Moodboard
Playlist
Narrative Directions
Some emotions we want to evoke are contentment, unease, disorientation.
Direction 1 – Puzzle centered mystery and escape room
The player works at a boba shop that seems normal at the beginning, and the game is about figuring out why it’s wrong as things change over time. From the start, the player can just play a Papa’s freezeria boba simulator to make money. But, customers give strange hints, ingredients might behave weirdly, and the shop moves around. But puzzles would drive everything, through lighting angles, block/shadow orientation, moving objects. The narrative would unfold mostly through environmental clues instead of dialogue.
Direction 2 – Role-playing with branching story
You play as an unwitting employee of a supernatural entity/demon, and the daily choices at the shop slowly begin to reveal the stakes and story of the world. There could be a choice between being complacent and continuing with the demon’s plan or try to slowly subvert the plans to destroy everything. This would be more dialogue focused, visual novel, with mostly dialogue between characters and the occasional choice or puzzle. The player should be able to replay days to be able to change their choices.
Direction 3- Open exploration/walking sim
The shop and warehouse become a large, malleable space that the player explores freely with minimal instructions. There are no real objectives. Perhaps they are exploring as a ghost or coming in after the main events have happened. Hints appear in random places in the environment, like weird photos, boba recipes, employee journals. The environment could also be shifting over time, and the twist is that the space is being controlled by a larger entity. Gameplay is more focused on grappling, platforming, visual interaction with objects in an illusory world.
