Team project
Unreal Engine 5
Funeral Director
A Victorian graveyard management game made for Frontier Developments, where players direct funerals by day and handle the restless dead by night.
The design
Have you ever wanted to manage the funeral requests of fussy Victorian townsfolk?
In Funeral Director, players run and expand their own graveyard in Victorian England, handling increasingly elaborate funeral services for the local community. By directing ceremonies, fulfilling requests, and managing the cemetery, players earn shillings to upgrade their grounds into a thriving place of mourning, complete with chapels, staff, and new facilities.
But when night falls, the job becomes more complicated. The restless dead may rise from their graves, and players must manage the chaos, either personally or by hiring staff, to maintain their reputation and become the most respected funeral director in Victorian England.
My role
I was involved in Funeral Director from its earliest conceptual stages, having originally pitched the core idea and taken a leading role in presenting and developing the concept. I helped shape the game’s initial direction through design discussions, presentations and regular communication with our client, Frontier Developments, answering questions and helping establish a strong foundation for the project.
As development progressed, I contributed to several areas of design and production. I created character concept art and illustrated portraits for the funeral rating system, alongside designing UI flows and gameplay interactions in Figma. I also worked on design documentation, exploring additional mechanics such as a faith and sermon system that could add further depth to the graveyard management experience.
Unfortunately, not every idea made it into the final playable demo! Some of the features I was particularly excited about, including NPC conversations, more detailed funeral feedback and the faith system, had to be scaled back or cut due to development constraints. While disappointing, this was a valuable experience in understanding the importance of prioritising core mechanics, managing scope and adapting creative ideas to the realities of team-based game development.
Beyond design, I also contributed a small selection of sound effects and took the lead on video production for our pitches and project demonstrations. Throughout development, our team made extensive use of Jira and Confluence to manage tasks, track progress and maintain design documentation, giving me valuable experience with industry-standard project management tools and collaborative workflows. Working across so many different areas gave me a fantastic opportunity to strengthen my communication, presentation and collaborative design skills.
