Week 1: Game Concept and Mechanics

This week, our team was formed and we got together to discuss the concept of the game. Since the original game idea only described the main game mechanic, where the player is chased by a monster which cannot move when they look at it, we needed to figure out which direction we wanted to go.

During our first discussion, we looked at many horror games for inspiration. At first we were divided on whether we should make it like an escape room or a maze, but we thought that an escape room with various puzzles would take away from the core element while a maze would be quite linear and boring. After some careful consideration, we thought of Dead By Daylight and decided that the objective of the game was going to be collecting a set of objects and doing some tasks which are minigames. Since monsters that cannot move when you look at them exist in many games, such as SCP-Containment Breach and Dark Deception, we wanted to make ours a bit more interesting. We decided to add a twist to the main game mechanic: after completing each task, the movement condition of the monster will flip, so it switches between moving when the player is not looking at it and moving when the player looks at it. We also decided to incorporate a timer to add intensity, and as the timer counts down, the monster moves faster.

We presented the game idea in a game pitch to our instructors, peers and some industry professionals. The feedback was very helpful and touched some areas we didn't consider before, like the scope of the game if we were to do minigames for the tasks, incorporating a backstory, and the fail state. After hearing the feedback, we decided to remove the task minigames element and stick to collecting objects as the objective. For that, we decided that the objects would be organized into collections and the movement condition flips now after the player completes a collection. We also took the suggestion of incorporating some puzzle elements like using a mirror to look at the monster from different angles. We decided that we do want to incorporate a backstory to the game to give some meaning to the game mechanic. We haven't come up with a detailed story yet, but we think that having a story which the player can slowly learn about while exploring the environment and collecting objects can add a lot to the game and its atmosphere.

Since we had to work without the artists on our team this week, there are still many elements that need to be decided, such as art style and character designs. In the following week we will decide on the general aesthetic of the game with our artists and work on level design. An important point of feedback we received during the pitch was that we needed to do some research on what makes a horror game scary. We decided that each team member should play some horror games for inspiration and learn more about how to create a chilling mood.