From Narrative Project to Full Release
Chris Isn't Alone was originally meant to be a small game for a Non-Linear Storytelling assignment in my first year at Sheridan. After finishing the assignment, I wanted to see how far I could take the story of the game since I already had the architecture of it all set up.
In the beginning, there were only 5 unique endings. (click the image below to open)
Some of those endings survived all the way to the full release, but I most likely ended up changing some to make the story flow better. Once I decided that I wanted to release the game on Steam, I completely reworked my story map to accommodate over 17 endings. Some of which were humorous and fun, while others took a more serious tone to convey the story of an intelligent child fighting for his life with only his words as weapons (and sometimes brute force).
The Fake Your Death Ending is an ending where Chris tries to fake a head injury, but unintentionally ends up with one anyways. The absolutely genius plan Chris had was to fall off the bed and pretend to hit his head and die. The plan works a little too well when he actually does hit his head, but not hard enough to die. The Monster kind of sees through this plan however, and tries to trick Chris right back by saying, "Did that really just happen?? .... Guess I'll be leaving then...."
The player then has 2 options:
Option 1: Believe that The Monster left and get up to try and run.
OR
Option 2: Pretend you are dead on the floor and wait for The Monster to leave.
Choosing Option 1 leads to a screen that looks like this picture below. So you can assume it didn't go well.
I believe Chris Isn't Alone does a great job at mixing comedy with some genuine scares, and Steam players agreed! A couple of Youtubers made videos on the game of their own playthroughs, which was a treat to watch. The general consensus was that people had fun playing, and enjoyed the story, which made it all worth it for the amount of time I put into this game turning it into a full release.
It wasn't perfect though, there was a design issue that all players experienced, unclear UI.
ROLE
Solo Developer
DESCRIPTION
Can you convince a demon from another realm to spare your life? Chris Isn't Alone is a visual novel horror/comedy game that gives players freedom to choose their own path towards their fate. Includes 17 unique endings!
YEAR
2022
TIMELINE
5 Months
PLATFORM
Steam
TOOLS
The Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine, Adobe Illustrator, Pro Tools
Design Issue: Unclear UI
Chris Isn't Alone unfortunately suffered from having an unclear ending tracker. The purpose of the ending tracker is to light up different squares depending on the ending that the player gets. Each ending has its own unique square.
However, there are 2 major problems with this ending tracker:
Problem 1: Players cannot differentiate between endings.
I thought that it would be ok to have visually appealing little square appear for each unique ending the player got, but ultimately they would forget which ending is which, and I didn't want this.
Problem 2: The Bad Ending is only unique 1 time.
There are many different ways to unlock The Bad Ending. If the player dies in a non-unique way, or chooses a dialogue option that leads to them getting killed uncanonically, they unlock The Bad Ending. However, The Bad Ending square only lights up THE FIRST TIME, leading to confusion when players die and nothing happens in the ending tracker.
<----- The Bad Ending Square
Major Design Pillar
FREEDOM OF CHOICE
I wanted to design the story in such a way that gave the player the freedom to answer or do whatever they want, whenever they want (with some limitations of course). This means that if the player wanted to randomly jump at The Monster and attack it, they could! And sometimes it would even work! Most of the time however, without proper planning, attacking The Monster led to The Bad Ending.
Despite The Monsters cuteness, it cannot be trusted.
RELEASE TRAILER!
GAME AUDIO
All audio in this game was done by Marshall Weiss, His Spotify.