Dance-mat Horror Game
Group project: 2 Artists, 1 Designer, 1 Developer - December 2023 until January 2024With this project our goal was to create a game which combines the real and digital world for a game. This became an arcade horror where the player uses a dance-mat to escape a monster in an arcade.
Highlights
For the project we tested different types of feedback. Positive against negative to see what worked better for our game.
Based on those sticky notes we individually created concepts which we pitched to each other.
From that we chose a concept and me and one other designer made a short design doc thinking out all systems.
Final Game Concept SummaryThe goal of the game is to escape from an arcade while being chased by a monster. You can do this by walking in a grid to the beat of music. With a dance-mat as controller. The controls work as follows:
Here the player moves one step forward.
The player can perform a kick by jumping on both the left and right button.
A kick can open up pathways, but makes noise which attracts the monster
This is because there were a lot of straight hallways and big open areas.
The level could get a complete redesign where you use the turn more and add situations where the kick and backwards steps are more useful.
Or the movement system needs an overhaul where it’s more interesting to move around.
Level DesignAfter making the overall concept I focused on level design:
Player starts in a bathroom (bottom right) introducing the movement and kicking of doors in a safe environment.
The player is then confronted with a choice of either going through the playground or the arcade. The playground is faster but the monster notices you earlier. The arcade is safer but takes longer.
First you can only move straight,
then you can turn left and right
and finally we introduce the kick at the end of the tutorial.
This is the final design of the level. All red squares are points the player can stand. Notice the long hallways and open areas.