"Midnight Dreary" - dev log #1

Hey, guys! As I mentioned in the previous post I'm starting a new project, called Midnight Dreary (so far). It will be a 2D survival horror game, with exploration and platforming elements.

It all began when I drew a random character to train my pixel art skills. A looked up some references to draw a young goth man, and this was the result:

It hasn't been long since I decided I wanted to make pixel art, so this was a rather simple design and it wasn't meant to be on a game. But an idea started growing in my head, and after testing with some visuals and thinking about some concepts, I decided to begin Midnight Dreary. The idea was to make a game with a somber atmosphere and a focus on goth culture (from the look of the characters to references to the subculture that would be present in the lore and in the environment). The biggest inspiration in the creation of the game is the dark urban/underground atmosphere present in games like Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines.

So the guy I just showed you became the protagonist and finally got a name: Edgar Thorn; a guitarist of a rock band and an exorcist (although not by choice, as it will be explained in the story). Then, I started to make a prototype of the game in RPG Maker, to define things like level design and the writing, using the placeholder assets that come with the engine, before I move the game to another one.

Since we're talking about goth subculture, Edgar Allan Poe's most famous poem, The Raven, also inspires a lot of moments in the game, including the name. The game will be divided into chapters, and each one will begin with an excerpt from the poem that is related to something that's going to happen in the chapter.

The story is set in a small and bleak town located on the top of a hill, called Omensvalley. It begins during the week of All Hallows' Eve, when a dreaded phenomenon happens in the city: the spirits of the dead come back from the grave to roam the Land of the Living, so the inhabitants spend this week locked in their homes until November 1st, when the spirits go away. Edgar receives a visit from Lenore, a Reaper, giving him the task to exorcise an especially troublesome haunting. So he has to venture across the town through alleyways and streets (where platforming will be present), while avoiding the attention of the different kinds of spirits he will encounter, sneaking past them to complete the exorcism, which not only involves a ritual, but also a number of tasks that will help the spirit find peace, like talking to characters and taking care of unfinished businesses.

As you probably realized, combat will not be very present in the game's mechanics, so the player will be forced to avoid confrontation most of the time. If the enemies are alerted of your presence, you'll have to run or make use of a feature that I'm still testing to see the best way to implement. However, you won't be able to use this "weapon" all the time, so stealth will still be the best course of action.

I intend to explain bits of the lore and character backstory through the Tomes feature. They will be documents that the player can unlock throughout the game and read to know more about All Hallows' Eve, the Reapers, or even Edgar's backstory, for example.

Something else I did so far was a quick placeholder art for the main menu:

It's probably going to be a very short game, since the art is a new challenge for me and I don't want to bite more than I can chew, but we'll see how it goes.