Lost Time ironically was an exercise in time management for me. With only a week, I knew I had to focus on fundamentals. I choose a simple design concept : typical horror stealth, but with a time element. My reasoning was that hiding took time, but if the players had limited time, it might create anxiety feeding into the horror. Horror stealth would be easy enough to implement, and I could fall back on it if the time element did not pan out.

With my main mechanics down, I focused heavily on atmosphere and game feel. Atmosphere is essential for horror games and is one of my strong suits as a designer and artist, so naturally I doubled down on it. I implemented dynamic sounds and custom lighting to support the atmosphere.

Ultimately, the time based element of the game fell flat. I did not have enough time to make all the time specific environmental stuff I wanted. However, players praised the feel of the game, and I believe the presentation of the time mechanic contributed.