About the Game

Gameplay

Severely underfed, Izabel struggles to sleep at night. Run, jump, climb, and solve puzzles to traverse through the mansion. Find food and bide your time until your next meal. Avoid the adults' grasp by hiding in the darkness. In the darkness, the monsters are your allies, and, in the light, they are your enemies.

Design and Development

Izabel was inspired in part by popular 3D sidescrollers created by independent studios and stories written during my own childhood. Looking back at the absurd nature of these stories made me feel they deserved a deeper exploration. As I began to work on the project, I was surprised by its warm reception. Ultimately, I was surprised that people were interested in understanding the feelings that I struggled with as a child.

The Mansion

The Mansion is the prestigious home of a famous artist known as "Mother". Each painting keeps a record of what has taken place inside the mansion. Some paintings were never meant to be seen.

The Mansion is constructed in part from assets from the Unreal Marketplace and assets I've created myself. Cel shading was later added to the Mansion match the design direction.

A few questions I see a lot are about what everything represents. Is Izabel representing me? Is the mansion my house? Is the mother my mother? Well I'm not a hispanic girl, my mother is not an artist, and I've never even seen a mansion in person. This game is based on stories that I wrote as a child, and at the time, I didn't feel comfortable talking about my feelings, but I really wanted to open up a discussion on it.

As a result, you're not meant to understand the relationship between these symbols and my life, because that's how my childhood self would've wanted it. What you are meant to understand is the emotions themselves. However, I do think it's hard to deny that Izabel represents me in a direct way.

I am a monster.