After two years of development, the UCI student-made indie game Kawai’ian Isolation released on April 25. The game was released for free on Steam by Burnt Out Games, an indie game company formed on campus a year ago by third-year game design and interactive media students Conner Wood and Malachy Kennedy, who also co-led the development of Kawai’ian Isolation.
The 3D narrative-driven psychological horror was built in Unreal Engine — a 3D creation tool for game production — and takes place on the fictional island paradise of Kawai’i, where the player ventures as beauty pageant winner Mayumi.
“We both pitched [Kawai’ian Isolation] for our club here, the Video Game Development Club, in our spring quarter in our first year,” shared Wood, president of Burnt Out Games, in an interview with New University.
The Video Game Development Club (VGDC) is a prominent student-led UCI club with over 600 active members. There, students pitch and join game projects, honing their development skills. Kennedy is the current president of the club and Wood is the current art director.
“What the club does is a lot of stuff, but the main thing is probably pitch projects, which is every quarter,” Wood said. “About 15 or 20 students pitch their game ideas, and people sign up for them, and they work in their teams to get the project done in a quarter, maybe sometimes two.”
Another large aspect of the VGDC is the use of workshops to exchange development skills amongst students. The club currently has eight departments, which each host their own workshops: Art, Audio, Design, Production, Writing, Programming, User Interface/User Experience (UI/UX) and Strike.
“There’s eight to 10 workshops each week,” Wood said. “So, for example, our department runs two a week. They have a 2D workshop, a 3D, and then just miscellaneous events, socials, general meetings and speakers.”
The idea behind Kawai’ian Isolation did not start in VGDC, however, and was instead born in a course that Wood and Kennedy took during their first winter quarter at UCI.
“It started in a class, it was Storytelling and Interactive Media, and it was some assignment about quest design, and we kind of operated on the faucet of ‘throw s— on the wall and see what sticks,’ and then we threw like really really really weird stuff on there and it somehow worked out and were like, okay, this might be a game,” Wood said.
The development of Kawai’ian Isolation was not without its roadblocks, as the team struggled to balance schoolwork with game development. Eventually, they even took on the challenge of developing another game alongside Kawai’ian Isolation — Burning Out.
“We released another game called Burning Out while we were working on Kawai’ian Isolation too,” Kennedy told New University. “So working on two games at the same time was a little rough. But it was fun.”
Despite the hurdles the team faced, Burnt Out Games eventually reached the post-production phase on April 25, when their game hit Steam’s storefront. They have since seen success with Kawai’ian Isolation’s release.
“We recently had 12,000 free licenses downloaded for Kawai’ian Isolation, which was exciting,” Kennedy said. “And then I think we’ve had around 150-ish people actually playing the game, so it’s kind of cool to see. It’s always good to see some good news.”
Under Burnt Out Games, Wood and Kennedy’s team has released 20 games on the indie game market place Itch.io and two games on Steam. Their upcoming release, EXO, is a speed-action shooter planned for release on Steam. The indie studio is yet to announce a set date for release but is planning to begin promoting the game soon.
“You’re basically playing as a character that’s running around planets and destroying everything and everyone in their way,” Kennedy said. “So that’s what we’ve been working on. That was our capstone project.”
With the promising release of Kawai’ian Isolation, Burnt Out Games appears to have set their sights on coming out with more 3D game releases on Steam. However, they’re not done with Kawai’ian Isolation’s story yet. Having such a narrative-driven game led to some leftover lore material that never made it into the full game. Wood and Kennedy shared with New University that if the game gets enough attention, fans can potentially expect a web novel of Kawai’ian Isolation’s story that the two co-leads have in the works.
Juliana Maldonado is an Arts and Entertainment Intern for the spring 2026 quarter. She can be reached at jrmaldo1@uci.edu.
Edited by Travis Foley and Luis Ortiz
