Hi there, we are new to the Itch community!

For the past few months we have been working on a first-person, story-driven, exploration puzzle game. The idea is that you find yourself alone outside a locked building. You cannot
enter, or leave the grounds. Through exploring and solving puzzles you (the character) trigger story fragments (as 2d hand-drawn animations). Gradually you remember who you are, and why you are here. But you discover more than that: things long forgotten. Will you be stuck here forever? Can you face your fears, and learn from your mistakes?

INSPIRATION

We were influenced by Schism 1 and the Myst series, and wanted to make a game in that tradition but with a stronger psychological tone. We first started working on the project in Bulgaria, which inspired us a lot: Communist architecture, Soviet equipment and design, the wild forest… These elements have worked their way into the game. We want to make a game that is quite introspective and personal, about an everyday sort of person, and some of the barriers to our own happiness we can put in place, sometimes without even realising. Sometimes our fears are not loud and dramatic, but slow and barely-perceptible. We hope to raise some questions about the choices we make, the people we become, and how we can change gradually over time without noticing. You might not get much of a feel of this from the demo, as the story builds gradually.

We also wanted the puzzles to be in the world for a reason, but we can’t reveal their purpose without spoiling the game!

There will be key memory objects you need to trigger to progress through the game, but there will be other artefacts (without any associated animation) for those who are interested to learn more of the story background.

WHAT WE HAVE DONE SO FAR
We have done a lot of research for the setting and story, and have finished the story and the plan for the levels (there are 7).
We built all the assets and graphics on our own, apart from some floor and ceiling textures which were edited to match the environment - but we are working on making these from scratch with Substance Designer
We created hand-drawn menus and start scene (though the load option isn’t working yet)
We have designed the memory objects, and are now working on the storyboards for the memories they trigger. We have the design for the key rooms and settings, and some of the key puzzles.
We have a demo of our first level ready!!!

MAKING OF DEMO
We are using Adventure Creator, this tool is very useful! It is interesting and helpful to use visual scripting, but we think that it might be quite slow for puzzle mechanics for example.

THINGS WE CHANGED BASED ON ITERATION AND FEEDBACK
In earlier versions, we were told our puzzles were too difficult to solve, so we made the clues easier. We hope they are the right level of difficulty now (we are Schism 1 fans :P)

We have also tried to improve other elements of gameplay. Most of the elements required to progress to the next level were all in the boiler room. So we built a new room, and put some of the elements there, to avoid the player feeling stuck in the same place for too long.

Other adjustments we made included making hotspots bigger and adding a run button. On the wire puzzle we made the buttons highlight when you press them to make it easier to try connect wires. We gave more guidance to the player through dialogues: for example you are told when you are using the wrong inventory item.

Thanks for reading, we hope you like the demo!!