Hanwen Xu – Concept Proposal Sketch

I want to make a first-person (might change) adventure game. The atmosphere will spooky, and the game will have some classic horror game tropes, but at the end of the day, nothing is frightening at all.

The game is based on one of my childhood experiences. The player is a student who left his homework (or whatever) at his classroom and returns to school at night to fetch it. However, the windows and doors are locked. The player must find a way to get in. The player can navigate through a hallway and a bathroom to find tools to break in. At some point in the middle, the player will unlock one toilet stall, which teleports the player to a world with walking toilets. The color will shift from dark to shiny, smooth, and bright. And there will be walking toilets in the hallway. You are teleported to a toilet school. And that will be the end of the game.

The game will take place in a classic western school hallway.

The hallway, bathroom, classroom, and the bathroom world version of the hallway will be the 4 main locations in the game.
Make a Positive Impact by Updating Your School Bathrooms
The interior will be very similar to this reference picture. But I also want to blend it with some classic school horror game environments. Such as:
Silent Hill, Midwich Elementary School | Silent hill, Silent, 3d artist
Nath on Twitter: "First person Midwich Elementary School from SH1  https://t.co/ToYgk5k9iF" / Twitter
Midwich Elementary School from Silent Hills

レトルト「本当にのめり込んでプレイした作品」『トワイライトシンドローム』【ホラゲレビュー百物語】
トワイライトシンドローム 探索編 その3 | こっそり積みゲー日記
Twilight Syndrome
Detention APK for Android Download
Detention, Red Candle Games' deeply unsettling horror game, creeps onto iOS  and Android | Pocket Gamer
Detention

I want to make the first half of the gameplay set a horrifying atmosphere and foreshadow something terrible is happening in the school. The school at night will be dark and quiet. And the school itself will look somewhat old. There is no specified time for this game. If I have to say, it is probably around 2010 or so. When all the tension builds up, the player opens the forbidden bathroom stall…

And he gets teleported to the world of bathroom.

The hallway will have the same structure, but it will look like the interior of a bathroom. The wall will become mosaic or tiles, and there will be towels and paper towels here and there. Maybe the entrance to the classroom will be replaced by a toilet partition door. Also, there will be walking toilets along the hallway to live it up. Different from the dark tone. I want to make everything white and shiny to give a sheer contrast. The two experience goals are to scare the player at first and surprise them eventually. It starts as a horror game and turns itself into something dumb.

For the horror game/ film tropes, I will definitely go for bloody hand prints on the wall.
And breaking mirror jumpscares.
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In this way, the main character will not be able to see himself in the bathroom mirror (since it’s broken), so I can save the work of fully making and rigging the main character. I can only make the hands and arms (if I want to see them. In the end, I might just make the main character a walking camera) for the first-person view.

Overall, I want to go for a realistic art style. And hopefully, I can attract some horror game enthusiasts and give them a fun time. And I want to keep the scope small and manageable so that I can make sure every single scene in the game will end up looking finished and well-polished. And I really want to make the toilet movement smooth and believable.

3 Comments Add yours

  1. Kirsten says:

    I really love this concept, it’s so specific, fun, and silly that I can’t wait to see more. The idea of going from a terrifying horror environment to something as silly as “toilet world” is incredible and I love it. I also love that you took inspiration from a real life experience of yours! How old will the student be, are they a high schooler, middle schooler, or an elementary schooler? I think having a young child could be fun, so you can scale the player down in size to make everything a bit bigger from the child’s POV.

    1. Han says:

      Definitely from a child’s POV. I want everything to be at a child’s play level, so a teenager might be too old for the setting/

  2. Conor says:

    This is definitely a unique concept to say the least, I was cracking up reading your pitch and I can’t wait to see it in action. My question is, do you plan on making the toilets having jumpscares? I bet you could play around with the lid opening and closing and the toilet flushing.

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