Shadow Shift

Shadow Shift is an experimental five-level stealth prototype created almost entirely through an AI-driven development workflow.

The player must move through guarded areas, use cover zones and perform a Shadow Shift to travel between shadows, retrieve the Data Core and reach the extraction point.

Important AI Disclosure

This project was generated entirely by AI under my direction.

I did not manually write or edit the code, build the levels, create the UI or directly modify the Unity project files.

My role was limited to:

• defining the initial concept;
• describing the required mechanics through prompts;
• importing and testing the generated project;
• reporting errors and gameplay problems;
• requesting changes to difficulty, progression and readability.

The project was developed through three main creative iterations, with approximately 30 minutes of active prompting and direction:

1. Creation of the initial playable stealth prototype.
2. Expansion into a campaign with five progressive levels.
3. Rebalancing and improvement of visual communication and gameplay readability.

Additional technical corrections were made during testing to resolve Unity errors and compatibility issues.

Purpose of the Experiment

The goal was not to produce a polished commercial game.

The goal was to test how far generative AI could autonomously create a complete Unity prototype from natural-language instructions, including:

• C# gameplay systems;
• enemy patrol and detection AI;
• level progression;
• menus and interface flow;
• tutorials;
• win and fail states;
• visual feedback;
• difficulty balancing;
• WebGL-ready project structure.

No project files were manually modified by me during the experiment.

The Five Levels

Level 1 — First Step

Learn movement, cover zones and the basic Shadow Shift mechanic.

Level 2 — Line of Sight

Avoid a patrolling guard and understand enemy vision.

Level 3 — Echo Chamber

Learn how Shadow Shift noise can attract guards.

Level 4 — Lockdown

Retrieve the Data Core and escape after the facility enters an alert state.

Level 5 — Black Site

A final mission combining patrols, cover, noise, detection, alert routes and extraction.

Controls

Keyboard

• WASD — Move
• Mouse — Select a Shadow Shift destination
• Space — Shadow Shift
• Escape — Pause
• R — Restart level

Gamepad

• Left Stick — Move
• Right Stick — Select a Shadow Shift destination
• South Button — Shadow Shift
• Start — Pause

How to Play

Purple areas are cover zones.

Enter a cover zone to activate Shadow Shift.

Reachable destinations become cyan. Aim at one of them until it turns white, then press Space or the South Button to move to it.

Avoid the guards’ vision cones, retrieve the Data Core and reach the green extraction area.

Development Information

• Engine: Unity 6
• Language: C#
• Platform: WebGL
• Development method: AI-generated from natural-language prompts
• Main creative iterations: 3
• Active prompting and direction time: approximately 30 minutes
• Manual project editing by the publisher: none

Credits

Concept direction, prompts and testing: Luca di Pietro Project generation, code, layouts and implementation: Generative AI / ChatGPT

Experimental Status

This prototype is published as a development experiment and technical demonstration.

It may contain bugs, balancing issues or rough visual elements. These limitations are intentionally preserved as part of the experiment and show the actual result produced by the AI-driven workflow.