Symbiotic

By Snowshino for the 2025 Pirate Software Game Jam

Introduction

Game Summary Pitch

Symbiotic is an action horror survival game based on an alien planet with a strong statement, “You are what you eat”. You awaken in this alien world as you find yourself bound with this alien organism. It latches onto you and you must feed its hunger within. Survive and navigate while consuming resources to adapt to your desired build and playstyle.

Inspiration

Sons of the Forest

Sons of the Forest offers a scary, first-person survival experience. I am taking elements of survival, making my twist on it but I appreciate their realistic approach to crafting and harvesting and I’ve adopted some of their ideas into my survival elements. 

Hunt: Showdown

The element that inspired me from “Hunt: Showdown”, is the UI icons. Their perk icons tell so much and have a deep meaning. I took the depth of their art design into consideration when I created my perk icons. 

Player Experience

The player can use their materials to absorb and mutate their body into tools to gather resources. They must find what is called: “Lifesource Essence” to stay alive. You must eat basic resources to stay alive and raise your “Morph meter”. This will keep you alive and unlock new weapons and tools to turn into. However, consuming different material types will alter your body to fit what you have consumed. Whether you consumed the heart of a beast that gives you the ability to fly, to consuming crystals to give you a passive glow effect. The choice is yours.The player also sacrifices their materials to stay alive and feed the mutation.

Platform

The game is developed to be released on Windows PC

Development Software

• Unreal Engine 5.4 for programming
• Aseprite, Treeit, Spritemancer, and Blender for graphics and UI
• FL Studio 12 for all music and SFX

Genre

Singleplayer, survival, action

Target Audience

Players who love survival games with crafting, building and progression.

Concept

Gameplay overview

The player controls a first person player, who has awoken on an alien planet. Their skin seems to be bonded with fleshy tendrils from the planet. You find yourself extremely hungry from the start and must consume resources to stay alive. Craft, build, explore to find the hidden secrets of the planet.

Theme Interpretation (You are the Weapon)

‘You are the Weapon’ interpretation - The player has been bonded with an unknown living organism. Instead of normal means of crafting. The player must use the new symbiotic relationship to craft and fill the organism’s hunger

Primary Mechanics

Mechanic
Mutations       a Consume materials. They will give you the ability to morph your body into tools to assist you on the planet.  Consuming rare materials will grant you buffs and debuffs to alter your very own build to help you survive.
Crafting        a From the basics of shelter, crafting table, bed, to life pods given from the planet once your bond increases with it. Leveling up in different specialties gives access to new crafting tables and more structures to build from.
Building       a Simple building mechanic. Craft an item and place it wherever you want in the world.
Combat      a Combat system using basic attacks. But the more you level up, the more morphs you can change into. From gliding dives, grappling hook grabs, and more you have to discover for yourself!
Symbiotic Perks      a Embrace the planet you are given. Grow with the planet and unlock perks by doing activities that ties with the elements. From being in touch with the nature of the planet, to learning and growing with yourself and your new body.

Secondary Mechanics

Mechanic
Progression      a Stats that assist with morph upgrades and perks you can utilize while you traverse this planet.
Exploration        a Explore to find new resources, creatures, challenges and mutations.

Art

Theme Interpretation

Wanting to keep a limited pallet with pixel, retro feel, but dabbling in a touch of realism to hopefully please the eyes. I went for a white and red palette for the core of the game. The planet is a snowy oasis, with the red showing how the planet is alive and feeds from its beings like they do to prove the symbiosis relationship between the living organism and the planet.

Design

Pixel art, low poly assets to streamline game development but also keeping visuals as aesthetically pleasing while simple

Audio

Music

Tribal upbeat mixed with some electronic tones and instruments is to sell the alien planet that is in a state of primitive, yet advanced existence with its own nature.

Sound Effects

Simple sounds based on item types, semi realistic sound effects are made to keep the player immersed and give a feel of realism.

Game Experience

UI

Pixel art with simple icons.

Controls

Keyboard

• Arrow keys / WASD
• “Q” to open ability/morph selection
• “Tab” to open inventory
• “LMB” (Left Mouse Button) to Attack
• “E” to interact/place item