Puppet Master The Game

Puppet Master: The Game
Puppet Master: The Game is an officially licensed free-to-play asymmetric multiplayer horror game based on Full Moon Features’ Puppet Master film franchise. The project was both a dream collaboration for me and my studio, October Games, and an opportunity to bring one of horror’s most iconic franchises into a competitive PvP space.
I served as Project Manager and Lead Game Designer, while also leading 3D asset creation and contributing animation and 2D illustration throughout development. The game was built by a small core team of three developers, with support from two 3D art interns who assisted with prop modeling.
The game was announced on September 27, 2021, launched into Steam Early Access on March 1, 2023, and officially left Early Access in May 2024 after multiple major content, balance, and systems updates. It currently holds a Very Positive rating on Steam.
From a design standpoint, the project focused heavily on PvP-driven asymmetric gameplay, featuring 25 playable characters divided across four distinct factions. Most characters are small, agile puppets pitted against larger human opponents. This extreme size disparity, combined with unique abilities for each character, created ongoing balance challenges that I led throughout development.
My role involved ensuring that every character had clear strengths and weaknesses, remained faithful to their film counterparts, and felt fun and readable to play in a competitive multiplayer environment. Balancing authenticity, fairness, and accessibility was a constant iteration process informed by live player feedback during Early Access.

Flagship Game Mode – Thief
The game’s flagship mode, Thief, is a 3-versus-1 asymmetric experience where three puppet players must hunt down and kill a single human player before stealing the Puppet Master’s secret artifacts and escaping. This objective structure is a recurring plot thread throughout the films and naturally lent itself to an asymmetric multiplayer format.
On the design side, the puppets rely on speed, positioning, and teamwork, while the human player is significantly stronger in direct combat. One human was intentionally balanced to be roughly as powerful as two puppets, meaning the puppet team only gains a real advantage when all three coordinate effectively. This created tense, high-pressure encounters that were especially frightening from the human player’s perspective.
Because of the extreme size difference between puppets and humans, I made the decision to lock human characters to a first-person camera with full body awareness. This ensured that the tiny puppet characters were never obscured by a third-person camera and reinforced the horror of being attacked from below. Looking down to see puppets swarming at the player’s feet became a core part of the experience and significantly improved combat readability and tension.
This camera choice, combined with asymmetrical power scaling and objective-driven gameplay, helped Thief define the game’s identity and set the foundation for additional modes built around asymmetric horror.

Steam page:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1757610/Puppet_Master_The_Game/