Poppet
Project Information
Team Size | 4
Engine | Godot
Duration | Ongoing
Game Jam | Ludum Dare 56
Jam Theme | Tiny Creatures
Summary
Poppet is a first person horror game where as self-employed paranormal exorcist, you use a combination of investigative tools and deduction skills to identify the nature of malevolent spirits possessing poppets before the entities become too powerful to control.
The game was originally made for Ludum Dare 56, but afterwards the team decided to continue development of the game.
Experience
As a Technical Designer and Level Designer on the project I was responsible for the design and implementation of gameplay features and levels. This process involved me initially focusing on establishing our core loop and core gameplay mechanics, then afterwards shifting my focus to defining metrics, then creating the level layout.
When creating the initial design of the game we intended for the game to be a fast-paced race against the ghost, where you have to kill it before it kills you. Designing our core loop was based around this core pillar, which then heavily influenced the design of our gameplay features. We needed ways to deduce the ghost that aligned with our fast-paced, condense gameplay while still demanding attention enough where each action is a crucial time investment the player chooses to make.
The level design is also encouraging this fast-paced, stressful yet exciting loop. Keeping the level small and dense allows the player to focus more on the deductions rather than traversal. The intent is to have the game be essentially a horror puzzle experience, where you are managing devices and observing behavior to make rapid life or death decisions, not to wander around a large map slowly collecting clues. The original level being a single room worked extremely well during playtesting and we aim to continue that condensed experience into the future.
Impact
This was my first ever Godot project, and I was surprised at how much I loved using the engine. It was new yet familiar, as there are many similarities with Unity, especially with the coding language GDScript. The node based architecture that you create scenes with is very intuitive to use, and it was easy to pick up.
I also have always wanted to create a horror game! As a horror fan myself, creating an experience intended to make the player scared was super enjoyable. It’s an interesting emotion to tap into when designing games, as it evokes excitement in a completely different way than projects I was used to working on. The style of game we also created being a fast-paced experience really made the game feel unique as well; players rushing to try and deduce the ghosts to avoid certain death created a very tense and engaging experience.
