You wake alone in an isolated cabin with no memory of arriving. A journal counts thirty-nine days. A note warns you away from the basement. Something wants you to stay — and something else wants you to leave.
39 Days is a three-floor psychological horror exploration level built solo in Unreal Engine 5. The player pieces together what happened to the cabin's occupants through environmental clues, lore items, and a locked basement that only opens once they've earned the truth. Every prop in the space, down to the furniture, is modeled by hand, and the whole level is playable start to finish with a full lighting pass.
The original paper map I sketched out for the cabin's three floors — room sequencing, interactable placement, and the locked basement gate that pays off the full exploration loop.
The build sequence: greybox layout first to prove the space plays, then lighting and hand-modeled dressing on top of a layout that already worked.
With no enemies or combat systems, tension has to come entirely from pacing, space, and light. I sequenced the three floors so each one raises the stakes — a lived-in ground floor, a more disturbed second floor, and a basement that's deliberately withheld until the player has earned the key. The locked door itself became a pacing tool, not just an obstacle: its placement on the level map (above) is the hinge the whole loop pays off on.
Every piece of backstory had to live in an object. A family portrait with the faces scratched out. A journal counting days in captivity. A note warning the player away from the one room they'll eventually have to enter. I designed each interactable to raise a question the next room would partially answer, so exploration itself became the narrative delivery system.
Horror lands harder in a space that feels real first. Rather than relying on asset packs, I modeled the cabin's furniture myself in Blender — a dimensions-first workflow with strict scale and export discipline — so every couch, table, and cabinet reads as an object that belongs in this specific home, not a generic prop dropped into a level. Full set shown in the Props gallery.
A custom-modeled mesh driven by a Blueprint timeline. The motion is subtle by design — the room should feel like someone just left it.
Every asset, system, and lighting pass in this level was built from scratch, with no marketplace or scanned content. This section covers the real-time decisions underneath the art direction.
Per-asset tri counts and wireframes are in the Props gallery →
Five of the 23 assets modeled from scratch in Blender for this level. Full set with dimensions in the Props gallery →
