Chirality: The First Journal 

Genre:  Extraction -Survival-Horror-Shooter

USP:  New take on the popular genre of extraction shooters with a heavy narrative, survival-horror double twist that can be experienced alone or cooperatively.

Synopsis:  In the remote mountains of Western Europe, scientists stumble upon an ancient sundial unlocking a passage to a mirrored reality known as Aubaga. Following weeks of silence from the team on the other side, a young researcher is assigned to navigate Aubaga and retrieve crucial information. Her mission turns deeply personal as she aims to find her lost brother in a colossal maze of ever-shifting, nonsensical rooms, haunted by the twisted forms of her once familiar coworkers.

Main mechanics: 2D Third person shooter, limited inventory, dynamic map with shifting corridors, souls-like approach to combat.

The technical’s demo in-game objective is to reach a certain point inside of Aubaga, therefore, it aims to assess the theories and frameworks outlined in section 2.4 to determine their impact on heightening the player's fear. The objective in the final product is to retrieve items and intel back from Aubaga to the normal world, moving the narrative forward each time.

The primary loop during the gameplay will be the following:

1. Player enters a room.

2. They investigate in order to find resources, the dial or saving points.

3. The conflict (If there is any) is resolved by either fighting/running away from enemies or resolving a puzzle. If the conflict is not resolved, meaning that the main character dies, it will respawn on the closest mirror that doesn’t contain enemies in the same room.

4. If the player has respawned, interacted with a mirror or any players are not present in less than 500 pixels of distance, the corridors to other rooms will change directions and connect to other rooms or to dead ends.

5. Go to a corridor to find the other rooms.

In addition, different secondary loops will give long term objectives and will be very clear through the game:

• Finding the Dial to go back to the normal world.

• Sell the found items and intel to gain money and improve their existent characters.

• Advance the narrative.

• Collect the parts of the broken mirror.

At the end part of the game, once the player has collected all the parts of the broken mirror, the primary loop will be modified to:

1. Alpha Antagonist spawns permanently and will chase the players through all of the map of Aubaga. 

2. Players are killed, losing everything or they get out of Aubaga.

3. All the corridors will exist and connect at the same time, overlapped. The player will have to find their way to the entrance. 

MAIN MECHANICS: 

PLAYER

Top Down Movement: Omni directional movement. Allowing sprinting and crouching with acceleration in order to simulate a real human movement.

Camera POV: Fixed camera view featuring different perspectives as well as movable camera view featuring top down or side scroller perspective.

Delayed shooting: Players can shoot, will have to aim their weapon before and actions will take anticipation before starting. Character’s  movement is slower when shooting. Bullet will come off and move towards the direction of the aim.

Shove/Stomp: Push/break away objects and enemies or stomp them when they are on the floor. 

Investigate: The player can investigate any part of the world. By pressing the interaction button, the game will give back a text response, observing the environment, which can be a general comment or a specific reaction.

Health & bullet points: Players can die, bullets can run out. Initially the player has 100 health points and 6 bullet points.

Re-spawn: Players will be re-spawned back to specific parts of the level next to a lore-related location. The corpse will remain on the map. 

Noise: Walking, shooting, using, makes noise and it’s reflected in an invisible collision that will get big/small depending if the player makes more or less noise. This noise or the lack of, will be used to attract or hide from enemies.

Limited inventory:  Objects can be stored or discarded (Deleted), excluding key items, such as the weapon. The inventory will have 6 slots.

Shifting / Saving: When in contact with the mirrors, the player will be able to touch it. If the player accepts, the map layout will be modified and the game saved.

WEAPONS

Manual reloading: Players need to eject manually and put the magazine/shells on the weapon with a timed event. If they keep trying to shoot, the weapon will just make a clicking noise.  The mini-game will consist of holding the reload key, and pushing specific buttons that the mini-game will request in order. Once finished, the player will enter the “Aim” state.

Jamming: Weapons might jam, and need to be unjammed with a timed event. The mini-game will consist of clicking the shooting button fast enough till a bar fills out. Once finished, the player will enter the “Aim” state.

