Artwork

Below is the artwork for the game:

Design Document

The Haunting of 13 Rosebush House: The Game

Design Document

Pitch: A visual horror novel with fear gauge.

Title: The title is the same as my short story that it is based upon, ‘The Haunting of 13 Rosebush House’. I picked this title as ‘The Haunting of’ implies it is a horror and contains ghosts and so does the 13. But ‘Rosebush House’ is the misleading title of the house (although it does look nice from the outside). Rosebush House and its misleading exterior shows you can't judge a book by its cover.

Concept: A visual novel set around my short story of the same name. The user will be presented with multiple choices throughout the game, which will affect the outcome. There will also be a “fear gage” which will be affected by the choice you make. If you get to scared you will lose the game. It will be playable as an application or as a HTML5 browser based game.

Story: A ghost story with a twist (one of the ghosts is the ghost of a serial killer), based on my short story of the same title.

Technology: Will initial be design to run on OS X and HTML5 compatible web browsers, but could be ported to other devices such as iPad at a later date.

Visual Style and Colour Scheme: The game will be 2D and will use mostly Black and Dark Red as its colour scheme as they suits the horror genre well.

Music: The game will have a theme music track that will be suitable to the genre and could even be used on a horror film.

Navigation: The game will be be basic and simple to navigate as is the case with most visual novels. You simply click on the choice you wish to make, or in the case of a touch device you press with one finger.

The Theme Music

I made the theme music the latest version of Garageband (10.0.2), a music making program by Apple for OS X. I of-course made to fit in the the horror genre and so it has a dark rough sound, which I think fits the genre.





Although in the end it maybe does not sound much like for the music I was in inspired by the music from my favourite horror/comedy The Return of the Living Dead.


The making of it went very well and I quite enjoyed making the theme music. If I did anything different it would be to make it a little longer and a little more varied and I feel it is a little too repetitive.

Choices Diagram

Examples of Similar Games

Bionic Heart and Bionic Heart 2

- Dialog -

- Reputation -

- Multiple Choices -

Under a Killing Moon (Tex Murphy)

- Story -

- Dialog/Choices -

Basic Interface Mockups and Colour Scheme

Start Screen

Main Interface

Confirm Quit

Main colours: Dark Red, Grey and Black. I chose these colours as they are dark and well suited to the horror genre.

My Psychology of Horror Research

Below is my research essay on the psychology of the horror genre. If I had to do it again I would make it looker and more in depth and looking back on it I feel some sections were a little lacking in details, such as the section on the brain. ThePsychologyoftheHorrorGenreEssay-2