Synopsis
Our protagonist, Violet, is an 18-year-old freshman that attends St. Belfry University, one of the most prestigious colleges in the world. Ever since Violet entered high school, she has only dreamed of attending St. Belfry. The university is known for its rigorous academics and long list of notable alumni that have contributed to so many fields of study.
Although Violet is nervous about starting her new life, she quickly gets along with her roommate Hannah. Over the first few months, she and Hannah built their friendship by getting accustomed to campus life together and learning more about each others’ interests. Hannah tells Violet that she aspires to be a world-renowned journalist who uncovers secrets that other reporters would be too scared to make public.
Our game begins when Violet notices Hannah has not returned to their room in several days. To get a sense of where she could be, Violet hesitantly looks through Hannah’s journal to find that she has been doing research on the series of student disappearances that have been occurring ever since the school year started. After inspecting the journal further, Violet finds a clue as to what could have happened to Hannah.
Our game will be a collection of puzzles that reveal information about the mysteries behind Violet’s story. As players venture in their quest to find Hannah, they will realize that the disappearances may have something to do with a secret cult, which practices ritual killings to further their own motives. Unfortunately, players also learn that the cult’s next victim may be Hannah, who was getting too close to the truth.
Each of our puzzles will help players learn more details about the cult, including its members and goals. Our game will be transmedia in that gameplay and narrative elements will be incorporated into analog and digital formats. As players work to solve more puzzles, they will try to piece together all the information they know so they can save Hannah before the cult takes her life.
Tone
Our game aims to give players that eerie, uncertain feeling they got as kids when their toes slipped out from the ends of their blankets and dangled by the edge of their beds. That sensation of hearing creaking on the staircase late at night. This is a game about the horror of the world immediately around you. For our dark-academia-themed game about a series of cult killings, tonally, we aim to achieve a few core emotions:
- Mystery. Our game leverages riddles, clues, and eerie pieces of evidence (a journal from a missing girl, cult rituals, etc.) to immerse the player in the mystery of our game. However, while the mystery of the plot unfolds, our escape-the-box format also introduces a mystery on its own. What puzzles/items in the box are important? Have you seen anything so far that might suggest one thing is more valuable than another? Are you on the completely wrong track? Wait, what’s that other item…?
- Dark/Eerie. Our setting of dark academia puts our world in a realistic environment (a college campus) that people know very well and feels believable. However, the gothic architecture of our dark university will add to the tone of the game. Our digital element (our website where players can type in their answers to the puzzles) will also have a dark/eerie user interface design to enhance this sensation. We are considering including audio files and eerie noises in response to correct/incorrect answers to enhance this effect.
Setting
Our game takes place on and around a dark University in the Pacific Northwest. The campus is vast, with large fields, towering gothic architectures cornering the players at every wrong move, and a large forest looming just beyond the campus perimeter.
Our primary focus for the game is on the underground university cult that recently killed the game protagonist’s best friend, Hannah. Hannah was investigating a series of disappearances around campus over the course of months prior. She began taking polaroid photos, writing in her journal, and asking too many questions. However, after her mysterious disappearance, the game’s protagonist finds themselves with no information except what Hannah had left behind.
The cult is anonymous. Little is known about them from the beginning of the game; however, as the game continues, the players learn more about their rituals, their tendencies for sacrifices, and who is involved in the cult. We chose the Northwest and college campus as a backdrop for the game because it allows for a combination of realistic/authentic landscapes but also a backdrop that is inherently ominous. The dark academia backdrop is incredibly eerie, and gothic architecture paired with an ever-extending forest around the campus aims to enhance that sense of claustrophobia and fear. Also, we all are currently on a college campus, and it is an environment we know well and can add little anecdotal elements to enhance the plot.
All the elements of our game (murder weapons, killing styles, puzzles) will be realistic and non-supernatural. The cult is meant to be realistic to raise tension and fear rather than delve into supernatural lore to raise stakes but lose realism.
Gameplay
The goal of the game is to find who all are in the cult, what the cult symbol is, and what the next killing is going to be. Winning the game means saving your friend.
The kinds of fun we are going for are – Fantasy, Narrative, and Challenge.
The mode of our game is going to be a mix of digital and analog. We will use the analog mode to dictate the story, find clues, make decisions, explore, etc. The digital mode will be used for the puzzles’ answers and ensure the answers are correct and then give instructions on how to move on to the next part of the game/how to progress. We also plan to use the digital mode to incorporate some kind of audio to make the gameplay more interesting, as well as hints to ensure that player(s) do not feel stuck in the game at any point.
We are toying with the idea of adding a timed component and will be thinking more about that.
Key Challenges
One of our main objectives is to motivate players and tug at their heartstrings, ensuring they are emotionally invested in the story and the mission to find their missing friends.
We want to design a game with an open-ended structure that provides players with a sense of exploration and agency. By allowing players to go down the wrong path potentially, the game becomes more immersive and challenging. Introducing red herrings and natural misdirections adds depth to the gameplay, requiring players to think critically and assess information carefully.
In our university-themed mystery, the game is divided into four puzzles, each of which reveals a word that is ultimately the final phrase when combined. The challenge lies in creating engaging, challenging, and coherent puzzles with the analog format. We hope to maintain a balance between difficulty and accessibility with the puzzles, ensuring that players feel a sense of achievement upon completion without becoming frustrated.
Another challenge is integrating the narrative elements into the analog gameplay effectively. The story unfolds as the players progress, and this requires careful pacing of the narrative incorporating the story elements within the gameplay mechanics.
Who Is It For
The target audience is people ages 13+ due to the potentially mature content of secret societies, missing friends, etc., who find pleasure in solving mysteries and uncovering secrets through puzzles. This game may be most enjoyable for people who enjoy mystery games or the general mystery genre (like Sherlock Holmes lovers). However, the game can be played by any player wanting to test their problem-solving skills, just as escape rooms and puzzles can be played by virtually anyone.
Since we’re opting for a mystery-in-a-box format, this game can be optimally played individually or in a small group of up to 4 people.
Link to individual posts:
Nico: https://mechanicsofmagic.com/2023/05/06/checkpoint-1-individual-ideation/
Abena: https://mechanicsofmagic.com/2023/05/09/team-member-deliverable-abena/
Andrew – https://mechanicsofmagic.com/2023/05/08/concept-and-mood-board-p2-checkpoint-1/
Ananya – https://mechanicsofmagic.com/2023/05/07/checkpoint-1-individual-2/
