Once Upon a Train

“In a surreal journey through time, a lone train passenger must navigate deserted carriages, uncover artifacts from different era, and solve the enigma of a magical time loop.”

• 2025 team project in Xamk game design.  

• A 3D mystery puzzle game bult in Unity.

• Our 4 member team's very first video game.

What will the world look like in the future? A question worthy of ponder, rousing imagination and wonder. No dystopia, no high tech. An abandoned cart in an overgrown environment. Nature has taken over - but something isn't right.

On the table: Foldable opera glasses from the 1890s. A reminder of a time when people escaped the mundane to experience art live. On the seat beside them: broken futuristic AR/VR equipment. Evidence of how much people still wanted to escape reality - even alone.

Producer, writer, 2D and 3D artist.

Coordinating and communicating across a 4-person remote team throughout two semesters.

Game contributions

• Writing inspectable object texts
• Story development
• Trailer storyboard and edit
• 2D concept art
• One full train cart, concept to engine-ready 3D
• Lighting across all environments

We built a game concept in a day and executed it across two semesters remotely, around conflicting schedules and the general chaos of life. It wasn't smooth. But decisions were made together, problems were addressed before they escalated, and the team held.

The demo had three train carts. Present day train was made purposefully grey and saturated. 
The past train was warm orange, welcoming  western train built from nostalgia. An era when future was filled with unfound opportunities. 
And the future train cart had this yellowish green light and mist, like a moist greenhouse.

A complete game world in engine, showcased in Xamk demoday December 2025.  Environment, assets, playable space, all built to a standard that could be continued and expanded. 

Teacher's feedback highlighted organizational skill, communication, and work quality. The team highlighted support. The devlog ran consistently. Tickets tracked, milestones documented.

As the old saying goes - well planned is easy to execute even when drunk. The design and concept phase takes far longer than you expect and taking that time is never wasted.

I think the producer's job is not to manage people. It's to serve them. Clear the way, keep the team content, and make sure everyone knows what the next milestone looks like. 

Do that right and the project runs itself.

I created the future train cart multiple times. I did the gathering of reference material for it, and drew concepts as part of two school courses regarding concept art, environment art and digital drawing.

The whole team had same courses at the same time with a 3D environment course. Because these overlapped and our art director had her assignments as well, I did the first high-poly model and baked it to mid-poly before we had time to go through our game art style properly. 

After we set our rules for polycount and game art, I created another version of the cart based on my previous concepts. It was made as a modular kit. 

Eventually our art director wanted to change some shapes, like the windows and doors, so I created the third cart straight from a reference picture instead of concept art that ended up in the demo. 

The Blender renders of the first cart stayed in trailer and other documentation material.

The cart, the seat and the opera glasses were were my first 3D objects for a game engine and teacher's feedback was necessary. 

We weren't yet learning retopology but I learnt to do it during this process.  

Most important lesson: Asking and getting feedback early enough, iterating, preparing to "kill your darlings" and listening advice from industry professionals will make your work better and teach you more.