find and read.
(Context: a shot narrative document that gives an idea of the island and game story, with the behind the idea towards the diary logs of unseen characters.
Fun infomation: I originally thought of a 'Black Friday' Spirit log and wrote the personality of such a spririt, but my team told me that 'Black Friday' is not a holiday and was forced to change it, resulting in a fictional holiday 'Winterfest'.
Making a Map
At the near end of development, my team leader suggested making a visual map of the game map and I was responsible to making it. I was provided a top-down layout of the map and use it as a template to create the map.
I made different versions of the map, with suggestions to make it more like an old vintage map then making the text more like the old vintage maps. the map appears inside the Bellhouse.
(Provided referance of
the game map top-down)
(First Draft - Digitally traced and visuals of roads and landmarks)
(Second Draft - More stylised into an 'old vintage map'.)
(Final Draft - Better compass and better text font.)
Making The Game Title
Finally, when we put out the game on Itch, I was responsible for making the game title. I decided to use the two 'L' of 'Bellhouse' to make a lighthouse to give a sense of unique identity, when shown, my team thought it was brilliant, though I did get a small request to include a tiny ghost, to show the horror aspect of the game.
(Game Title - Made in a mix of Paint.Net and MS Paint.)
Conclusion
This overall was a good experiance, originally got part of the team for the UI art, but ended up doing writing as well. even if the narrative and story is a little bizzare, it was still a good attempt to work within the themes o the holiday.
I would make more improvements if there was more time, and expand more of the game if we could to show more of the island's history, maybe include other holidays, but in the end, it was a good game to finish the 12 games in 1 year challenge.
The Bellhouse
A 3D, first-person stealth horror on Christmas. You play as someone who had the spirit of Christmas and sent to the island of holidays to change the festive theme of the island from one holiday to the next, unknown to you, the Halloween Spirit decided to stay and plan to have Halloween forever. it's up to you to change the island to its right holiday and spread the holiday cheer.
This game was part of the Jame Gam Christmas Edition in December 2025. The jam was themed around 'Light' and a 'Bell' as a special object. It took 7 days to develop and ended on Christmas Eve
