Anthropophobia
Summary + info
Anthropophobia was developed as part of a school project over the course of 3 weeks by me.
The goal of the assignment was to create a unique level environment that had to have a fun and interactable game mechanic based on some sort of phobia.
Below is a simple timeline of important design decisions during the project.
Brainstorming
When I originally heard of the premise of the project I wanted to do a game that used liminal space. My mind started drifting to where we most commonly feel liminality, which to me felt like parking garages.
Going to the car in a parking garage from an event is the threshold-between where I feel the most vulnerable.
So I wanted to times that by 100x and make it invoke fear by having the player sneak through the hallways while being careful not to get detected. This is where the game got its namesake
Development
Designing
In order for the game to feel immersive to carefully walking through hallways I wanted the player not be able to just sprint past everything, and making sneaking a required mechanic.
I therefore designed two types of enemies to reinforce this. One that detects you in a small area around it and will start to chase you very quickly (faster than you are) unless you are sneaking, and one that has detects you at any range and chases you but is stopped by looking at them.
Result
The result was a game where careful navigation and intense concentration was required. Overall I’m happy on how it turned out. If I had more time I would spend it on fleshing out the environment and characters with more assets, which was holding the game back. Either way I think it accomplished what I set out to do which I am very content with.
It truly invoked the feeling of paranoia of strangers in a late night parking garage
