You Are Being Followed

About The Project

You Are Being Followed is a narrative-driven PlayStation VR title that stands as a successful collaboration between academic innovation and commercial production. Commissioned directly by BAFTA to realize the winning concept from the Young Game Designer 2016 competition, the project was transformed from a paper design into a fully immersive VR product.

The game challenges players to navigate the world from the perspective of a visually impaired protagonist, utilizing abstract visuals and 3D audio cues to simulate blindness—a mechanic that demanded high fidelity and optimization. Following a highly successful showcase at EGX Rezzed 2017, the project received the green light for an expanded development cycle. This transition moved the game beyond a festival demo, evolving it into a polished, content-rich experience that met the quality standards required for a commercial release on the PlayStation Store.

The game has over half a million downloads and more information can be found on the PS Store page.

Achievements:

• 500K+ Downloads on the PlayStation Store
• BAFTA for Young Game Developers (YGD) 2016 for the Concept.
• Nominated for TIGA Creative Assembly Best Student Games Award 2021
• BBC, ITV, and TayFM interview in September 2018.

My Role

I had the best time working in this team, each of us lived up to our roles and supported one another in the entire development process. As the project scaled from a prototype to a commercial product, I served as the Lead Programmer, acting as the technical anchor for the development team. My contributions were central to ensuring the game not only functioned but thrived within the cross platform ecosystem, maintaining version control and changes made by other members in the team.

• Technical Leadership & Architecture: Architected the game’s core dynamic systems and development tools using Unreal Engine 4, making use of C++ and Blueprints to balance performance with design flexibility.
• Team Management: Following the project's expansion after EGX, I took charge of the engineering team. This involved communicating with designers and artists, delegating technical tasks using Jira, mentoring other programmers, and maintaining a robust source control pipeline on git to ensure a smooth, conflict-free workflow.
• PlayStation Certification & Publishing: A critical part of my role was ensuring strict compliance with Sony’s technical requirements (TRCs). I worked closely with the PlayStation platform architecture to optimize core mechanics for VR comfort and performance.
• Commercial Release: While pursuing my PhD at Abertay, I was in a unique position that allowed me to liase with Sony and successfully steered the game through the the complex publishing process to deliver a certified, downloadable title on the PlayStation Store.