Shades - A game narrative
For this project the brief required me to experience the loss of either hearing or sight for a week and then create something that simulates how I felt during this experience. The sense I chose to lose was my hearing, and I did this by wearing earphones for a week. The main thing I struggled with during this time period was my inability to communicate effectively with the people around me. This problem was partially solved by carrying around a notepad that people could use to write messages to me, but interacting with other people was still a major hassle. This led to me feeling really isolated by the end of the week. Additionally, I began to feel paranoid that people were talking about me behind my back while I couldn't hear them. I decided to try and invoke these feelings of isolation and paranoia in other people by creating a short horror story similar to the one that led to the creation of Slenderman. These short stories are known as CreepyPastas. I then created a game that was based off of the story that I wrote. The story was titled "Shades" and the game was titled "ATONEMENT". This is the page for the narrative / story. The page for the game can be found here:
https://www.behance.net/gallery/71450729/ATONEMENT-A-horror-game
The CreepyPasta
Long, eerie shadows cast by the streetlights flashed by, skittering over the road like ghostly fingers, twisting and turning like the feelings buried deep in my gut. My grip on the steering wheel tightened as I began to push on the gas, trying to use sheer speed to drown out the wrenching emptiness that seemed to be boring a hole in my chest. The blame in the eyes of the other attendees at the funeral had crushed the little will to live I had left. Maybe it was time to just end it all. Chelsea deserved better. A better father and a better life. I could have given it to her. I should never have compared her to her sister like I did. She was fine as she was, she didn’t need to follow her sister into medicine. Why couldn’t I see that? Her mother was so distraught that she ended up joining a cult and her sister hasn’t stopped crying for weeks. I destroyed my family. I don’t deserve to live...
With a heavy sigh, I eased up off of the accelerator a bit. The time for excuses had long since passed. If I were to die it would change nothing. It would just be a cowardly escape. Her suicide was my fault and it is time I accepted tha—
“HOLY FUCK!”
I slammed on the brakes and wrenched the steering wheel to the left, my arms shaking with exertion. It was too late, there was nothing I could do to avoid the figure who had suddenly appeared in the road in front of me. My desperate scream was violently silenced as my airbag knocked the wind out of me. Everything was so blurry… Another bad choice, another life lost. Why the fuck am I still alive? I should just get it over with and kill myself. My vision came back into focus but I couldn’t see much through the tears streaming down my face. After a couple of seconds, I became aware of a splitting pain in my chest that had previously been masked by adrenaline. A tattered piece of my engine was protruding from my sternum. Good. This is just what I deserve. I began to feel numb, the pain from my crushed body fading away along with my vision. My eyes drifted up to my smashed windscreen and the tree beyond it. Wait. Tree? Didn’t I hit a person? Thank god... The warmth I felt at that revelation made the pain bearable as my thoughts slowly crept to a standstill and the world around me drifted into the abyss of the night sky.
I woke up with a start to the booming cacophony of stone grinding against stone and the ground beneath me shifting. I sat up slowly as the tremors stopped, confused but completely uninjured. What happened? Didn’t I die? Maybe this is heaven? I chuckled quietly to myself. The shadows in the corners of the room seemed to shift in time with my voice. “Of course it’s not, I’m he—” I froze. Something wasn’t right. The shadows lashed out like bolts of dark lightning, lashing themselves around me like icy ropes. I yelped in surprise and even more icy tendrils shot out of the darkness towards me. The room was definitely getting darker. I need to get out. Now! Smothering my instinct to cry out for help, I dragged my unresponsive body towards the empty doorway set into the wall across from me, in a desperate race against the encroaching darkness. Upon reaching the doorway the shadows seemed to weaken and I was able to haul myself through it, snapping the dark bindings that sought to drag me back into the room. Breathing hard, I freed myself from the last of the shadows and flopped down on the cold hard floor. After watching the ropes fade away I warily took in my surroundings, finding myself in a vast corridor made up of two massive sandstone walls with countless doorways set into them. These doorways were all filled up with some kind of murky black mist and the shadows at the base of each wall seemed to writhe as if alive. I looked back at the doorway I had just escaped from and shivered. The black mist now filled that room too. That was far too close for comfort. The shadows seemed to respond to sound. It would probably be good to keep silent.
After taking a couple of moments to think about what to do next I decided to get moving. There didn’t seem to be any kind of sun in the murky sky above me, but if the light source here worked like the sun, the shadows may end up stretching and getting harder to avoid if I wait too long. There was no way I was going through that again. I slowly and unsteadily set off in the direction that seemed lighter, keeping to the middle of the corridor like my life depended on it, with the shadows dogging my every step.
I walked for what felt like hours and began to feel more and more uneasy about this place. After making it to the end of a long winding corridor I came to the edge of a ledge and got a look at the lay of the land. The whole area appeared to be a massive multi-level maze made up of terraced layers that had been built inside a colossal sinkhole. All the different corridors of the maze seem to lead to a single point in the center of the maze aside from a few dead ends. If there is an exit to this place it is probably there. The center of the maze also seemed to be quite well lit, which I thought was a pretty good reason to head over there in and of itself. I carefully descended into the next level of the maze.
The next area was a lot darker and more foreboding than the first. The walls were made up of rough black stone and there were chains and other restraints set into the walls. After a couple of minutes of carefully navigating my way through the twisting corridors of this level, I came across a message that had been carved into one of the walls. A spring entered my step as I moved to inspect it. Maybe I wasn’t alone in here. I inspected the message from the middle of the corridor, unwilling to approach the wall for fear of getting caught in its shadow. The message was utterly unintelligible and looked like it had been carved into the wall by a madman with some kind of a bladed saw. Am I trapped in here with some kind of serial killer? Feeling uneasy I continued my journey towards the center of the maze. My anxiety began to grow as more and more messages began to appear as I progressed through the maze. I seemed to be getting close to whoever, or whatever was carving these messages into the walls. The messages were becoming more intelligible and appearing more often with every step I took. They also got progressively angrier, and after a while, I stopped reading them because the amount of raw emotion in them started to make me uncomfortable. Whoever this person was it was probably best to avoid meeting them.
