VR · Art Direction

Nightmare in Neverland

A surreal VR dreamscape, built by three of us. I made the tea party, where a little horror stays fun as long as you keep it whimsical.

A three-level VR experience for a class project, built in Unreal with hand tracking. You move through a dream that gets stranger with each level: a mysterious room where you wake up, a tea party in a forest, then a maze that shifts around you. Ana Eremina built Level One, Sarah Sun led the technical build and Level Three, and I did art direction and Level Two, the tea party.

The hard part was tone. The idea started dark and dystopian, and I steered my level toward whimsical instead: unsettling, but still fun to be in. Pink and green light, giant floating teacups and an animated cat at the head of the table make it inviting at first. Then you notice the skull teapots and the half-buried closets.

There's no dialogue, so light, scale and sound tell the story. Playtesting showed people needed stronger cues to find their way, and small lighting and audio changes made the biggest difference.