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The Lost Chambers

The Lost Chambers is a 3D exploration puzzle-platformer, with a public demo coming to itch.io later in 2026.

Traverse ancient ruins, overcome platforming challenges, solve intricate puzzles, and uncover forgotten artifacts in this 3D exploration puzzle-platformer that brings you back to 1996.

Making Of

The Lost Chambers started as a semester project at University of Applied Sciences Kempten. The topic of the module was “Game Engines”. Each student was assigned to a 2D or 3D framework or game engine and tasked to get up to speed with the tool and to develop a game that highlights its unique features and strengths.

Although my studies focused on the engineering of game engines rather than the use of a specific game engine, the objective of the task was to teach students how to quickly familiarize themselves with new technologies and become proficient in using them, to prepare us for the challenges of an ever-changing industry. Moreover, the presentations at the end gave us insights into many different engines in a short amount of time.

The tool I was assigned to was gameplay3d—a free, open-source, cross-platform C++ framework for 2D and 3D game development. I had no prior experience using this framework in particular.

I began by reading the documentation and identifying the core engine features and started to design a game around them. To get the most out of the framework, I decided to develop a 3D game, as most of the 2D features were also available in 3D.

I modelled, rigged, animated, and textured a character in Blender and hand-painted the unwrapped UVs in GIMP. To use it within gameplay3d, I had to create .scene, .material, .physics, and .animation files. These configuration files tell the framework how to load, render, simulate, and animate the game assets within the framework. I’ve implemented a character controller with a collider, animation states, and the ability to jump, as the player needs to overcome platforming challenges, and made the camera follow the player.

The player has the ability to activate levers to progress in the game. To detect if the player is close enough to a lever to pull it, I’ve used a trigger collider volume. The player is then positioned directly in front of the lever so that the animation aligns precisely with the lever’s mesh. To make the action more cinematic, I lock player input, shift the camera to a side view during the animation, and then return it to its original position once the animation finishes, restoring control to the player.

Although gameplay3d does not provide its own level editor, Blender serves as a convenient and well-integrated alternative within the framework. In the framework, nodes such as meshes, cameras, and lights are referenced by their name within the Blender scene. To build levels fast, I’ve taken a 3D tile-based approach leveraging simple textured quads.

To showcase the physics system, I’ve built physics-based traps that are triggered when the player mesh intersects a trigger collider volume.

To demonstrate the particle system, I’ve added two distinct effects:

First, snow particles that spawn around the player. Second, flames that serve as dangers and puzzle elements, and which can be extinguished by the pull of a lever.

Screenshots

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