Lost in my thoughts about the cryptic messages I almost tripped off of the edge of the terrace that marked the end of the dungeon-like area. I’d made it. After taking a moment to calm my nerves I approached the narrow precarious ramp that led downwards into the next area of the maze. Ordinarily I would never attempt to go anywhere near a rickety construction like this, but I didn’t want to stay here any longer than absolutely necessary. As I began to descend the ramp something caught my eye. Standing on one of the walls of the maze, far in the distance, was a tall dark figure that seemed to be looking across the maze in an arc. As if it were searching for something. My blood ran cold and I clenched my fists to try and stop my hands from trembling. There was no way that thing was human. It was far too tall and was moving far too smoothly. It also looked an awful lot like the figure I thought I had hit with my car. One way or another, it didn’t look like anything I should be messing with. Maybe I should head back? No. For some reason that felt unwise. The room I woke up in had quickly filled up with shadow after I had left it, why would the rest of the maze behave any differently? I gritted my teeth, lowered myself onto my hands and knees, and began my slow descent down the ramp.
Around halfway down I had to come to a stop because I was shivering too much to move. Come on, I have to keep moving. I can do this. I slowly drew in a deep calming breath and tentatively reached out with a hand to continue moving. My eyes were still locked onto the creature, watching for any sudden movements. My hand went cold and I immediately knew I had made a terrible mistake. I glanced downwards to see shadows wrapping themselves around my hand like angry snakes. I heard a screeching noise, like nails on a blackboard, come from the creature's direction. I looked up to see the creature’s head snap towards me. It had found me. It immediately began to sprint in my direction across the top of the walls of the maze at a nightmarish speed. Heart pounding, I leaped to my feet and bolted down the spindly ramp with everything I had, wrenching my hand away from the shadowy tendrils it had become ensnared in. STUPID! STUPID! STUPID! I barrelled into the maze and started taking corners randomly, hoping to throw the creature off. This was a foolish endeavor, as I was not as young as I used to be and I quickly ran out of steam. The creature's claws bit into my back like icy knives and a terrified scream escaped my clenched teeth. Fueled by adrenaline I turned and fought like an absolute madman. The creatures long bladed fingers scored my body, leaving lines of blazing pain behind. I struggled, but it was far stronger than me and it easily pinned me down, driving its long knife-like fingers through my left arm and into the floor to keep it in place. I threw a desperate punch with my free arm, which connected solidly with its jaw, momentarily stunning the creature and allowing me to pull myself free. I quickly darted down the small passageway to my left and saw a doorway filled with light at the end of it. A way out? As I leaped through the doorway the creature grabbed at my legs, but it was too late. I had made it.
My consciousness slowly came back to me. Gloriously bright fluorescent lights shone above me. The figures of people bustled around me and a faint antiseptic smell hung in the air. I was in a hospital. Relief washed over me. I tried to reach up to wipe away the tears of joy that had formed in my eyes. But I couldn’t. I looked over at my right hand to see what was going on and my heart sank into the depths of my stomach. My limbs had been fastened down with thick leather straps, straight out of an old horror movie, and the wounds I had received from my fight with the creature glistened brightly on my arm. I just couldn't feel them. Something wasn’t right. I needed to get out of here. I strained against my restraints to no avail. My mouth wouldn’t open. My voice didn’t work. One of the figures working in the room took notice of my struggle and I heard his footsteps slowly coming closer. The doctor leaned over me and smiled, his eyes covered by the gaunt shadowy hands of the figure standing behind him. “Oh my, looks like he woke up!” he exclaimed in a dishearteningly cheerful voice. “We weren’t quite ready for you yet, we’re going to have to put you back under.” The doctor gave me a reassuring smile and retreated into the dark recesses of the room, the creature skulking along behind him. I felt tears of frustration well up in my eyes. “It’s okay honey, it’ll all be over very soon, I promise.” I looked over to the source of the voice and found my wife standing next to me with an unnaturally large grin on her face. A second creature stood behind her. “Isn’t it wonderful?” she chimed, “I fixed your mistake, I got her back!” What? No. Please no. I looked closer at the creature standing behind my wife and a soundless scream echoed through my mind. I knew that gold necklace it was wearing. It belonged to Chelsea. Surely not. PLEASE GOD NO! My wife moved out of my line of sight and I heard her sit down next to me and felt her hand softly take mine. “She's still quite angry so you’re just going to have to bear with her for a while.” she murmured. “Chelsea’s a sweet girl, I’m sure she’ll forgive you in no time.” Chelsea’s shadowy hands descended towards me and gently applied their icy touch to my eyes. The creature above me giggled with my daughter's voice.
CreepyPasta user testing
Question 1: What emotive word best fits how this story made you feel?
User 1: Uneasy.
User 2: Edgy.
User 3: Sad.
User 4: Angst.
User 5: Nothing.
User 6: Gloomy.
User 7: Depressing.
Aside from one “nothing” the story invoked the right sort of emotions in the readers. I did not however, succeed in invoking the feelings of paranoia or loneliness in my users.
Question 2: Does this story have potential to be adapted into game?
All seven users said yes.
Question 3: Did you find the protagonist engaging or relateable?
Five users said yes, Users 5 and 7 said no.