ITEMS

Items: Ammo packs (Random value from 3 to 12 bullets), Health items (25 points each) and keys to open specific doors. These can be grabbed and manually inserted in the inventory with the interact key. 

Locked Crates: Some crates need to be opened with a timed event, which when failed, will emit a strong noise that will increment the overall noise the player makes. The minigame is based on pressing the interact key in the proper time, shown in a bar with a green section and a square that moves left to right. 

Flashlight / Darkness: Flashlight item can be found in order to illuminate dark parts of the level. The darkness will have 100% opacity when the place has not been observed yet and will go down to 80% once observed by the character, working like a fog of war.

COMMON ENEMY 

Non-Aggressive/Aggressive state: Depending on a boolean variable specific for each spawned enemy, they can be totally idle or patrolling in random directions. If the invisible collider that the noise generates touches the enemy, they’ll become aggressive and start chasing the player.

Attack: When close enough to the player, the enemy will attack in place, and remain static for 1 second. The attack will have 1 second of anticipation.

Health points: Variable points in small percentages. (All enemies have between 160 to 200 points) They can die, but their corpses remain on the floor and can still be shot or stomped on.

Knocked down: When a player has activated the shove attack on an enemy, these can get knocked down. There is also a 1/7 chance that the enemy will get knocked out from a bullet impact. When this happens, the enemy appears dead, but will get up in somewhere between 1.5 seconds to 3 seconds and start attacking again. 

ALPHA ANTAGONIST

Chase / Attack: The Alpha will continuously chase the player and attack every 3 to 5 seconds, saving the player’s position as a final direction and launching itself towards it in a straight line. After arriving at the destination, it will stop and attack in an area for 2 to 3 seconds.

Spawn/Despawn: The Alpha will be spawned or de-spawned with invisible collisions that will be hidden from the player. If the value of noise is below a specific number and the Alpha is not on camera, it will de-spawn as well.

Stagger: If shot three times, the Alpha will stop for 3 seconds and resume its chase. 

EMERGENT STRATEGIES:

Here are some foreseen  dynamics that might occur due to the previously explained mechanic: 

• Resource management due to both scarcity and inventory size.

• Active strategy based on current visibility, current resources and enemy placement from the player. 

• Obscured information of how many life points the enemy and player have, how much damage is inflicted on both sides…etc.

• Altered item respawn depending on the player's current resources.

• Fight/Flight decision on knowledge of the map, current resources and enemy placement.

• Intention to explore in order to scavenge the resources necessary. 

GAMEPLAY BEATS:

The technical demo will feature two distinct play styles, each providing contrasts to the others to modify the tension and dynamism of the level. These include:

• Physical conflict with enemies / Fleeing from Alpha Antagonist (for a more action-oriented style)

• Puzzle solving / World exploring (for a more narrative, relaxed style).

AESTHETICS:

The intended emotions to evoke are: fear, hopelessness and impending doom, and it aims to appeal to the following aesthetics: 

Discovery: By the exploration of the branched rooms of Aubaga, discovering new resources and experiencing the different positions of the corridors. 

Narrative: Intricate story that will gradually unfold and reveal itself throughout the course of gameplay by finding intel and small comments from the protagonist on her environment.

Challenge: Incremented by the artificial difficulty sensation that comes with the genre of horror itself.

Exterior, in front of the cave, the player is able to move freely and grab a piece of intel near the entrance. This will automatically open the inventory and after reading (or not) the intel, the player will be able to check another piece of intel; the letter from her brother, as well as a photo of both. An empty map will be found as well. This is done in order to teach the player about how the inventory and movement works in a safe space and mention briefly their objective in the game, through text, as well as rewarding minimum exploration.

Rock corridor that narrows down with different directions to choose at the end of it: one dead end that contains a wall with the Huluppu tree and a turn to the right with the room with the mirror. The Huluppu tree can be observed and the protagonist will comment on it. If the player decides, now or at any point from now on to check the map, they will find that the map is drawing itself everytime they move.

In the room with the mirror, The dial can be found close to the entrance, as well as other resources. When the mirror is approached, the inventory will open and the player will be able to use the dial in order to travel to Aubaga. This is the first simple puzzle the player will solve.

