Idea I wrote down #2, 10/24/2021 (part 1)
(post started 10/1/2021, stuck it in drafts until 10/24/2021)
I went to a big garden today, since it’s fall, most of the plants are kinda wilting. It’s usually very pretty in spring! Anyways, There’s many stone stuff sculpts (not of people) that I really liked, and reminded me of areas you’d go to in horror games. And the garden is really big! So I had an idea of a horror game based on being stuck in a college garden.
Environment and In-game Story
* - Meaning that they have something to do with the endings.
You’re the protagonist. You didn’t mean to, but you stayed too late after hours taking pictures for your photography class and ended up taking a nap somewhere. You wake up nearby one of the fountains of the gardens. It’s night time, and your phone is the only source of light. You flick it on, only to see it fully charged! And the time is on the very first hour of the day. You’ll soon realize this doesn’t change as you felt time goes on, you get to the entrance to see it’s locked. No car or person in sight. There’s the gift shop and snack areas, but those are locked too. There’s a tourist section, where you’re able to get keys to the gift shop and snack area. You have the bag that contains your camera and some space for other stuff, but it’s very limited. So choose your stuff wisely.
After either ignoring the keys and going back into the garden or breaking into the buildings for stuff and going back into the garden, you’re greeted with seeing a plant monster prowling around. You have to sneak around it, failing to do so makes it chase after you, and you have to either outrun it or hide from it.
You need to wonder around with your two cameras, the digital one and the one on your phone. You can use either, and they don’t run out of energy.
With the digital camera, you can see better with that camera. And if you take pictures of specific thing aside from the stuff you need for classes, you can get bonus points*.
With the phone camera, while the dark is a little less, it can help you find the difference between garden shards that you need to collect, and normal rocks. While the phone is mostly used for the camera game mechanic-wise, you can use it for a digital map and calls**.
There’s four shards you need to find. Blue, red, yellow and green, like the color codes for sections of the garden, like on the physical maps you’ll occasionally find around. On the maps there’s a center area.
A big stone flower, with missing spots on it is there. You need to place the gems one there. Once gems are placed, you have four different endings.
(TW: mentions of suicide, depression, and body horror.)
Ending 1, Escaped: This requires * to be achieved. The ground will shake as protagonist is to run back to the entrance of the garden and push the gates wide open and run out. It will then cut to an animatic of the protagonist on the ground, with concerned workers contacting help for the protagonist. The pictures are turned in, but ultimately, it all ends with the protagonist committing suicide by jumping off a bridge and die into oncoming traffic.
Ending 2, Flower: This requires ** to be achieved. The protagonist will use the phone to call for help. Ultimately, you can’t call anyone. But the protag gets called while you play on in the game. It’s the protagonist themselves, in previous recordings to themselves. The calls will tell of them hating this ridiculous idea of recording their problems but are only doing it because their therapist told them to. On and one it will spiral down with the recordings detailing that the protag is failing in their classes and that they’re trying their best with juggling school and work but they’re just tired of being stressed out by all of life’s problems. The end of these phonecalls ends with them talking about killing themselves but have no idea how to go on about it. “I don’t know what to do, I just want everything to stop.”
Once the gems are placed, the player will no longer have control of the protag and watch as the protagonist walks slowly to the plant monsters. They’re caught, and are buried into the ground, reborn as a flower.
Ending 3, Rescued: Requires both * and ** to achieve. The ground will shake as protagonist is to run back to the entrance of the garden and push the gates wide open and run out. It will then cut to an animatic of the protagonist on the ground, with concerned workers contacting help for the protagonist. It cut to the family relieved to protag is alright. The protagonist turns int their photos, and gets help from both their family and therapy. The protagonist is seen at the end, marveling at the flower in their garden, “The End”.
Ending 4, Admirer: Failing to do either * and ** will result in this ending. The protagonist will take both their camera and phone and place them at the center of the flower. The rumbling soon stops, as all the different plant monsters are there too with you. You walk to the big pond of the garden and slowly walk down into the deep end, as the monsters watch.
The protagonist dies, then cuts to an animatic of the protagonist dead in the pond. The camera and phone are found to identify. The garden is closed for days, then it opens back up. People at the garden tell that a person with a camera will often be passing by taking photos of plants. Pictures of this person makes them blurry to the point of being unrecognizable. If this person asks to take a picture of someone, its rumored the person who had the picture taken will vanish, but more beautiful flowers bloom in the garden after a few days.
~PLANT MONSTER IDEAS AND PROTAGONIST WILL BE TALKED ABOUT IN ANOTHER POST.~
