Arima Lodge
A brief look at my work remaking Arima Lodge: fixing broken code, improving animations and dialogues, and revitalizing a small jam game.
Everything started while I was working part-time with Praenaris. The studio asked me to lead the remake of Arima Lodge, a short narrative game originally born in a jam.
The project, made in Unity, came to me in a broken state: dialogues, animations, and much of the code needed to be reviewed and rebuilt. My role was to take what wasn’t working, make it functional again, and then improve it. It was both a programming challenge and a chance to learn how to rescue an idea with potential and give it new life.
- Context
- Improvements in the Remake
- …plus many other polish details that elevated the experience.
- Gameplay
- Reflection
- Links
Context
Arima Lodge was originally created during the Indie Spain Jam 2022. Later, the studio decided to revisit it, adding quality improvements and officially releasing it on Steam in December 2024.
It’s a short 10-minute story, set in a near-future dystopia inside a single elevator. You play as Kai, the bellhop, when a mysterious man forces him to ride straight to the 100th floor, things quickly spiral into tension and mystery.
Improvements in the Remake
During the remake I implemented a wide range of improvements, including:
- 🌍 Localization to multiple languages
- ✍️ Better text handling
- 📖 Expanded narrative options
- 🎭 Improved animations
- ⏱️ Refined timing
- 💬 Updated dialogues
- 🔀 Multiple endings
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…plus many other polish details that elevated the experience.
Gameplay
The experience is simple but effective:
- Limited dialogue choices from Kai’s perspective.
- Quick Time Events (QTEs) to open and close the elevator doors at the right moment.
- A compressed narrative structure, where each stop and each passenger adds to the atmosphere.
The result is short, immersive, and full of urgency. It makes you feel both trapped and curious about what’s waiting at the top.
Reflection
Working on Arima Lodge in Unity was both a technical challenge and creative rediscovery. I had to rebuild broken systems while aligning them with the narrative, but it was rewarding to see how a jam-born idea found a polished second life.
It’s a short, free, and highly recommendable experience. You can finish it in under ten minutes, but it leaves you wanting more.
