The irritation
Ernie started with the famous Reddit thought experiment: you and a super-intelligent snail become immortal and receive a fortune, but if the snail ever touches you, you die.
GameBuildingIn development
Ernie the Snail
An in-development psychological horror game where you survive each level by never letting an immortal snail touch you.
- Current state
- Building — In development
- Jack’s role
- Game design, Gameplay programming, Level design, 3D production
- Find it in the workshop
- Arcade & Menagerie · Ernie survival-game display
Built because…
The real build story.
What I built
I turned that premise into an Unreal psychological horror game. The player runs, jumps, manages stamina, uses speed boosts, and throws salt to slow Ernie while surviving a countdown across a multi-level campaign.
The hard part
Ernie has to feel relentless without feeling arbitrary. Navigation, line of sight, level scale, stamina, power-ups he can steal first, audio, and the instant-death touch all shape the pressure.
Under the casing
Proof, not decoration.
Build evidence03 items
- A multi-level campaign built around countdown survival
- Stamina, speed boosts, throwable salt, AI navigation, and instant-death contact
- Active Unreal Engine 5 development with Steam integration in progress
- Unreal Engine 5
- Blueprints
- Behavior Trees
- AI navigation
- Steamworks
Scope of work
What I owned.
- Game design
- Gameplay programming
- Level design
- 3D production
No victory-lap math
Outcome and lesson.
Where it landed
Ernie the Snail is being actively developed in Unreal Engine 5 for a future Steam release, with a full menu flow, multiple pursuer forms, jumpscares, and levels beyond the original prototype.
What stayed
The joke only works as horror when the rules stay clear: survive the timer, keep moving, and never let the snail touch you.
Field notes
This project has a physical address.
In the playable workshop, Ernie the Snail lives in the Arcade & Menagerie as a ernie survival-game display. You can inspect it without unlocking anything.