About Mall Mayhem

Mall Mayhem is a first-person mall security simulation prototype created by Dark Horizons for Project and Portfolio VI. Players take on the role of a mall security officer responding to incidents, managing chaos, and working to complete their shift inside a multi-floor shopping mall.

The project focuses on fast player decision-making, incident response, quick-time events, UI flow, player feedback, and replayability systems. This build represents a student prototype created during a class sprint and is still in development.

Story / Player Role

You are a mall security officer clocking in for a busy shift. As incidents break out across the mall, you must respond quickly, complete interaction events, manage the situation, and keep the mall under control. Every choice and response affects how successfully the shift ends.

Features

• First-person mall security gameplay
• Multi-floor mall environment
• Incident response gameplay
• Quick-time event interactions
• Officer login system
• Main menu, pause menu, options menu, and controls menu
• Time played tracking
• Date and time display
• Win screen and game over screen
• Incident success and incident failed screens
• Save data support for player/session information
• Score and progression-focused systems in development

Controls

• WASD — Move
• Mouse — Look around
• Left Mouse Button — Interact / use equipped item
• E — Interact / quick-time event input
• Mouse Wheel — Cycle equipment/items
• Esc — Pause menu
• Q- Turns Camera feed On/Off 
• R - Scroll through camera feed

Supported Input Devices

Mall Mayhem currently supports keyboard and mouse controls.

Minimum Specs

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• Processor: Intel Core i5 or equivalent
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD equivalent or better
• Storage: 5 GB available space
• Input: Keyboard and mouse

Recommended Specs

• OS: Windows 10/11 64-bit
• Processor: Intel Core i7 or equivalent
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 1660 / RTX series or AMD equivalent
• Storage: 5 GB available space
• Input: Keyboard and mouse

Development Status

Mall Mayhem is currently in prototype development. The current build is designed to demonstrate sprint features, UI systems, incident response gameplay, player feedback, and core game flow.

Planned improvements include additional gameplay polish, improved incident pacing, clearer player feedback, audio implementation, expanded scoring support, and continued refinement of the mall experience.

Credits

Team: Dark Horizons 

Project: Mall Mayhem 

Course: Project and Portfolio VI

  Engine: Unreal Engine 5

• Samantha Lindow — Main menu, pause menu, options menu, controls menu, officer login, save system support, time/date UI, win/game over screens, incident success/failure screens, and player feedback UI.
• Juan Maas — NPC state machine system, NPC patrol system, NPC wander system, NPC interaction system, NPC dialogue system, taser system, NPC detection radius system, NPC animation integration system, NPC spawn management system, and NPC behavior assignment system.
• Stephen McClain — Hold QTE system, Tap QTE system, Skill Check QTE, randomized QTE selection system, arrest system, security camera surveillance system, security monitor system, security subtitle system, arrested animation system, and NPC system support.
• Cameron Griffin-Cartwright — Crosshair, chaos system, chaos meter widget, score system, score widget, pepper spray, score save system, scoreboard, and game over screen.
• Stephanie Misamore — Designed and implemented the incident selection system and navigation system, including randomized incident activation, multi-incident progression, NPC incident assignments, navigation indicators, and HUD guidance for directing the player to active incidents.
• Michael Noel — Interaction system, player HUD, weapons system, tear gas canister block mesh, tear gas cloud and pepper spray VFX, tablet HUD VFX, taser block mesh, and pepper spray animation.
• Christian Bonaparte — Radio, Tablet, and Teargas Art Assets
• Javier Solis — Handcuffs, Fountain, Taser Art Assets

Created as a student project for educational purposes.

Links

• Samantha Lindow: www.linkedin.com/in/samantha-lindow-82b4b2255 
• Juan Maas : https://www.linkedin.com/in/juan-maas-b299ba186/
• Stephen McClain: Stephen McClain | LinkedIn
• Cameron Griffin-Cartwright: www.linkedin.com/in/cameron-griffin-202b5329a
• Stephanie Misamore: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-misamore-b5521184/
• Michael Noel: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael noel 4515b4249/ 
• Christian Bonaparte: https://www.artstation.com/dominarte
• Javier Solis: https://javier_m_solis.artstation.com/

• Game Page / Updates: https://slindow.itch.io/mall-mayhem/devlog/1560694/mall-mayhem-development-updat...