Panopticon

Panopticon is a 2.5D platformer where the player must manipulate and evade spotlights to escape a prison. The gameplay experience is inspired by Michel Foucault’s writings on panopticism in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. It was developed over the course of three semesters in the Narrative Systems Research Lab at The University of Texas at Dallas.

Panopticon intends to regulate the player’s behavior by granting them a cigarette that both attracts the attention of spotlights and punishes them for smoking in demarcated zones. To progress through the game’s challenges, the player must increasingly police the habits of the player character, mimicking how those enclosed in a panoptic system internalize and automate the mandates of power.

My Role

I served as the Game Designer on the project. I was in charge of mechanics design and documentation as well as game feel. During the second semester, I took on the additional role of Assistant Producer to help manage the increased team size.

Panopticon Trailer

The following is a trailer for Panopticon that I compiled.

Documentation Excerpt

One of my primary responsibilities on the Panopticon project was that of writing and maintaining documentation for mechanical systems. 

Follow this link to read more about my documentation process for Panopticon.

Download

The final build of Panopticon can be downloaded here.