Game Still in Development

21 Ways to Die

Creation

21 Ways to Die is my sole creation and passion project. I wanted to direct and design a full game to put on my portfolio that was easy to program and do art for (cause I'm a designer) that could be developed solely by me. I was playing a lot of horror at the time and I thought to myself how cool it would be if the characters in Five Nights at Freddy’s killed you on screen and if you weren’t restricted to one area. So I wanted to make an evolution of the games that I loved while also evolving on other horror ideas. While designing 21 Ways to Die I took the approach of ICO and specifically the design by subtraction and I went out to make a very short, focused game. Specifically I wanted the game to have first person kills that weren’t cutscenes and didn’t feel scripted and have the ability to walk around and explore an area. And that’s 21 Ways to Die was born.

Team Size: 1 then 3 but currently TBD

Role: Creator, Director, Gameplay Designer, Level Designer

Gameplay Teaser

Game Overview

21 Ways to Die is a first person horror game that is based around brutal first person kills with no camera cuts and exploring a mysterious facility. The best way I could describe this game is Pac-Man in first-person, but a horror game with first person kills. There are about 15 levels in the game where you are put in a randomly generated maze where monsters try to hunt you down and kill you and need to flip switches in order to uncover the door to progress to the next level. Some levels add new mechanics or new monsters. Additionally at the end of every level you get to read a paper file that contains information about the facility and the monsters.

Even though it might seem like a horror game I would really say that 21 Ways to Die is focused on discovery. You learn late in the game that the monsters are actually a corrupted and mutated family of 4 normal people. The monsters and their kills are centered around the characters personality, interests, but mainly their insecurities. So you learn about their backstory, what happened, why they turned into the specific creatures that they did. Ironically enough for a system/level designer, I see this discovery as the driving force or the bread crumbs that makes the player keep playing along with the simple focused maze gameplay. Discovering the 21 ways to die, learn more about these monsters, the facility, and see what happens in the story.

Concept/Overview

I worked on the design of this game for a few months. Eventually I started work on one of the characters. Eventually I learned how to model a decent looking character. But I also learned that while I could just learn how to do everything and probably make this game by myself, it would be kind of a waste to try to master other skills when other people have already mastered them. In order to save time and create a better product I very recently decided to hire people. But I am still the creator and I intend to still direct and design the entire game myself.