Carpa.DLL.

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  The Last Relic

My Project Story About the Project

This project began as something small and deeply personal — a mix of my love for character design, storytelling, and a gift for a close friend. Two things inspired me from the very beginning:

My own original Cyberpunk character, whose design I had been refining for a long time and who slowly grew into something bigger than just drawings.

My friend’s reactions to the short stories I used to create for him. I would combine small narrative episodes with images from the Cyberpunk 2077 photo mode, crafting little scenes just to make him laugh or get immersed for a moment.

What started as improvised fiction eventually turned into an idea: “What if his birthday gift was a game?”

So I decided to build one — a short, focused experience consisting of:

a narrative prologue,

a small platformer level,

and a simple puzzle/quest segment.

The video I submitted was meant to serve as the in-world prologue that leads directly to the game. In the story, the protagonist hands the viewer a flash drive, and in real life, the birthday present was — of course — that exact flash drive containing the game build.

What I Learned

Working on this project gave me the chance to step outside of my comfort zone:

How to translate narrative tone into interactive form

How to build a playable sequence under strict time and scope limits

How to match visuals, sound, and pacing so that the prologue feels like a natural extension of the gameplay

And, most importantly, how to take something made for one person and turn it into a piece that could stand on its own as a project

How I Built It

I approached the project in three steps:

Pre-production — defining the personality and visual identity of the main character, sketching the story structure, and deciding what emotional beats the prologue should carry.

Production — assembling the video, capturing scenes, editing, and making the in-game build. I mixed hand-drawn elements, photo-mode material, and in-engine sequences to make everything feel cohesive.

Implementation — turning the narrative setup into an actual interactive mini-game and packaging it on the flash drive as a physical birthday present.

Challenges I Faced

Every part of this project had its own obstacles:

Scope control — the temptation to add “just one more feature” was constant.

Time pressure — the gift had to be ready by a fixed date.

Consistency — keeping the tone, visuals, and storytelling aligned across video and gameplay was harder than expected.

Emotion — I wanted the project to feel sincere, not rushed or gimmicky, and striking that balance required a lot of iteration.

Conclusion

What began as a small birthday gift grew into a complete creative challenge — combining writing, design, cinematics, and gameplay into one cohesive experience. It taught me how personal stories can transform into meaningful interactive projects, and how much power a simple idea has when it’s built with intention.## Inspiration

What it does

How we built it

Challenges we ran into

Accomplishments that we're proud of

What we learned

What's next for Carpa.DLL.

Built With

• midjourney
• pixverse
• suno