· 3 min read
A one-person studio
Who is behind MamonaShot, what I'm making and why I'm going to show the game while it's still being built.
Nice to meet you, I'm Tiago, and MamonaShot Studio is me. I'm a programmer and here I do a bit of everything: I write the code, design the screens, build the levels, record the videos and write this diary.
I love horror and I've been playing horror games for as long as I can remember. Now I'm on the other side, trying to build those places you don't want to walk into, but know you'll have to.
The studio's first project is a third-person survival horror made in Unity. For now, it's simply called "Survival Horror". I'm building it one mechanic at a time and testing everything with a PS5 controller in my hands.
I'll share the development here as it happens: what's working, what still feels off, and what I thought was done until I picked up the controller and tested it again.
Why MamonaShot
When I was a kid I spent every weekend at my grandpa's farm in the countryside of São Paulo. There were castor beans (mamonas) everywhere and he had a killer aim. That was the game, and I was almost always the target. He had a blast with my despair and in the end so did I.
The studio's name is a tribute to him and to those weekends.
And now, on to what matters...
The night everything went wrong
The story I want to tell starts like this: five robbers flee a bank job that ended in deaths. The plan was to switch vehicles at a stalled construction site and go their separate ways, but the police get there first. The escape goes on through the woods, in the rain, all the way to a disused psychiatric hospital. It looked like a good place to hide.
Why open the diary now
Because horror games are made of details nobody sees from the outside. How an enemy hears a bottle shattering, how long you can hold your breath underwater, the right moment for the camera to shake, what a menu needs to warn you about before you lose your progress. Doing everything alone, every one of those decisions goes through my hands, and almost none of them come out right the first time. That's what this diary is about.
Every part of the game that comes together becomes a post, with captures and videos straight from the engine. What you'll see is what actually runs, still with placeholder art: mannequins, blocks and test rooms instead of the final locations. Excuse the mess.
Where this is going
I'll be honest: this is a living project. The story is still shifting, and new mechanics may show up (and others may change or go away) as I test things and find out what works. Nothing here is set in stone, and that's exactly what makes it fun to show the way.
The dream is simple: one day, look at the game and feel it's polished, with the gameplay and the tension I have in mind. When it gets there, the plan is to put out a demo for you to play and then release the game. Until then, this diary is how you can follow along up close and maybe throw in a few ideas along the way.