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Due to the Technical Director leaving part way through the project. I have been brought on board to replace him and get the project over the finishing line. My responsibilities are: - To help with Technical communication with the publisher. - Help to push the tech in the game to a final quality. - Worth all other disciplines to keep the quality high but get the game performance in check. - Make sure the game passes all TRCs.

Unannounced Project

TBA

For Little Nightmares III I was on this project from the very start to the very end. We took over the franchise for Bandai Namco with the technical directive that we had to make the game Multiplayer. We started with assessing the Engine from Little Nightmares II (LN2) and decided to start our engine from vanilla Unreal Engine. The main decision was because LN2 was hardcoded to be a player and an AI Companion. Multiplayer meant that we were changing so many systems that it made sense to start a new but we had a lot of designed mechanics from LN2 that we could remake the systems with Multiplayer in mind. With us liking some of the technology like LN2's Streaming system as a system; so we recreated the technology quickly because it being already designed but added an improvement by adding a visual visualization so the implementation for others was easier. There were some systems like the camera system that worked well and easy to use so we took that wholesale. With me becoming the Engineering Lead on this project I was being responsible for the team and technology direction progressing correctly and ultimately work for shipping the game. This is included me mentoring my Engineers and designers where Logical Setup was needed. Our technical Director was spread across multiplayer projects so I happy stepped up handle some of the responsibilities to keep the project running smoothly. This includes communication with the publisher, make decisions on hardware specification. One of my proudest achievements in this project is the level of accessibility we achieved. This was one of my initiative that i pushed forward from the start of the project. By the end of the project many of the team would consider designs and implementations across the game.

Little Nightmares III

Steam, Steamdeck, PS5, XBOX Series X|S, XBOX on PC, XBOX Handheld

As the Engineer for the Backstage I handled all parts of the project from start to end. - From making the implementation of the Torch hat and its iteration - Iteration on some of the interactable mechanics from the base game - Getting the DLC within performance tolerances - Handling the TRC changes where needed - Interacting with the Publisher where needed - Handling the packages creation and Submission processes with our team

Little Nightmares III - The Backstage

Steam, Steamdeck, PS5, XBOX Series X|S, XBOX on PC, XBOX Handheld

Once the first DLC finished for Little Nightmares III, I moved over work on the 2nd DLC. I Joined just as the DLC has reached Alpha and I help push it towards Beta and then Final. We already had an engineer working on the new features for the DLC so my role on the team was everything else. These include: - Performance Improvements - Supporting the Logical implementation with Design - Build Systems and Submission builds - Platform & TRCs - UI/UX Changes - Dev tools to help the team improve their workflows.

Little Nightmares III - DLC02

Steam, Steamdeck, PS5, XBOX Series X|S, XBOX on PC, XBOX Handheld

For Directive 8020 I provided help and assistance when required. With my Knowledge from making the earlier games; experience in Platform TRCs and Accessibility there was been plenty of points where i have provided information that has guided the project towards its final project.

The Dark Pictures: Directive 8020

Steam, XBOX Series X|S, PS5

I part took in this project in the early stage of the project getting it working and setup on all the platforms it was released on. I looked after the project health in the early days where I would keep on top of the Cook warns and running on all platforms. I then returned towards the end of the project where needed when the were looking to ship the platforms as I could share my knowledge on shipping on various platforms.

The Casting of Frank Stone

Steam, XBOX Series X|S, XBOX on PC, EPIC Store

This project as us taking the game Tarsier Studios has developed for the PS4, Steam and XB1 and we ported it to Next Gen (PS5, Steam, XB Series, XB on PC). We added some new features like Ray Tracing; Upped the Visual Quality of the game and Implementing Platform Features like PlayStation Activities. We did this work in tandem to Tarsier making the game so we had to keep taking drops of their changes to keep parity with them. The biggest challenge with this project was try to add the new features and content but making it so when we took drops from Tarsier that our changes still worked and not waste lots of time reimplementing our over and over.

Little Nightmares II -Enhanced Edition

PS5, XBOX Series X|S, XBOX on PC, GOG

Little Nightmares II (LN2) was developed my Tarsier Studios and we were brought on board to do the port to Google Stadia. Stadia was still new in concept when we started so we had to develop the technology in UE4 to allow us to ship on Stadia. we also had to handle our changes in such a way so we could get drops from Tarsier so we could develop in tandem so we could release at the same time.

Little Nightmares II - Stadia

Stadia

For this project I helped setup at the start so the team could start development with the features from the previous games at that point. For the rest of the project I was mainly a consultant for Platform queries or about approaches used in in the engine from the earlier games.

The Dark Pictures: The Devil in Me

XB1, XBOX Series X|S, Steam, PS4, PS5

For house of Ashes i assisted in helping to setup the project and implement some of the visual changes around Choices and combat. As this project was in development in COVID19 I implemented a "Point and Click" system for navigation as Controller passthrough was temperamental. This feature allowed us in editor and packages to use the mouse to click and the characters would move to that location. Interestingly it proved useful for QA as they could find bad Nav mesh.

The Dark Pictures: House of Ashes

XB1, XBOX Series X|S, Steam, PS4, PS5

After Man of Medan we looked to help improve the tooling for design in the idea that we could reduce the amount of bugs in areas like implementing Enums in our Gameflow Tool so design could use a single variable rather than juggling many booleans. Another Tool I added as a way to search for usages of variables with in the various Gameflows that get made so tracking down usages and missing usages was a lot easier. I Implemented the setup and integration for Next Gen Consoles like PS5 and XBOX Series into our code base. For the most part it was integrating and Engine upgrade from EPIC but then we had to work out and cover all the new TRCs for the various platforms too. The other major mechanic that I worked on for this project was the "Point and Click" System. One of the feedbacks we got on Man of Medan from players was the "Tank" controls of moving the characters. So Our Tech Animator looked at improving the animation speed, length and transitions to speed up a little and I implemented a way for you to click in the game and the characters would move to it.

The Dark Pictures: Little Hope

XB1, XBOX Series X|S, Steam, PS4, PS5

My first game released I worked on. I must have impressed someone as my first task was to take the game as it currently stood and make the Gamescom Demo that would announce the Anthology to the word. From there I was part of the team responsible for the Gameplay and UI/UX in the game. I gained and interest in dealing with the different platforms we were shipping on so I took on the work for setting multiplayer working on all platforms and the TRCs associated. It where my seed was planted for getting accessibility into the game too. We got a couple in Man of Medan and interestingly they proved to be useful for Streamers and got us a good feedback.

The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan

XB1, Steam, PS4

©2026 by Ben Gowans.

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