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This year I've been trying to get back into game development as a hobby and as something for Halloween I tried to make a horror game. Its my first attempt at making anything in the horror genre and I'm pretty happy with what I made as a first attempt. Its a very short game, it only takes about 7 minutes to complete. The game is called Mære and in it you basically just have to lie in bed, shut your eyes and try to fall asleep whilst ghosts haunt you. The game has a fear mechanic where if you get haunted your fear level raises, the higher it is the harder it is to fall asleep so to make the fear meter drop you need to look out into the room and make sure the ghosts have all left so you can finally get some sleep. Obviously if you see a ghost this will boost the meter so you have to be careful where you look. Heres one of the ghosts you might encounter:  When I was making this game I wasn't sure if it'd really work because on paper a game about shutting your eyes and going to sleep doesn't sound like the most thrilling concept lol. Theres probably a reason noone has really made a Sleep-em-up before. When I was originally thinking about the idea I thought about having it so that the player can get up out of bed and explore the house. Maybe you hear some loud banging at your front door and have to walk across the house to check whats going on? In the end I stuck with just making the one room for now, but I guess I could expand on the idea next year if I felt like it. I thought about including an entity in the game that always watches you from the ceiling, so you'd look up to see them, and this would be how you'd gauge the fear meter as the entity would grow stronger the more activity is going on in the room. Eventually it would get strong enough to end the game but I couldn't really figure out how to make this work in a story context. If theres constantly something in the room with you it would diminish the looking around to check you're safe mechanic. Another thing I had to think a lot about was how dark to make the environment. I wanted to convey the feeling of staring out into a dark room at night trying to figure out whether that shape in the corner is a man or a pile of clothes. The issue there is you've then got to worry about different people's monitor settings and I'll throw my hands up and admit I'm not confident enough at this to code a brightness slider lol. So I tried to go for slightly more stylised graphics. I still managed to make it quite dark though. I think the darker graphics might have worked better with the original way I designed the ghosts which is that they would mostly be shadows. I don't know which one would have ultimately worked better. Original ghost design  Final ghost design  When the player falls asleep they have dreams. These are photos I took with a GameBoy Camera app with creepy writing over them lol. The moon for example is a photo of the inside of a beer glass that had been half drank and the flares coming off of it are the foam that remained on the sides. Picture of "the moon"  The game is free and playable in your web browser if you want to check it out. It doesn't work on mobile unfortunately because you need to use a keyboard to play. Play on Itch - Play on Newgrounds Does anyone else here make games or have an interest in making horror games? If so I'd love to see what you've been making.
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Oct 24, 2023 09:36
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Nice job! I played through it and you definitely nailed the creepiness! I'm not sure if you can "fail" but I definitely felt on edge as intended enough that it probably didn't matter. Thanks for making it and sharing it Chris!
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Oct 24, 2023 10:01
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Thanks! Yeah theres no actual fail state in the game because I couldn’t really think of a way to do that without it being a bit too cheesy. It seemed a bit silly to get so scared that you die for example. My friend told me it might be better to think of the game as more of a “ride” or “experience” than a game where there are win and lose states and I think in that sense it works.
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Oct 24, 2023 11:17
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Agreed that it is more like an "experience" like you said. I guess it being prefaced with "it takes about 7 minutes to complete" had me thinking more like there was an endgame goal, as opposed to just kind of going with it. That's not a complaint, just my misconceptions, which really didn't diminish the experience at all. Anyhow, well done like I said, and thanks! For anyone interested, the screenshots look a bit darker than it is, it's pretty much spot on for what it is trying to accomplish, at least in my opinion. Also, I appreciate that for a smaller type thing that it was playable right in your browser, if I had to download it on steam or something I might have not bothered, so, I'd recommend it to anyone reading this!
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Oct 24, 2023 15:01
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I agree on the browser thing. I used to make games back in the days of Flash and then took about a 10 year break from making them for different reasons. Eventually when I tried to get back in Flash was long gone and I just found it hard to get back into because the scene had moved on so much that I found it hard to get back to grips with. I also realised that if I was trying to make long ambitious games I'd either lose interest or just not finish anything because the scope grew out of proportion. Which is why these days I try to just make short manageable games with a quick relatively fast around. As you say games like this I wouldn't expect people to make the effort to download them or pay for anything. So I try to stay exclusively browser based.
