ALPEN GHOUL
I loves games so I made one.
The Idea:
It started as a half-serious idea about what a modern-day SkiFree would look like, but it slowly evolved into a massive game that took several months to complete. I wanted to learn Unreal Engine 5, so I jumped into the deep end and just kept learning as I went, implementing more and more ideas until I ended up with a pretty intense horror game unlike anything else in the indie horror space. While most horror games move at a slow pace through dark halls, I opened the world up to an entire mountainside and made the player character able to move at blazing fast speeds while running and sliding. The game plays and feels more like Call of Duty than classic survival horror.
So, then, how is it scary? Well, the creature stalking the player is even faster, has excellent hearing, knows the mountain better than them, and is extremely relentless. That super-fast sliding mechanic? Well, the goal is uphill, so overuse will lead to sacrificing some progress towards their goal. Players will have to move with caution, hiding and hoping they aren't found while finding opportunities to pick up the pace because it's constantly getting darker.
The Mountain:
The mountain is massive and built to be a labyrinth for the player to navigate. There are three routes the player can find themselves on, with varying levels of difficulty and different rewards that reflect how hard the journey was to obtain them. Even though the map is designed to confuse the player and add to the tension and fear, all routes will eventually lead to the same goal.
The Creature:
The creature was designed to be a constant threat. Any lead the player gets on it will only be a temporary reprieve from this unrelenting menace. As the only enemy in the game, the monster needed to feel like it's always close to prevent the environment from feeling empty.
Nonstop running will lead to a quick death, and when designing the game, I made sure it was impossible to just run to the goal. You have to play smart. The AI was built to never follow the player directly but instead follow cues based on how the player is acting. If the player is acting wildly, the creature will match their intensity.
The high difficulty will continue to be the most controversial part of the game, but it's an experimental game, and I like seeing how people deal with the pressure. The creature is the heart of the game, so the majority of the development time was spent making the monster as frightening and intense as possible while keeping it fair.
The Gameplay:
The game is designed to be a high-stakes game of tug-of-war. The player wants to reach the top, but the monster will constantly pull them back down to the bottom of the mountain. The idea is that with each attempt, they become more familiar with the terrain and slowly make progress until finally achieving victory.
The mountain itself also plays a key role, not just in its maze-like design but also how the player's movement is tied to it. The entire level is on an incline, making the sliding gameplay possible in the first place. That's not all, the very bottom of the map is designed to be the hardest to navigate. If the player tries to slide to escape too many times in a row, they will find that they have less room to get away, more environmental hazards to deal with, and a goal that is increasingly further away. The mountain makes the entire game a balancing act.
The Boombox:
Music plays a big role in the game. Scattered around the map are safe rooms with boomboxes, which can play tapes that are hidden throughout the game. These tapes have game-changing effects and can even alter the behavior of the creature.
I wanted to give the player a valuable collectible that would extend playtime and offer a chance to relax, as the intensity of the game can be overwhelming. I pushed myself as a programmer to implement this entire system and even composed the majority of the music myself. Although I'm not a professional musician, or ever claim to have good taste in music, I'm pleased with how the music turned out.
Check it out for free on:
Don’t have time to play it? That’s cool too! A youtuber named AlphaBetaGamer made a no commentary playthrough that shows off a majority of the game and several of it’s weirder secrets, including the secret true ending.