Created for my thesis exploring mental illness and horror games. Explores anxiety and compulsive behavior through the lens of a horror game.
In this game, I designed around a few chosen horror game tropes: jump scares and third-person fixed-angle cameras being the main ones. I wanted to utilize these genre staples to represent what living with a mental illness is like.
I used jump scares by not using jump scares. Players have begun to expect jump scares in horror games, so I counted on those expectations to build anxiety around when a jump scare may happen.
The third-person fixed-angle camera is used sparingly when the player character becomes more distressed. It is meant to represent depersonalization in moments of extreme anxiety and stress.
The game as a whole represents the experience of suffering from insomnia and compulsive behaviors.
Programmer, Writer, Designer
Created in Unity
2020
Download on itch.io