I received the inspiration for this game from a newspaper article and I thought the story of the mismatched twins could be an interesting topic to expand and explore. The single player mode in overcooked inspired me to do a shift -between-twin-characters mechanism, and the rest of the gameplay, search and find in a time range, is majorly based on the storyline.
SHOWCASE
Endings
The game has seven endings, depending on the items collected by the players within the time limit. Most of them are intended to make logical sense and are hilarious in essence. For example, I have the Addams ending if the player is caught—the family secret is never discovered!
Dialogue
I used Fungus for the narrative panels. There are only brief dialogues at the start of the game to introduce the players to the background story and act as a tutorial. I focused on how I wanted my narrative to promote the witty feel of the game.
Investigation System
Searching is one of the most predominant features in this game, and I attempt to make it as juicy as possible. The players are not given many hints during the game, and they have to be extra careful with the positions of the parents as enemies. In order to achieve the best ending, the player has to literally look everywhere.
Inventory
The inventory design was fun to create. I wanted it to somehow resemble a clue board where the items being collected aren't merely names. The players could identify each item and examine the details. In other words, my inventory interface leads the players to discover the truth even without confirming it with the endings.
Game play
The game mechanisms are fairly straightforward: the player needs to control two individual characters to secretly search the house for clues. They have to complete their investigation within a time limit while keeping away from their parents’ eyes. Although there are two characters involved in the game play, the player has only one set of keys as controllers, which means they can’t control both characters simultaneously, and need to constantly shift between the characters. The AI parents who act like enemies in the game are designed to switch between rooms randomly; the players have to be cautious and use both characters to attract them to designated rooms to avoid being caught. To add in some difficulty to the game, I added a timer so that the players could plan their adventures accordingly.The searchable objects are predetermined and are in place to support the narratives.
Narrative
The story unfolds with the game tutorial, and thereafter comes with the gameplay ( through no block of text). There are seven different endings depending on the objects discovered by the players. The discoverable objects range from wedding photos to newspapers; my intention is to make all the combinations make logical sense.
Challenges and improvements
Although I achieved my primary goal in this game, the scope is smaller than I had intended as it only lasts for 5 minutes and the replayability is low. There’s not much to the gameplay except from luring the parents into adequate rooms, I would love to implement mini puzzle games into the search process. In addition, I’d like to use a better AI for the parents as they now only move along a certain path instead of selecting the quickest path available.
