Games2026

Seepage

A first-person containment horror and puzzle game built solo in 48 hours for Boğaziçi Game Jam 2026, where you shift viscosity and seep through door seams to escape a locked facility.

Event: Boğaziçi Game Jam 2026 (48 hours)
Theme / Genre: Fluidity · First-person horror / puzzle
Platform: Windows (Unity · v0.2.0)
My role: Solo developer (design, code, systems)

Technologies

Unity
C#
Procedural Generation
Game Design
3D Horror
Game Jam

Project overview

Created solo for Boğaziçi Game Jam 2026 under the theme "Fluidity", Seepage puts the player in the role of D-9342, a test subject left conscious inside an amorphous mass of blue gel. By thinning down to slip through filters, thickening up to bridge electrical contacts and climb marked surfaces, and flattening to seep beneath locked doors, the player navigates Light and Heavy Containment to break the lockdown and reach the surface.

Turning the "Fluidity" theme into the core movement rule in 48 hours

When the theme for Boğaziçi Game Jam 2026 was announced as "Fluidity", I applied fluidity directly to the player character’s body: as test subject D-9342, your human form is gone, leaving your consciousness inside a mass of blue gel that cannot hold a fixed shape.

That premise made the theme the primary progression rule. How you cross a room, bypass a barrier or escape a threat depends on the physical state of your mass at that moment.

Working solo across the 48-hour marathon let me unify movement physics, level generation, interface design and audio atmosphere around that single mechanic.

Heavy Containment pressure control room and valve sequence puzzle — Pressure control valves (II > I > III) in Heavy Containment alongside the cohesion, viscosity and compound HUD.

Viscosity control and seeping beneath locked doors

Gameplay centers on shifting viscosity and seeping through tight seams. Using collected Thin and Thick compounds, the player moves the gel mass between watery and dense states while monitoring cohesion.

Thinning down lets you pass through grates and rebound across gaps. Thickening makes your body dense and conductive: you can hold E to bridge live electrical maintenance contacts with your own mass, grip marked walls and climb across ceiling transfer chambers.

At any closed door, focusing on the lower gap or middle seam and pressing Ctrl flattens your body so you seep through to the other side. Tension comes from an asymmetric rule: the creatures hunting you can open those doors directly.

LCZ-02 Fluid Training corridor and closed containment door — LCZ-02 Fluid Training: the two-room onboarding sequence introducing compounds and door seeping.

Security circuit A control terminal — Using control terminals to disable security circuits across containment zones.

Blackout mazes, pressure valves and circuit puzzles

Escaping through Light Containment and Heavy Containment requires dismantling the facility’s security layer by layer. You disable security circuits at control terminals and turn pressure control valves in sequence (II > I > III), where an incorrect turn resets the pressure line.

In blackout corridors, the third compound, Lumen, grants temporary night vision so you can read spectral routes and platform markers before the timer expires.

Breaking the final lockdown brings the physical premise into the terminal interface: in the "Lockdown / Circuit Override" puzzle, you slide tiles to connect IN to OUT and pump your own conductive fluid through the path to short the circuit.

Lockdown / Circuit Override conductive fluid puzzle — Sliding tiles to connect IN to OUT before sending conductive fluid to short the lockdown circuit.

Seeded facility layouts and SCP-inspired containment horror

To prevent runs from becoming memorised corridors, I built the facility around a seeded layout generator. Players can roll a random layout or enter any text or number string to reproduce and share a resolved facility seed.

Atmospherically, the game draws inspiration from the SCP Foundation universe and classic containment-breach survival horror. The protagonist is silent; the facility’s history surfaces through abandoned case records, experiment logs and industrial sound design.

Encounter design relies on sightlines and audio cues: avoiding the Pale Witness’s face, listening for movement across corridors, and slipping out of a room during its warning wail before a chase begins.

Navigating across platforms in the dark using Lumen night vision — Using the Lumen compound for temporary night vision across dark maintenance shafts.

Post-jam v0.2.0 release and scope discipline

Finishing a 3D first-person horror-puzzle prototype within 48 hours required strict scope discipline. Pairing an optional experiment prologue with a two-room "Fluid Training" sequence let me teach navigation, compounds and door seeping directly through play.

Following the jam, I shipped Version 0.2.0 (Emergency Reserve), adding guaranteed emergency rooms in both Light and Heavy Containment where players can break the EMERGENCY ONLY glass to restock compounds, refining pursuit edge cases and adding eight locally saved achievements.

Seepage confirmed how far a single concrete mechanic can carry a game when movement, puzzles and tension all stem from the same physical rule.

Seepage gameplay and trailer video