“ A Home Below stands out for its unique blend of environmental storytelling, thoughtful gameplay, and serene exploration. Hermit House’s passion and dedication are evident in every aspect of the game’s design. ” Gamer Social Club

Build Date

08/05/2025

Category

Physics, Procedural, Shaders, UI

Engine

Unity

Language

Core Dynamic

3D Platforming

I am a co-founder of Hermit House. A Home Below is our first commercial game. So far this project has secured £33,500 in funding from UK Games Fund, through the Tranzfuser accelerator programme and Prototype Fund. As the sole programmer in the 5-person team, I am project manager and lead development. To do this I maintain several shared Trello boards and organise regular team meetings online and in-person.

9 months of full-time development has resulted in a demo we are showing to publishers, which we have showcased at EGX, PG Connects and London Game Festival.

The core experience is a 3D 3rd person platformer, where you play as a hermit crab exploring the environment of an underwater house. This has involved building my own custom physics system, procedural animation (for 6 legs and 8 on an octopus) and creature herding mechanics. For visuals, I have built a custom toon lighting model, dynamic grass shader, caustics, and bubble particles. For UI, I built a custom text reader and bestiary interface. For music and SFX a playback system. These systems function on both console controllers and PC.

See the gameplay video below, or visit our Steam page for more information.

Key Features

Xbox controller or mouse and keyboard
Procedural animation (6 legs and 8 arms)
AI agent herding system

Custom physics system
Custom toon lighting model
Dynamic interactive grass
Dynamic interactive bubbles
Caustics shader
UI: text reader

UI: bestiary
Music: playback system

Key Features

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