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Level 06Shopping Shotguns

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01 Satirical survival horror

Shopping Shotguns

It began as a joke and grew into a satirical Black Friday survival horror. Grab everything on your shopping list before time runs out, while desperate Feral Shoppers try to take it from you.

Role
Level Designer & Systems Designer
Team
7 students · 12 weeks
Timeline
Feb – Apr 2024
Engine
Unreal Engine 5 · Blueprints

I owned

  • The level pipeline: paper map, grey box, final.
  • The resource-scarcity loop and its win and lose rules.
  • Three enemy archetypes and the item list.

I worked with

  • Art, who used my item list as their 3D asset brief.
  • A 7-person team over 12 weeks.
Watch gameplay See the enemies
Gameplay still from Shopping Shotguns.

02 Watch

Aisle by aisle

Shopping Shotguns · Gameplay

03 Systems

A resource-scarcity loop

Pickups feed both the timer and the health bar, so the thing that keeps you alive is also the thing that drags you deeper into the aisles.

Timer

1:30, plus 30s per pickup

The clock starts at 1:30 and grows by 30 seconds with every item. The value is tunable from playtests.

Health

9 hearts

Damage varies by enemy, and hearts come back on item pickup.

Win

List done, register reached

Collect everything on the shopping list in time, then make it to the cash register.

Lose

Hearts or clock hit zero

Clear fail states keep the pressure honest and the rules easy to read.

04 Enemy design

Three shoppers, three threat profiles

Each archetype trades speed, damage and hit rate differently, so encounters read differently depending on aisle geometry.

Bars are relative to the highest value in each row. Damage per second is derived: damage ÷ seconds between hits.

The Bruiser ≈ 0.6 damage / sec

Move speed
0.4×
Damage / hit
3
Hit every
5 s

The Default ≈ 0.33 damage / sec

Move speed
0.8×
Damage / hit
1
Hit every
3 s

The Annoying Child ≈ 0.1 damage / sec

Move speed
1.2×
Damage / hit
1
Hit every
10 s

05 Level design

A supermarket, from paper to engine

I owned the level pipeline end to end. For references I looked at similar top-down games and at supermarkets around the U.S.

  1. Paper map

    Where the aisles, sightlines and items go

    • The first pass of the layout, planned on paper.

  2. Grey box

    Playable blockout in Unreal Engine 5

    • Aisle geometry is what makes each enemy read differently.

  3. Final

    In-engine implementation with the art team's assets

    • The item list doubled as the 3D asset brief.

06 The map

Department by department

The grey box of the whole supermarket, with each department zone labeled where the aisles meet: Produce, Health, Electronics, Apparel, TV & Audio, Daily, Cafe and Cash.

The enemy archetypes are tuned against this layout. Aisle geometry decides how each one reads.

Top-down grey box of the supermarket: walls, shelving, checkout lanes and a cafe, with department zones such as Produce, Health, Electronics and Cash marked.
FIG. 01Top-down grey box of the supermarket with its department zones marked.

07 The list

A design doc that became an art brief

As systems designer I maintained the list of every item purchasable in the store, and the art team used it as the brief for their 3D assets. It's also where most of the game's jokes live.

yes, the air fryer is sneaky

Shopping Shotguns

Items for sale · excerpt

Entertainment & TVs

  • XboneStation 3D
  • CD of Shotguns and Shopping
  • JZL Soundpub

Home appliances

  • Sneaky Air Fryer
  • Okish Value Toaster

Produce

  • Apple iFruit
  • Orange Rhyming
  • Chicken Whole

Dairy

  • Full Fat Milk
  • Almond Milk
  • BUTTer

Apparel

  • Merica T-shirt
  • ExtraDamage Belt

Health & sport

  • Flammable Hair Spray
  • Knee Brace
  • Fatbit

Collect all items · reach the register

08 Level complete

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