Inspired by the indie game No, I’m Not a Human, my game expands on its core concept, where players must decide whether to admit individuals into their home, determining if they are human refugees or deadly monsters. However, my game takes place in Heian-era Japan during a "Yokai" outbreak, with yokai being supernatural creatures from Japanese folklore. In my game, these yokai skin humans alive, consume their flesh, and wear their skin to impersonate them and attract new victims. A distinctive feature of my game is the dialogue system: human characters will be voiced by real people, while yokai will be voiced by AI. This will challenge players to tell apart human voices from AI voices, offering a chilling exploration of the impact of voice AI in a haunting and immersive environment.
● Is primarily of age 13-25
● Enjoys anime-adjacent media
● Enjoys creepy fantasy games/ stories
Obviously, dialogue with NPCs will be a large aspect of the game. I need to make sure to design interesting characters that players would enjoy interacting with.
A large part of the game will be the mystery aspect. The player is surrounded by things that they don’t fully understand- mysterious yokai, characters with unclear motivations and contradictory backstories, and a level filled with clues and secrets to uncover. I want to capture the feeling of mystery, wonder, and unease that I get from reading stories about yokai and Japanese Ghost stories. A big part of the game will be the player slowly exploring the world around them and trying to understand it in order to survive.
The player is in a creepy environment surrounded by yokai that want to kill them. I would like to make the stakes of the game feel more real by having the player’s death and the yokai be scary.
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I know I want the game to be creepy, but I’m not entirely sure I want it to be horror. I feel that good horror is pretty hard to pull off, and I’m worried I won’t be able to pull it off and the game will just cringe.
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I think the concept of having non-human characters be voiced by AI and testing the player’s ability to differentiate their voices from human voice actors is very unique. I’m pretty certain there’s no game out there with the similar concept and mechanics.