So I actually really like to read stuff about horror, horror game mechanics and just horror design in general. It helps me get new ideas about how things work and what I can do to make things work, especially now that I’m making my own horror game. And somehow, I ended up writing this essay-y rant type of thing that’s pretty much just me putting out some thoughts about my own game’s development and also horror games in general? Oh well, maybe it’ll help me sort out my thoughts so I can continue with development.

(this turned out longer than expected, oops)

Anyways, let me first talk about the collectibles of the game:

Each chapter has its own collectible for you to, well, collect, and by collecting all of each chapter, you’ll unlock a bonus scene that you can view later. Aside from these four specifics there’s another one I’m calling ‘Lingering Thoughts’ which are certain specific notes to collect through all of the game from people who went through the same ordeal as our six protagonists. Still no idea if this will unlock something or not, and so far, these are the only types of collectibles to hopefully add some replayability along with the different endings you can get. (Maybe I could have added a difficulty select, but now it’s too late for me to start thinking about implementing that, oops)


(You can see your collectibles through the pause menu.)

Now, about puzzles, I’m kinda... just literally making things up as I go along. I tried to have at least one or two ‘major puzzles’ per chapter (aka the more difficult ones) along with a few easier and medium ones to try create a balance (so that it won’t be too hard to the point of the player giving up on the game, nor too easy to the point that there is no challenge). I also tried not having puzzles that rely on ‘trial and error’ much because they can get pretty frustrating, and I’ve been trying to scatter clues and hints about the puzzles throughout the areas so it’s not just guessing work. It’s working so far in my mind, haha, but I still need to have testers to tell me if it actually works (but that will come later). I would still love some feedback on the puzzles of the demo tho *wink* *wink*


(To press or not to press, that is the question.)

Also!! I’ve been trying to make most puzzles have something to do with the overarching storyline, like symbolism and all that stuff, but not to the point where it’s too obvious. Like, I hope people won’t get what it means on the first run, but looking back at it they might ‘oooh that’s what it meant’. The question remains, though: will I be successful in doing this? :oo

And finally, about horror stuff.


You know, stuff.

These days I went back to playing Fatal Frame 2 and one of the main things I (re)noticed is how it uses atmosphere and sound effects to make things scary and doesn’t rely 99% of the time on jumpscares, which ended up making me remember what I was going for with this game. Like, I’m betting everything on the atmosphere here and if it doesn’t work, I’m screwed, haha. Sound effects, strange noises in the distance, things that you can’t explain and all of them shenanigans, I’m trying to have them all (but not too much). Maaaaybe there’s a jumpscare here or there to get the blood pumpin’ but the more jumpscares a game has, the less effective they become and they start becoming an annoyance.

Also!! Making things unpredictable. From my own experience, a big of the horror comes from not knowing what’s coming next, if the next time you walk through a door a monster is going to pop out at you, or when you’re walking through an area you’ve been through before and then suddenly something different happens. And that’s something I’ve been trying to incorporate in my game.

(Fun fact! I was playtesting my game after a long time without doing so and I ended up scaring myself because I forgot that one event was there. Twice. Does that mean it works...?)

Of course, this is kinda my first game so I’m still discovering things as I go along (there was another project I started before this one but that one was mostly scrapped and it ended up becoming this game anyway, so) and only time will tell if I was able to accomplish everything I set out to do.

Also I swear this started as something about collectibles and then it sort of became a mini rambly essay?? oops

here have a screenshot

First things first, I finally set up a proper YT channel for Playground shenanigans! I reuploaded the first teaser and the animated cutscene there, and to start things off I also uploaded the new version of the main theme along with the new main menu! This isn’t necessarily the definite version, but it’s an improvement.




Besides that, I was doing some revising of the dialogue and long story short, there have been some changes. Mostly when it comes to Eri, I felt her personality was a bit… bland, so I changed it up.

Now she’s an angry little thing and it’s really fun writing for her



I’ve been thinking of uploading a new version of the demo for the sake of the changed dialogue, but I’m not exactly sure. Like, if you’ve played the current demo, playing this potential new version wouldn’t really be any different save for some dialogue and some change on maps, but everything else is pretty much the same, hence why I’m still considering.

Here are three new screenshots of the beginning of the game, as in, the school before everything goes to hell. If you've played the demo you'll probably notice what's different (it's not much, but still). I've also updated the screenshots of the images page here.



- the storage room of the start is now pretty different





- there are NPCs around the school that you can talk to now :D

Besides that (again), have some doodles of the characters that I did in class and colored (shaded?) them up a bit in Photoshop:




It’s essentially the characters wearing different versions of the school uniform (except Takashi who’s just being silly wearing his tie on his head) and doing various things. Eri who is in the archery club, Daichi who still wears his scarf in the middle of the summer despite being incredibly hot (he insists it has a special meaning but doesn’t really explain), Miyu who is constantly seen eating snacks in the middle of class and getting in trouble for it, Akane wearing the school’s gym clothes due to being a member of the track and field club and Katsu holding his school jacket because it was too hot and instead of being a normal person and forgetting the jacket at home, he instead forgot to leave his jacket at home (Akane doesn’t understand how he managed to do that).

Yay for useless character trivia while working out their personalities an trying to come up with puzzles for the rest of chapter 3!

While development of the actual game has been a little slower than before, I have actually been doing new stuff and trying new things c:

Such as this animated cutscene!

After doing some thinking about how to handle the normal school/nightmare school transition (when the clock hits 4:01 and everything goes to hell, basically), instead of having the weird and abrupt one you see in the demo, I thought ‘why not animate it’?

So this is (the first version of) Playground’s first animated cutscene! I don’t know whether there’ll be more of them, though, considering I have no experience with animation whatsoever (and I’m still working out how to properly put it in the game, oops). So I might just stick with the old ‘static images as cutscenes’ thing.

Meanwhile, I'll go back to trying to finish the third chapter. I'm almost halfway through. Almost. I swear.

I fixed the bugs that were reported to me, and the demo should now be good to go.

If you find any errors, contact me! :> Meanwhile, here's a walkthrough for the demo if you get stuck.