Once the player has traveled to Aubaga, a message will be displayed saying that the  dial has been lost with its use. This new room is a mirrored version of the past one, but with a brutalist architecture design, instead of a cave. If the player decides to explore the mirror, the protagonist will mention that they cannot get back anymore, they need the dial,  retrieve the intel containing the information of how to navigate Aubaga and moreover, find clues of the whereabouts of the protagonist’s brother.

A long dark corridor stretches and an enemy is found at the end of it, near a source of noise. This will be used to teach the player how the game action works in a safe environment where they will learn that enemies are attracted to noise and also have space to retreat as they attack. 

The player will enter a room with another mirror (Save point). Upon entering, and when out of camera, the corridor where the player came, will disappear. All the corridors connecting other rooms will be hidden and the only way to progress will be by saving in this specific room. This will be done in order to teach the player that that saving has consequences.

The player now will be able to move through a small maze of interconnected rooms that change the order of its corridors everytime the player saves The dial will always spawn hidden in one of the accessible rooms (Changing place every shift) and the pieces of obsidian (Key A,B,C) (These being the different “keys· necessary to open a door in The Transit Ritual Cell room) can be found. 

Once the keys A,B and C are in the inventory, the player will be able to save in The Transit Ritual Cell Room, where they’ll have access to a new room to get the intel that needs to be retrieved. The Alpha Antagonist will spawn in the same room, enemies will spawn in previously safe spaces and the player will have to run back to the original Mirror Room, where the dial will be.

Three things can happen now:

• Get caught by the Alpha Antagonist: The game would reset to the previous saving point. 

• Shift (By not having the dial) triggers ending A.

• Exit the mirror room with the dial, triggers ending B.

Before starting it is important to define the difference between  fear, horror, disgust and anxiety from the point of view of a video game using Carrol’s concepts(2018) mixed with the two-factor emotion definition  (Schachter & Singer, 1962, 3)

• Horror: Set of mechanics, dynamics or/and aesthetics that evoke fear, anxiety and/or disgust emotions.

• Fear:  physiological arousal using the actual existent threat (Monster or any kind of danger) as a label.

• Anxiety: physiological arousal using non-existent or non-present threat (A monster that might be there but it’s not, sound cues that alert the player…etc.) as a label.

• Disgust: physiological arousal using a repulsive element (Either gore but also impactful narrative circumstances) as a label.

With this clear, over the four decades of its existence, and owing to the influential titles mentioned previously, a set of fundamental mechanics and dynamics that have continued to shape the horror genre over the years can be identified. Note that not all of these need to be in a horror game in order for it to be a good horror game.

Strategic implementation of limited inventory space. This, coupled with the scarcity of various resources such as batteries, energy, health, saving tools, and ammunition, intensifies the player's experience. The fear of depletion heightens during each conflict or pivotal decision, forcing players to carefully manage their resources. This dynamic creates a palpable sense of vulnerability, contributing to the overall horror.

An additional layer of tension is introduced through reactive resource spawn. This dynamic system responds to the player's needs, occasionally providing assistance during critical moments. However, the randomness and occasional inconvenience of the spawned resources add an unpredictable element. This intentional ambiguity contributes to the overall sense of unease, as players can't fully anticipate the nature of the aid they may receive, fostering a more unpredictable and replayable gameplay experience.

A soft-lock-solver, like a knife for example, in order to offer the players a tool to avoid soft locking themselves in challenging situations, but still giving consequences to the use of it (For example, being easier to get hurt by enemies while being used)striking a balance between resolution and maintaining tension.)

Different choices on how to solve conflict, either by fighting (With action mechanics or RPG mechanics) enemies, avoiding,  hiding or escaping from them. The player should be able to at least try not to face conflict on some occasions.

Delayed and limited actions such as movement, interactions and/or attack. This can be done by making the player slow or completely static when attacking, with tank movement controls or even with small interactions that need the button to be pressed for one second. 

