Dev Log - Jesse

As it was unanimously decided that we would make a horror game, I decided to test styles and monster concepts ahead of time - even if none of my ideas were used as their were, they would always serve as a base, or starting point when we started actually designing the game and it's story. I took a lot of inspiration from games and media with styles that I knew the group was aiming for, with a few other ideas of my own. I was happy with the base doodles, and plan to finalise them in the next day or so, though I couldn't work on them as much as I wanted, as I had work commitments.

Inspiration games:

Ib
OFF - Mortis Ghost
Undertale
Darkwood
Faith
Junji Ito

Today, we finalised the designs of the characters - as well as work closely with the programmer to plot the character mechanics, and with that information, I could start designing the levels. We have:

• The Screamer (follows you to scream at you, causes no in-game harm. Appears 3 times before vanishing)

• The Claw Boy (is stationary, and causes in-game harm, and there is three of him)

• Tentacle-Boy (is stationary, causes no in-game harm and does not intend to, and can be talked to. Openly friendly to the protagonist)

• Crawler (follows you sporadically and unpredictably, causes no in-game harm, but is consistent)

• The Nun (causes in-game harm by appearing out of nowhere to attack you, max of three times and then vanishing)

• The Nurse (causes no in-game harm and does not intend to, she is stationary, and heals the player, first when they visit her office, and then when they find her on the other side of the map. After that, she will vanish.

The list for Friendly and Enemy characters reads as below:

I designed the UI based on the requirements of the programmer, and added more aesthetic icons to fit with our theme. We only needed something basic - an icon for the Journal of the protagonist, and an icon to track the player's health. The bar across the bottom was for subtitles, as a game featuring a deaf protagonist, we wanted to make the game more accessible.

Today I worked on taking my rough floorplans and making them into working environments that our programmer could use as placeholders, but that still have the correct dimensions.

I ended up changing and switching the layout around in small amounts, but overall, I am happy with the first floor. I've finished half of the second floor - That can be finished tomorrow morning, and then I can start on the animations. The polish of backgrounds and assets can be done towards the end, but the animations are a must. I had to work that day, so this layout was done in the evening.