Overview

FleshBound is a fast-paced, demon-slaying, first-person action platformer with a unique “splatterpunk” aesthetic.

Developed over 7 weeks at FutureGames, the game offers 15–20 minutes of high-intensity gameplay with significant replayability. Players navigate a living prison in hell, utilizing abilities like dash, wall-run, and grapple to traverse dangerous environments and combat vile demons.

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Awards & Recognition

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Swedish Game Awards 2024

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• Winner of Best Design

• Winner of Best Audio

• Nominated for Student Game of the Year

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Futuregames Awards 2024

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• Winner of Best Design

• Winner of Best Audio

• Winner of the Judge’s Choice Award

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Key Features

• Dynamic Traversal Mechanics – Grappling hooks, wall-running, jump pads, and gravity inversion to enhance movement.

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• Unique Aesthetic – A “splatterpunk” visual style inspired by punk, horror, comics, and classic FPS games.

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• Intense Soundtrack – A high-energy industrial metal and techno score to complement the fast-paced action.

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My Contributions as Product Owner

• Vision & Direction – Defined the game’s core experience, ensuring design, art, and gameplay aligned with a cohesive vision. Being fond of alliteration, I formulated our design pillars as Velocity, Visuals, and Viscera.

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• Team Leadership – Led a multidisciplinary team of 12 members, facilitating communication between designers, artists, and programmers.

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• Prioritization & Scope Management – Balanced ambitious design goals with a tight 7-week timeline, ensuring key features were polished while maintaining scope.

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• Stakeholder Communication – Acted as the bridge between the development team and external stakeholders, incorporating feedback and aligning project goals.

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• Quality & Playtesting – Oversaw playtesting sessions, gathered feedback, and guided iterative improvements to enhance player experience.

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• Marketing and Communication - I put together all marketing materials that were handed out and the marketing props displayed at various venues, including the Swedish Game Awards showcase event. I also held all presentations of the project, including a pitch presentation at "The Great Winter Pitch" at indie game organisation The Great Journey in Karlstad.

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• Steam Integration - After production was done and we wanted to release the game on Steam, I set up the Steam page, added 12 achievements to the game, integrated leaderboards, and also added game controller input to all menus.

 

Challenges & Solutions

• Time Constraint – A 7 week project required strict managing of scope by prioritizing must-have features while maintaining a high level of polish within the short development window.

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• Capturing the Vision - In order to quickly unify the team around the vison of the game, the first thing I did in engine was to create the tools for communicating our aesthetic by building the outline post processing shader and adding our concept art as objects in a default test level. Seeing the rough visuals early on quickly made the team be on the same page.

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• Mechanic Integration – Worked closely with designers, artists, and programmers to ensure seamless interaction between traversal mechanics and aesthetic, iterating based on feedback.

 

Outcome

FleshBound received 5 awards at the Swedish Game Awards and the Futuregames Awards. It was successfully released on Steam on January 3, 2025, and has since received > 110 reviews with a Steam score of "Very Positive". The game is praised for its fluid mechanics, distinctive aesthetic, and engaging gameplay.

 

At time of writing, FleshBound has had > 8000 unique users with more than 55800 licenses issued. A large amount of videos of people playing have been uploaded to YouTube and there is a sizeable active speedrunning community.