Causative of conflict, this can be in the form of normal enemies that can be fought or avoided or/and an alpha antagonist (Usually the monster) that will pursue the player in parts of the level. The latter’s behavior will need to be carefully designed in order to empower it enough with mechanics such as immortality or damage on pure sight, but moreover with an active chasing of the player. The alpha antagonist  needs to be heavily planned on how and when will be active in the level in order to amplify the tension properly and not provide an excess of unnecessary and therefore frustrating, difficulty.

Information obscuring, where health, ammo, sanity… Any stat-related points regarding either the player or enemies are either not directly expressed or expressed in a convoluted way, in order for the player to give an extra layer of artificial difficulty when making decisions. Also story-related information, the game needs to give slight pieces of information as if it was a path of candy leading to somewhere.

Slight randomization of some kind such as the position of the resources of each run or even physical walls of the level in order to not let the player adapt to previously established patterns. If planned carefully, this can be done in-level instead of per run.

Limited visibility by either having fixed cameras or dynamic cameras that move in specific ways in order to deliver information slower, with fog or darkness, the field of view of the player or even level design itself, with sharp 90º turns for example.

Evident safe spaces in order to be able to lower the tension and reset the emotion status of the player. Changing the beat of the gameplay to a more narrative or even puzzle way without having to face the conflict for a few minutes can restart the emotional status of the player in order to be able to raise fear again.

Not allowing the player to use the inventory as a safe space or even being a safe space and modifying the pattern in a certain given moment.

Timed decision based events, where the player has to make an important choice that will move the narrative forward (Or not, some the decisions can always be fake)

Permanence of consequences, by either modifying the gameplay pattern due to a loss of a limb of a player or due a narrative choice. 

Exploration rewards, such as resources but moreover pieces of narrative that can help the player survive or/and move forward the history of the game.

Vague sound cues about situations that will happen soon (An enemy being close for example). While these can facilitate the strategy it also creates anxiety by expectation, which in turn intensifies the perceived artificial difficulty of the game.

Thigh corridors but also open spaces, since both can be equally unsettling, specially as an abrupt change of level design in order to introduce new dangers.

Unreliability of game patterns in order to not let the player adapt, therefore lose uncertainty and lessen the fear. From slight changes like adding the presence of an alpha antagonist to a level where previously wasn’t there, modifying safe spaces to make them not safe to even change the gameplay completely. 

Several examples: What if the character, which was able to move normally now has to move in a wheelchair and cannot shoot and move at the same time? What if we’re not sure if an enemy is currently dead? What if their movement is erratic and therefore hard to shoot? What if specific tools cannot be used during an event? What if the weapon suddenly becomes jammed? What if it breaks? What if the game was previously in an open space and now it’s in a tight corridor? All of these abrupt changes have the potential to amplify the anxiety on the player.

Planned jumpscares, only to be used when the tension is at the maximum as a release followed by a safe space or moment. Random jumpscares or the overuse of them will endanger the level of horror given to players since they can become used to them.

Director AI that will monitor the player’s advance and current status then take decisions to affect or control previously mechanics mentioned before, such as the Alpha Antagonist, the reactive resource spawn, the slight randomization and even planned jumpscares.

Additionally, depending on the game’s genre, it can be benefited with permadeath and / or proximity chat. 

The horror genre will continue to evolve, exploring new frontiers. The nature of the open-world and even sand-boxes might allow new more unpredictable patterns to appear. Cooperative genres, in conjunction with puzzle-solving and escape rooms, have the potential to introduce collaborative elements together with previously explored horror mechanics and dynamics that might enhance the social aspect of horror gaming. 

Indeed, the genre's adaptability and commitment to providing diverse and engaging experiences for players will ensure that the exploration of  horror remains at the forefront of the video games future.

🔹 Conducted thorough academic research on existing material (studies, articles, blog posts, theories, etc.) related to horror in video games. 

🔹 Compiled and evaluated a list of potential mechanics to enhance the horror experience in the game. 

🔹 Designed and executed various tests, and analyzed data from play testers. 

🔹 Composed and implemented all music and sound effects for the game. 

🔹 Developed the tools required for level creation.