Kanpeki

Narrative Design Breakdown – Psychological Horror | Indie | Unreal Engine

Project Overview

Kanpeki is an upcoming psychological horror title set in a surreal version of rural Japan, where themes of perfectionism and identity unfold through fixed camera angles, surreal environments, and unsettling gameplay mechanics. I joined the project as a contracted narrative designer to help shape the game’s emotional arc, dialogue systems, and environmental storytelling during its early production phase.

My Role

As a narrative designer, I was responsible for:

Writing interactive dialogue for key characters, including Hoshi and antagonistic narrative foils.
Designing branching scene structures in Ink, with logic states tied to player exploration, emotion tracking, and world changes.
Creating in-world notes and collectible items to deepen the lore surrounding the “Blue Dream Game.”
Collaborating directly with the creative director and gameplay programmer to ensure that narrative tone and systemic mechanics (like “Hold Your Breath”) aligned with player intent and psychological immersion.

Implementation & Tools

I worked hands-on with the narrative pipeline using:

Ink + Unity integration: Used to write and test dialogue flows and branching logic tied to player behavior and scene pacing.
Notion: Managed character bios, scene bibles, and branching dialogue trees collaboratively across the team.
Voice pass planning: Drafted fully voiced scenes, writing tone-marked scripts and iterating with early voice samples.

Kanpeki Dialogue GIF — Dialogue from Kanpeki’s prototype.

Design Philosophy

The horror of Kanpeki is built around psychological unraveling rather than jump scares. To reinforce this, I focused on:

Giving characters emotionally escalating dialogue that subtly changes depending on how much the player explores or avoids key areas.
Using collectible lore to deepen the mystery without over-explaining, allowing player interpretation.
Writing scenes that reflect Hoshi’s shifting perception of reality, supporting the core mechanic: “Hold Your Breath” to shift into alternate dimensions.

Results

My work helped define the narrative tone and emotional rhythm of the vertical slice demo. Feedback from the studio team highlighted the emotional clarity of branching scenes and the strong integration of world themes into dialogue. The project is currently in active development, with a planned release on Steam.