We knew from the start that we didn't want to make a horror game that relied on cheap tricks. The goal was cold fear. The kind that follows you after the screen has been turned off.

The Big Yellow Fishes team built Oliver's story inside the native to browser, Portals games engine with additional work in Blender and Unreal Engine 5. Everything you see, hear and experience in the game, the custom models, the story, the audio, the soundtrack, was made in house. The world we created, a house based on Delapre Abbey on a tidal island cut off by the sea, does as much narrative work as the script itself. Players piece the story together through journals, environmental clues and atmosphere rather than exposition. We wanted the house itself to feel like a main character.

The script, which we're particularly proud of, takes the Harker bloodline mythology and pulls it into the present day in a way that felt both faithful to the source material and completely unexpected. Dracula reimagined not in a cape and fangs but in a well-tailored suit, calm and chilling in his menace, felt exactly right. The details mattered. Exploring a more modern expression of sexuality, desire and passion, the game explores mature and sensitive themes designed for an adult experience.

The adaptive soundtrack blends a modern reimagining of the original Atari Dracula score with distorted electronic tones, minimal piano and hyper-realistic sound design, shifting in intensity based on what the player is doing and where they are in the house. Moments of silence are just as important as the scares themselves.

Four weeks, start to finish. Zero sleep.