Content Warnings
It's very pretty!Project Introduction
Sniff your surroundings to navigate the world and track down adversaries and content of their pockets. With sniffing, the player acquires scent-trails which are sort of quests. These scent trails replace the in-genre ever-present minimap, doubling down on the immersion and sense of exploration.Scent trails loosely create a goal and direction for players. Some trails may bestow the player with a reward, while others will lead to a trap. Player can urinate in game scenes, to create his own scent trails.
Devouring various adversaries bestows the player with both beneficial and detrimental abilities to unlock new paths in the world.
The player has a limited “inventory” of abilities in his stomach. These are devoured objects, both living and inanimate. Apart from newly acquired ability, it can be a quest item which has an additional effect. Devouring a leper carrying a bell can open a closed gate, but now the player rings whenever he is moving. Previously blind and unaware enemies now pose a different challenge to the player.
Instead of countless enemy types and dozens of boss encounters, the player’s main adversary is Spectre.
Its constant presence creates the “meat on the bone” of the game that retains the tension, the feeling of being on the backfoot, as the player has no means of killing the Spectre. It solidifies the player’s incentive to look out for shortcuts which lead to different areas of the game, but also create escape routes or potential hideouts.
Spectre hunts the player persistently in both scripted and non-scripted ways. Hidden in a chest, or behind a bush, waiting to strike. System-wise it reacts to the player’s actions. How many scent trails he creates by pissing, how loud he traverses the world, or how much gold does he carry. Most of all, it changes the backtracking dynamic of already explored areas.
Shivs are the player’s main source of damage. limited resource to be carefully spent, as they’re hard to get, reliably at very few locations. They are the main de-incentivising design factor against combat.
