Patient 06

08/10/20 Patient 06 – “advertisement”

Found an old text advert for 06 that Hawk had apparently written up.

Far away from any cities, there lies a mental asylum hid from most but those who know the ones who lay inside. It is at this very place that the daughter of a man arrives, visiting her dear father once more. But on her arrival she finds not her father, but a flashlight and an abandoned building with not a soul in sight… yet her path is barred by the door that so easily once let her in. Soon, she travels upwards with little elsewhere to go.

*Real-time tile based lighting system with support for multiple light sources and lights blocked by walls. Runs at a solid 30 frames per second.

As she travels down the empty halls with little indicating her progress, she begins to hear a sound from somewhere else in the building. Might others still be around? The sound grows closer, she discerns that it’s coming from her right. Soon she can make it out: footsteps. Soon she hears a creeking door from the same direction. As they grow closer she panics and begins to run.

*Hear where the monsters are without seeing them with a sound system that accuratley sets volume and panning based on enemy direction.

As she runs the steps grow ever louder, echoing throughout the empty building. As she runs she notices lockers attached to the walls, seeing no other alternative she quietly opens one and slips in as her heart races. She looks out from within it and hears the footsteps passing, as whatever it is goes by she hears a gruff cough and then an inhuman growl. But soon it is gone from hearing. Slowly her pulse slows as the pressure fades.

*Anxiety bar system, the bar never goes down every 10 increments and the slightest scare can make it go up. Fortunatley you can bring it down by hiding in a secluded spot, but good luck cheating it when there is no saving. At 100, it’s game over.

After enough time has passed, she slowly opens the locker door and departs from the site, moving further up the abandoned building. As her quiet footsteps echo across the floor she suddenly hears a crunch. She looks down to see crushed glass beneath her boots. A growl is heard faraway. Backing away from the glass, her bootsteps seem increasingly loud as she walks, the footsteps of the creature growing louder at the same time. When she stops, the other footsteps stop.

An idea comes into her head and she takes her boots off, tiptoeing around. The other footsteps are still gone. Congratulating herself she breaks into a run only to find a stabbing pain in her foot, looking down and holding back a yelp she finds her feet bleeding among shards of glass. A sniffing is heard. Panicing, she runs through the glass, letting out a yelp once the pain gets enough to her. A growl. The sniffing.

*Variety of monsters that hunt with advanced AI by sight, smell, sound, and more.

Her heart beats ever faster, the footsteps and sniffing growing closer. She can hear a licking nearby, back where the glass was. Directly in front of her she hears the scraping footsteps that pause from time to time, listening for her. She runs into something, it’s icey cold. Hands. She screams and something clammy clasps her feet, she trips and falls down. She puts forth an effort to get up, but the almost-dead feeling limbs keep her clamped down. Then.

Darkness.

*Dynamic music that changes based on the situation along with an always-changing environment to make every playthrough different.

Coming 2006.

Programming – SDHawk
Graphics – Sew
Music – Drule

01/13/18 Patient 06

This game has become slightly more relevant recently as it served as base-inspiration for our Dreamhack entry Sins of the Past. Patient 06 was planned to release on 6/6/06 but never saw the light of day.

Super old sketch, probably done at school during some class

This game was our third and final-for-a-decade attempt at a light-system game. I knew the light system from Project C made my art look better with assisting me fake depth, and I learned from Train that light made my dithered edges look pretty sweet.  Unluckily though I was a terrible terrible pixel artist who just dithered the fuck out of everything, not to hell but beyond stylistically, you know? It got a little overboard with this project. I definitely didn’t do the light any favors by picking this weird, awkward tile style. I remember being really proud of it at the time, but looking back it reminds me of the Nightmare on Elm Street DOS game, except that game had the good sense to have some character and not assume that any shortcomings in the art would be fixed magically with light.

The plot of this game is silly. It’s about a daughter who is going to visit her father in the psych ward of some “crazy person” hospital, and he’s in cell 06, and he’s patient 06. Upon arriving you find his cell empty except for a cryptic note, then the game starts proper. Or something like that, we didn’t completely get around to fleshing out all of the plot (which was mostly my task). It had a bunch of different versions, but the one that was developed the furthest just feels like a rehash of Project C. Frustratingly lost in a maze of darkness solving boring door-key puzzles while attempted to avoid the real meat & potatoes of the game, the enemies. Patient 06