Break out of your head (booyh), is a 1st person indie horror game (prototype). It was created as a time limited work order from SRH school. The keywords were “source of danger, fear, getting lost, labyrinth, ruins” with free assets from the Unity Asset Store.
First, the player must break out of a prison cell and find a way out of the dungeon maze. However, this is made more difficult by enemies moving through the labyrinth.
Secondly, the game tells of depression, which the title suggests. The prison cells hint at the “hole” in which the depressive patients are stuck.
The ghosts represent the negative thoughts, situations in everyday life and all the bad things that throw the player back into the “hole” again and again. The labyrinth stands for the long tangled path of healing.
In the end an opponent gives the player the choice: Either suicide by jumping off the cliff or …
… healing by stepping into the light.
Focus:
This prototype focuses mainly on the level design and less on programming. So far only the player movement, enemy AI movement, scene change, gates and doors, player can “die”, UI elements and object fade-ins on triggers are programmed. The game was programmed in C#.
Control:
WASD for movement, E for interaction, spacebar for jumping, mouse for viewing direction and esc to show the menu.
What is still planned:
Collect the letters. So far you can only read them, but this has no influence on the player. The plan is that the letters, depending on what you find, will influence the mood of the virtual player.
The same applies to being caught by the enemies. The more often they send the player back to the cell, the more negative the state of mind should become. The state of mind should strongly influence the choice of suicide or healing in the end.
There’s a boss room, but unfortunately no interaction with it yet. A boss fight is still planned in any case.
Story dialogues or inner monologue. I would like to add more text to the game. The letters were a small solution in the beginning to bring more story into the game but, I would also like to have some kind of inner monologue of the player. E.g. when he sees an enemy that he thinks “oh dear, that’s dangerous!” or when he reads a letter “the letter gives me hope/ I’m depressed”, etc.
Upgrading and embellishing the levels. Self-created assets like walls and decoration. Also much bigger and more labyrinths, new rooms and more enemies, which also have different abilities like walking through walls, short stunning of the player etc.
