Under the Redwood Motel
ROLE
Game Designer
Overview
Under the Redwood Motel is what we like to call a Rhythm Survival Horror Game; an experimental project created as part of Scream Jam 2020.
Working with fellow developers, Hugh Kha and Tim McIlveen, we challenged ourselves with infusing traditional horror mechanics with rhythm elements, two genres we thought would be interesting to blend. With this basis and with clear inspirations from fixed camera angle PS1 titles such as Silent Hill and Resident Evil, we quickly landed on our projects scope, style, design, and core mechanic. Enemies in Under the Redwood Motel are special in that they are amalgamations of common noisy objects, such as telephones and televisions, and will rhythmically generate noise that disguises your footsteps, allowing you to sneak by.
My main responsibility here was to tackle all design goals and challenges present when making a nostalgic late 90s horror title with today’s design standards in mind, as well as the implementation of all systems supporting these core mechanics.
After establishing the core mechanics inherent to these titles such as movement, examining, and a basic puzzle and inventory system, work began on the enemy design, and more specifically the rhythm side of things.
Enemies were given a basic AI system to allow them to wander around and feel as if they were a part of the world. As well, I sought to ensure the combination of art, audio, and mechanic design all joined together well enough to inspire the player to attempt to sneak by these creatures under their notice.