[categories]Game Ideas[/categories]

Spooky House

Adventure-style game that takes place in a haunted house. Around the mansion you can find key items that trigger different responses to examining locked doors and stuff.

There are common ghosts that will show up anywhere but some special ghosts require a specific bait in a specific place.

Each special ghost has a hint about what they want and what rooms they will appear in.

Story

There's a haunted house and you're working for professor E. Gadd's non-union equivalent. They needs you to go in and capture ghosts using your warding talisman because you're a species that can uniquely use it to capture ghosts. The scientist is able to suck the ghosts out of it and remove the bad juju from them, which levels up the talisman. This also makes them good again, and then they ascend to the afterlife. Special ghosts have dialogue before they ascend while common ghosts just shoot up one by one.

Hunting

To find ghosts, you put down bait (some kind of item to attract a ghost) and then go into another room. Holding the d-pad into the adjacent wall causes you to close your eyes and start listening. A text box describes what you're hearing. Sometimes the sounds are just some mice or a strong gust of wind but other times it's a ghost and each ghost has a corresponding noise it makes, but it's never explicit about what is making the noise, just how the noise sounds.

Some ghosts are easy to find and will always come for their baits no matter what room it's in while others have a required room as well. You can find these out by reading books and looking at paintings or by picking up on environmental cues such as putting the trophy in the fitness room.

If you're listening and think there's a ghost that you're looking for then you go into the door and it will be there. Raising the talisman starts a fight. If you can tell the sound is not a thing you want, then you can keep listening and wait for something else to come.

Figthing

When you fight a ghost it does attacks where it spawns projectiles around the room and you have to dodge them like undertale. Raising your talisman causes damage to the enemy but makes you slow so you can't dodge bullets as well. Projectiles can be parried if the talisman is raised right before you would have been hit, but you're vulnerable again when the parry window expires. Some attacks are homing and must be parried.

When you defeat the ghost it gets sucked into your talisman and it levels up which causes health to drain faster from further ghosts. You can grind weak ghosts to become strong enough to fight the really strong ghosts. If a ghost is too strong you can leave.

If you get hit your HP is reduced and if it reaches 0 you faint and the scientist saves you but you lose the ghosts you captured and have to basically restart the day. So if a ghost seems too hard you can usually leave back through the door and it usually won't follow you.

The house

The mansion is made up of a large number of rooms that each have a specific theme. Some of them are really small and have a fixed camera. Others are big enough for the camera to scroll. Objects can be "examined" like in an RPG and different things could happen based on your inventory, like if you hold a key then a locked cabinet will open and give you an item.

Shortcuts

There are secret shortcuts that go straight to important rooms like the aquarium.

Rooms

# Ground Floor

Parlor

courtyard

garden

graveyard

labratory

Den (accusation parlor)

servan't quarters

aquarium

bathroom

garage

coat room

ballroom

greenhouse

foyer

dining room

gravekeeper's shed

# Second Floor

Upper hall

master bedroom

Art gallery

baby room

observatory

bank vault

office

library

dovecot

janitor closet

boudoir

# Basement Floor

Basement Hall

Wine cellar

boiler room

storeroom

kitchen

# Unconnected

attic

Walk in closet

# Other ideas

mirror room

armory

Basic ghosts

Booser: Moves towards you at a speed where you'll be caught if you keep warding, but not if you stop and start. Speed and turn radius are configurable

Drifter: A booser variant so weak it just seems to drift stupidly. has a chance to spawn in every room.

Ghost attacks

Add a gem to self that will cause a heal next time warding stops so you have to ward for a minimum stretch of time or it will be helping the ghost too much.

Special ghost ideas

A ghost that you have to summon in one room and let it chase you to a specific other room before you can hurt it

A ghost vanishes at every damage threshold but gives a hint to what room they teleported to

gather enough teddy bears in the baby room to spawn the baby

plant a seed and water it multiple days in a row to grow a plant and spawn the gardener