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Oct 24, 2023 16:25
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This was a lot of fun and you got me to jump a couple times. I'm in a brightly lit room in the middle of the day and it still made me nervous. ----------------
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Oct 24, 2023 19:08
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Excellent game! I like the mechanic of "take a quick peek-NOPE". I also made a... well, it's an anti-horror game but it has some spoopy elements to it and I did it for this year's Spooktober Visual Novel Game Jam. My game can be found here: https://itch.io/jam/spooktober-2023/rate/2282301 Any other goons make a horror or horror-adjacent game? I guess I'm officially a Visual Novel author now:
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Oct 24, 2023 19:49
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Chrs posted:Thanks! Yeah theres no actual fail state in the game because I couldn’t really think of a way to do that without it being a bit too cheesy. It seemed a bit silly to get so scared that you die for example. My friend told me it might be better to think of the game as more of a “ride” or “experience” than a game where there are win and lose states and I think in that sense it works. I just thought of something and figured I'd share it. Instead of a 'fail state', I would suggest that the player has a set amount of time to sleep before the sun rises, and the amount of sleep you were able to get during the night impacts how well you do during the day, so rather than the haunting killing you it just wrecks your quality of life. The daytime loop would deal with the repercussions of your sleep quality, and if it's really bad you could fall asleep at a critical moment such as while driving and that's how you game over. If you wanted a win-state, I'd suggest something like during research during the day that lets you deal with the situation, with an ultimate win/lose situation being if you deal with the ghost or something happens during the day to cause a serious accident. That's a lot more work though, but just in case you wanted ideas about expanding it I figured I'd drop it here. I guess I'm officially a Visual Novel author now:
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Oct 24, 2023 19:59
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Smik posted:Excellent game! I like the mechanic of "take a quick peek-NOPE". I was writing one in ADRIFT during the lockdown, but it never got finished
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Oct 25, 2023 01:58
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Rags to Liches posted:I was writing one in ADRIFT during the lockdown, but it never got finished What was it gonna be like, if you can't post? I guess I'm officially a Visual Novel author now:
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Oct 25, 2023 02:40
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Smik posted:Excellent game! I like the mechanic of "take a quick peek-NOPE". I'm downloading this now and will give it a play hopefully tonight. The art style looks really cool. It looks like I might be allowed to rate this for the jam too as the options are there but I haven't tried it yet. Your ideas for how poor sleep can affect your wellbeing the next day are really interesting. That'd actually be a really cool and realistic way of implementing something like that as as I say "The ghost got you" just felt a bit too cheesy for my tastes. I actually had a well-being system in a game I made earlier this year called Robot Factory, in that you work in a factory and each month you have to choose how to spend your wages whilst rising inflation makes things cost more. Then if you have low well-being because you didn't eat well for example you get less time to do the work portion of the game to simulate your character not being able to focus, which means you might perform worse and get fired. Rags to Liches posted:I was writing one in ADRIFT during the lockdown, but it never got finished What was it about?
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Oct 25, 2023 11:17
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Smik posted:What was it gonna be like, if you can't post? You were going in to explore your old family estate that had fallen into disrepair and take care of getting it ready to sell off, but the ghosts of your ancestors want the estate to stay within the family because there's old family secrets that are best left buried. I couldn't really figure out how to make it fun, but I might revisit it since I think there's a story there I can write.
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Oct 26, 2023 04:24
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Rags to Liches posted:You were going in to explore your old family estate that had fallen into disrepair and take care of getting it ready to sell off, but the ghosts of your ancestors want the estate to stay within the family because there's old family secrets that are best left buried. So after hearing that synopsis of "the ghosts of your ancestors want the estate to stay within the family" my mind immediately went to the ghosts of your ancestors trying to hook you up so you'd get married and realize the estate would be a great place to raise a family. Like there's still dark secrets there but the ghosts are more concerned with retaining the home and also you giving them an heir. I guess I'm officially a Visual Novel author now:
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Oct 26, 2023 06:04
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Smik posted:So after hearing that synopsis of "the ghosts of your ancestors want the estate to stay within the family" my mind immediately went to the ghosts of your ancestors trying to hook you up so you'd get married and realize the estate would be a great place to raise a family. Like there's still dark secrets there but the ghosts are more concerned with retaining the home and also you giving them an heir. Yeah, either that or a co-op mode where it’s a young couple inheriting one person’s family estate and the ghosts are basically vetting the other person to make sure they’re worthy of the family and their secrets. Dunno how well a co-op mode would play in ADRIFT though
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Oct 26, 2023 07:18
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 My game did really well in the game jam it was entered into. Host's choice and 2nd place for best horror game.
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Oct 31, 2023 10:57
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Chrs posted:
Congratulations! It really is a great game and well deserving of a high place. 
I guess I'm officially a Visual Novel author now:
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Oct 31, 2023 20:17
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