Hannah Farrelly-Spain
For this project, I decided to make a single-player thriller horror game using Unity as the main engine, along with assets from the Unity asset store. The game is loosely based on Little Nightmares and My Friendly Neighbourhood, where the players are thrown into the thick of it with little or nothing to defend themselves, where one hit will be the end of their journey. For my research, I decided to investigate what makes horror media, specifically some of the top thrillers and psychological horror video games, so captivating to the masses in terms of gameplay and mechanics.
My main objective for this project is to create a presentable and fully functioning thriller horror game loosely based around the atmosphere of Little Nightmares with influence from My Friendly Neighbourhood. The games story was to be based around how most streamers tend to mod older technology with newer part, such as old CRT TVs, to be used for display or aesthetic purposes, even though most of them cannot handle the power needed to output this and often result in them getting screen burn or blowing out and breaking down completely. I thought that this fad could lend itself to becoming a horror game based on you playing as a retro computer trying to escape the faith that fell before their friends before them, gathering useful key items to unlock the way forward while avoiding enemies to get to the Amalgamation, a corrupt being located in The Streamers Workshop made of a collection of failed and broken projects hellbent on adding you to the mix, with shutting them down for good being the only way to survive.
This project resulted in the creation of a 3D thriller platformer based around the aesthetic of Divine Machinery, while being inspired by other horror games such as Little Nightmares and My Friendly Neighbour. The game “Forgotten Fears” contains two levels for the player to explore, tasked with collecting key items needed to escape while trying to about obstacles and enemies. Players are also able to pause the game and adjust the audio settings through the Settings menu.
My thesis details the research I had done before starting this project, along with the project's report. My research looks at the appeal of horror media in general, along with looking into the top 3 psychological and thriller horror games and what makes them so successful. The report side of my thesis goes into detail about the initial proposal and inspiration, the implementation of the technologies used and how they were used, the overall design of the game levels and UI, and the final result of the project.
Hi, I'm Hannah, a fourth-year computer science student. I've been a huge fan of video games and cartoons my whole life, and I've always wanted to create my own game, which is what I did for my final project. I enjoy horror and story-style video games, along with having an infatuation with newer styles of animations that are being used in both mainstream and indie animations.
