Sleepless Night

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Originaltitel	Sleepless Night
Studio	(parenthesis)
Genre	Horror

Sleepless Night ist ein Spiel vom Team (parenthesis).

Links

• Pr-Page: Link zur PR-Page des Spiels
• Repository: Github for Sleepless Night
• Projektplanung: Link zum Projektplan

Rollen und Aufgaben im Team

The Team behind Sleepless Night consists of 6 skilled individuals. Departments of the Team Members only signifies who will be in charge of this section, meaning primarily research, design choices and last quality control before shipping. The work in these sections will be split equally among the Sleepless Night Team Members.

• Lisa Bayr: Lead Artist Room Design/Level Design

In charge of designing the room in which the game takes place, positioning the spawns of the monsters and the 3D modelling of the room assets.

• Chuong Bui: Lead Artist Monster Design/Transformation Design

In charge of the creation of the enemies and their transformation from normal objects into monsters, the 3D modelling and rigging of the creatures and the player character.

• Lea Obermair: Lead Artist UI Design and Story writer

In charge of the design of User Interface during gameplay, loading screens and title menu. Additionally in charge of writing story elements and narrative.

• Stephanie Schattauer aka. Ki: Lead Sound Design/Music

In charge of the theme and creation of sound effects, atmospheric sounds, and music.

• Elisa Hackl: Lead Designer Gameplay

In charge of creating and balancing the gameplay mechanics, playtesting and ensuring player “fun”.

• Gerald Gruber: Lead Programmer and Project Management

In charge of writing and implementing code, fixing bugs, managing team meetings and organisation of documentation.

Vision Statement

Sleepless Night is a survival/horror game, in which you take the role of a little girl lying awake in her bed and defend yourself against the terrors that lurk in the shadows with your rechargeable flashlight. The Player is stationary during the whole game and has to survive managing his/her flashlight charge until the timer runs out.

Story

The main character of Sleepless Night is a young girl, who is plagued by sleeplessness. At night, the objects in her dark room transform into monsters, which can only be stopped by directing her flashlight at them. But the battery of the flashlight is not endless, so from time to time you have to be brave enough to crawl under your blanket and manually recharge it. In Sleepless Night, the story is only a subtle feature instead of a significant component. Therefore, the player can go through the game without paying attention to the story, but also has the option to really reflect on the few snippets of storyline throughout the game, and take the gaming experience to a deeper level. The underlying story is being indicated through around three cutscenes with text, which do not explicitly give the player a clear idea of what it is all about, but rather encourage to interpret the story themself.

Spielemechaniken

base mechanics

• look: The player is stationary, sitting on the bed. You can look around the room the room to see different objects.
• turn: You can turn around in your bed to see either side of the room, in front of the bed or under the bed.
• point: You can use the flashlight to look around the room and point it at objects or monsters.
• recharge: When the flashlight battery runs out, it needs to be recharged.

additional mechanics

• flashlight: The flashlight is your weapon against the monsters. In the beginning the player needs to charge the flashlight once. When the light is on, the battery will run out over time. The player needs to go under the blanket to recharge the battery. Monsters are killed by pointing the flashlight at them.
• lightning: There is a storm outside and occasional lightning strikes will illuminate the whole room for a short time. This helps the player to get an overview of the room and spot monsters.
• safe space: The player has a safe space under the blanket, to recharge the flashlight battery and hide from monsters. The player cannot be attacked while under the blanket, but the monsters can move around freely.

game design

As the player, you are sitting in your bed, checking the room for furniture that might turn into monsters. The room is dark and you can look around using a flashlight. To kill the monsters, you need to point your flashlight at it. Occasionally, the flashlight battery will run out and needs to be recharged under the blanket. While under the blanket, you cannot see the room or monsters outside but you cannot be attacked. However, the monsters will transform and move freely while you’re not looking. The monsters will try to reach you and move closer to you. Once a monster has reached the bed, it will attack. If you don’t manage to defeat the monster now, it will kill you and the game is over.

monster behaviour

Furniture and objects in the room can turn into monsters but they will only do so in the dark. If the player suspects a specific object to be a monster and keeps the flashlight on it, it will not transform. If the player tries to catch a monster mid-transformation, it will turn back into an object as well. Once a monster has successfully transformed, it will eventually start to move around. Monsters can only be killed while they are standing still, moving monsters caught by the flashlight will again disguise as objects. There is only one chance to kill a monster with the flashlight while its moving, which is when a monster has reached the bed and is attacking the player. If the player catches the monster with the flashlight, it is killed. Else, the player is killed.

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  Game mechanics

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  Monster behaviour

Level Design

As the played character is stationary and can't move outside of the bed, the level design consists of one room (and one level). It is the child´s bedroom, although it looks quite different than what the child is used to. The player will find themselves in a bed in the middle of a large room, where they can't really make out the size of the room due to lack of lights. This room is supposed to give the player an uneasy and tense feeling, which will be achieved with dark colors, a creaking floor, old stuffed animals and many objects that you can easily mistake for monsters. The wallpaper is torn and there are mysterious scratches and writings on the wall. In addition to that, the door is left open so the player can see into the dark corridor, where more danger awaits.

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  Reference 1.0

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  Reference 1.1

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  Reference 1.2

Enemy Design

Description

• Based on the game’s story and mechanic, the enemies (monsters/ ghosts) should be designed in the direction of a combination between psychological and biological horror.
• The enemies will have enough mystery elements (through silhouette, movement, and surrounding objects) which will be combined with sound and level design to create unstable feelings and insecurity for the player and keep them in a state of alert during the game.
• Monsters will also have a certain level of detail (body shapes, expressions, functions) to scare and surprise the player in a encounter. The design complexity increases in game’s phases and will be matched with the panic scale (discomfort, fear of losing control, fear of dying etc.).

References & Sketches

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  Game references

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  References for biological horror

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  References for psychological horror

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  Sketches for monsters

Sound Design

Ziel des Sound Designs ist eine immersive experience. Eingesetzt werden sollen Foley und diskrete Hintergrundmusik, zusammen mit auditiven Halluzinationen (scheinbar unzusammenhängende, random abgespielte Sounds, die zu einem allgemeinen Gefühl der Unsicherheit beitragen sollen) und auf jedes Monster abgestimmte Geräusche. Hinzu kommen noch title screen music, game over- oder clicking sounds - diese werden abgestimmt auf das UI und die allgemeine Stimmung des Spiels.

User Interface

For Sleepless Night, we decided to keep the UI during the gameplay as discreet as possible in order not to disrupt the horror experience and to allow the player to really immerse into the setting. The menu screen is kept rather simple for the same reason.

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  First UI draft

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  First menu draft

Asset-Liste

Assets

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