Abstract

Sunrise Academy is a single-player 2D narrative-led horror game developed in Unity. The player assumes the role of Viola Wells, a young woman institutionalised at the titular Academy — an isolated boarding establishment whose surface routines conceal a darker purpose. Across six in-game days, the player must navigate daily life, interact with the Academy's inhabitants, and reconstruct the events surrounding the disappearance of Viola's older sister, Valerie. The project's central technical contribution is the use of a Large Language Model (LLM) to generate in-game dialogue for a non-playable character, delivered through recurring nightmare phone calls. Unlike typical chatbot applications, the model's output is bounded by a story state system that exposes only the narrative memories the player has unlocked, preventing the AI from contradicting the authored story while still allowing for emergent and emotionally responsive conversations. A signalling mechanism allows the AI to end each dream sequence naturally, and a hard turn count acts as a safety net. The game was developed using Unity's Universal Render Pipeline (URP), TextMeshPro for text rendering, and the Anthropic Messages API for AI dialogue generation, with all source code written in C#.

Objectives

The six core goals that guided the development of Sunrise Academy.

Original Contribution

Develop a horror video game that serves as a unique addition to the existing horror game space.

Genre Research

Scan the modern horror game space to identify the strengths and weaknesses of contemporary horror titles.

Applied Craft

Apply game development techniques — including sound design, game art, narrative design, and programming — in the appropriate contexts.

Branching Narrative

Develop a full-length story narrative that offers branching endings depending on the player's choices, for better immersion and replay value.

Horror Atmosphere

Employ Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) concepts in the design of an eerie, mysterious atmosphere befitting the horror genre.

Development Cycle

Study and implement the game development cycle while adhering to the functional requirements set by the project team and end-users.

Methodology & Approach

Process Model

The project followed a 7-stage iterative game development cycle: Planning, Pre-production, Production, Testing, Pre-launch, Launch, and Post-launch — with each stage building on a stable, tested foundation.

Vertical Slice First

An incremental, vertical-slice-first approach was adopted: a fully playable first in-game day was completed before authoring remaining content, ensuring a demonstrable build was available throughout development.

Team Coordination

Unity Version Control (Plastic SCM) managed source code. ScriptableObject assets kept authorable content — items, dialogue, nightmares — cleanly separated from code, allowing both team members to work in parallel without conflicts.

Risk Management

Four key risks were identified and mitigated: time management (vertical slice strategy), external API dependency (graceful failure fallbacks), scope creep (fixed 6 days, 8 inventory slots, English only), and team coordination (version control and supervisor meetings).

System Architecture

A high-level overview of how Sunrise Academy's systems connect.

System Architecture Diagram

Technologies Used

C#

Programming

C# — the sole development language, used for all gameplay systems, UI logic, and the AI dialogue subsystem.

Unity

Engine & Rendering

Unity 6 (v6000.4.0f1) with Universal Render Pipeline (URP). TextMeshPro used for all in-game text with SDF font support and rich text formatting.

Anthropic

AI / ML

Anthropic Messages API (Claude) — used to generate contextually bounded in-game dialogue for the recurring nightmare call sequences.

Unity Version Control

Version Control

Unity Version Control (formerly Plastic SCM) — Unity's built-in source management tool, designed with game development's unique collaboration requirements in mind.

Aseprite

Design & Art

Aseprite — used to create all 2D character sprites, tilemap tiles, and frame-by-frame walk-cycle animations, with sprite sheets integrating directly into Unity's 2D pipeline.

Visual Studio

Other Tools

Visual Studio (IDE), RPG Maker MZ (early map layout prototyping), Microsoft Forms (requirement elicitation survey).

Visual and Narrative Implementation, Results

Characters

Viola Wells
The game's protagonist.

Maria Lewis
Viola's closest friend in the Academy.

Lydia James
Known "problem child" with a haughty attitude.

Kathleen Marsh
Eager to help all her classmates, no matter the cost.

Maisie Williams
The Academy's youngest and most uplifting student.

Alice Johnstone
A good student who gets along with everyone.

Rayne Lancaster
A quiet, kind girl who sees good in everyone.

Valerie Wells
Viola's mysterious elder sister.

Environments & Map Design

Sample game maps chosen to show the game's visual environment. To prevent spoilers, other maps have been omitted.

Viola's bedroom — your starting point.

The common room, where you'll spend a lot of your time.

The cafeteria.

The kitchen.

The classroom.

The principal's office.

Overall Results

  • A complete, fully playable single-player horror game running end-to-end from opening monologue to final day's events.
  • A branching narrative with multiple endings, driven by the player's choices throughout the game.
  • An AI-powered nightmare call subsystem using the Anthropic Messages API, bounded by a story state system to prevent narrative contradictions.
  • A full cast of eight uniquely designed characters with distinct personalities, appearances, and story roles.
  • Over six fully designed and implemented game environments, each with their own tilemap art and interactive elements.
  • Supporting systems including a main menu, save and load, options, and event-triggered scene transitions.

Elevator Pitch - EN

A look into the Thought Process Behind our Project.

Elevator Pitch - AR

A look into the Thought Process Behind our Project.

AI Feature Demo

Sunrise Academy's Nightmare Phonecall Feature.

Conclusion & Future Work

Conclusion

Sunrise Academy set out to address a real gap in the modern horror game space: the overreliance on jump scares and repetitive design at the expense of narrative depth. A complete game was delivered, comprising a cooperating singleton architecture, a flag-driven story state model, ScriptableObject-based content, and a tightly bounded AI dialogue subsystem — alongside the full authored narrative across all in-game days. By combining established horror design techniques with a carefully bounded LLM-driven dialogue system, the project demonstrates a viable middle path between heavily scripted dialogue trees and free-form chatbot interactions.

Future Work

Several avenues for future development remain: a sound design polish pass to deepen atmosphere; accessibility features including configurable font size, a text speed slider, and colorblind-friendly palettes; a localization framework for non-English audiences; additional secret endings and optional side content within the existing branching architecture; a console or handheld port built on Unity's cross-platform support; and a fallback authored dialogue file per nightmare for fully offline play.

About the Project & Team

This project is a Final Year Senior Project completed during Semester 2 of the Academic Year 2025/2026 at the College of Information Technology — University of Bahrain.


Student Information

Name Major Email Info GitHub
Bayan Salah Alasmawi Software Engineering Student bayan.alasmawii@gmail.com LinkedIn GitHub
Amal Abdulhameed Bucheeri Computer Science Student amalhbucheeri@gmail.com LinkedIn GitHub

Supervisor

Dr. Fawzi Albalooshi
Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Science, College of Information Technology
University of Bahrain
falblooshi@uob.edu.bh

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