Phobophobia

(The Fear of Fear)

Version 0.1
Psychotic Clown Studios
Andrew Romans - Game Designer, UX Designer, Functional Programmer, Project Manager
Cody McCormick - Game Designer, 3D Modeler, Story Writer, Level Designer
Robert Kowalchuk - Game Designer, 3D Modeler, Functional Programmer, Level Designer
Cody Ulrich - Game Designer, AI Programmer, Level Designer
http://phobophobiagame.weebly.com/

Table of Contents
Section 1 - Game Overview
Overview
Genre
Target Audience
Tools

3
3
3
3
3

Section 2 - Gameplay and Mechanics

Game Progression
Mission/Challenge
Structure
Objectives
Play
Mechanics
Physics
The Economy
Screen Flow

3
3
4
4
4
4
5
5
5
6

Section 3 - Story, Setting and Character

Story / Narrative
World
Characters

6
6
7
8

Section 4 - Levels/Scenes
Setup
Johns Home
Parking Deck
Office Floor
Puzzle Designs

9
9
10
10
10
12

Section 5 - Interface
Visual/Control System
Audio
Music
Sound Effects
Help System

13
13
13
13
13
14

Section 6 - Artificial Intelligence

14

Section 7 - Game Art

14

Section 8 - Project Plan

14

Section 1 - Game Overview

Overview
Game involves the player taking the perspective of John Tourmandt, an accountant who
suffers from schizophrenia and MPD, of which each personality suffers from a different
brain disorder. Based on the players decisions, they will live through different moments
of Johns life through the eyes of his other personalities, solving a variety of puzzles to
help overcome their disorders.

Genre
Puzzle-Adventure, Narrative, Psychological Thriller

Target Audience
Our target audience is to reach PC players, ages 15 and up, that love a good story and
solving challenging puzzles.

Tools
-

Unreal Engine 4
Twine
Blender
Substance Painter and Designer
Asana
Photoshop and Illustrator
Visual Studios
Audacity

Section 2 - Gameplay and Mechanics

Game Progression
The game will start with a short introduction sequence, allowing the player to make
decisions that will impact Johns life either negatively or positively. Those starting
decisions will decide what sequence, out of the three, they will experience first. In each
sequence, the player will experience a disorder, a different personality, and be
presented with a puzzle/challenge to overcome in order to move on in the story.

Between each sequence, the player will go through other narrative sequences of Johns
life with the option to either continue to be a negative or positive influence on Johns life.

Mission/Challenge
The missions/challenges varies based on which sequence the player is experiencing.
- In Johns Home, the player will experience Johns personality Adrian. Adrian
suffers from Dementia, making the player navigate through Johns ever-changing
house. The player must navigate the house in the proper sequence to continue
the story.
- In the Parking Deck, the player will experience Johns personality Bryan who
suffers from Nyctophobia (fear of the dark). The player must navigate through the
unbelievably dark sections of the parking garage with limited light sources to stay
sane, and make it to the elevator safely.
- In the Office Floor, the player will experience Johns personality Connor who
suffers from Brief Psychotic Disorder. The player must find multiple objects that
dont belong in three different rooms. The more objects, the faster the players
heart rate increases.

Structure
The game structure will start with an Intro Sequence for the player. This will then decide
if the player goes to Johns Home, the Parking Garage, or the Office. After one of these
puzzles are complete, the player will experience a Mid Sequence. The decisions made
in the mid sequence will determine what puzzle the player will experience next. Finally,
the player will experience the last challenge/puzzle with an ending sequence
immediately following.

Objectives
Each level will have some trick or puzzle that prevents the player from progressing. The
main objective is to physically reach the end of each level, typically through a door, in
order to continue the story.

Play
The player will start the game reading a narrative story, picking options to guide Johns
life in a direction unknown to the player. Depending on the options chosen, the player
will have to go through a series of areas in Johns everyday life solving a series of
challenging puzzles. Each puzzle based around the different mental disorders of each
of Johns multiple personalities.

Mechanics
-

The player will be able to interact with objects around the environment to
complete tasks or other purposes. Some objects are simply picked up and others
are activated to do something in scene.
As the players heart rate increases, their vision will become distorted making
seeing a lot more troublesome. This will cause an increase in difficulty until heart
failure.
Throughout the different levels and puzzles, the player will be presented with a
narrative sequence of the continuing story with a set of options for the player to
chose from. These options will influence Johns life, both positively or negatively,
and determine the events to come.

Physics
The game will have a simple form of gravity physics. The player will not be able to jump,
but objects can be picked up and dropped and they will fall based on a gravitational pull.

The Economy
This games only form of resource management is in the form of a reverse health bar.
The player starts at 60 BPM (Beats per minute) for their heart rate. The bar will start
empty, but as the player takes damage, their heart rate will increase, filling the bar.
The higher the players heart rate rises, the more distorted the players view will be and
the more intense their heartbeat will get.

Screen Flow

Section 3 - Story, Setting and Character

Story / Narrative
John Tourmandt works for Mortsis Co., a pharmaceutical company that supplies
multiple types of medication for prescription use by patients with chemical or
psychological illnesses. One day, after getting home from work, John is assaulted with
strange sounds and sensations he has never encountered before. The shadows move
when theyre not supposed to, the doors in his house no longer lead to where theyre
supposed to, and the voices disturb him to no end. He cant focus, or, rather, he is too
focused. He suddenly fears things he never feared before, but moments later they seem
trivial. The only thing he knows for sure, the fear that doesnt change, is what will he
fear next?

World
-

Egress, Washington USA (a fake town): It is a small, urban pocket located in a

remote region of Washington. The industry here is based around private medical
companies, such as Mortsis Co.

The Tourmandt Home: A sprawling, two-story house. John and Cynthia

together make enough money to afford a more expensive home. The kitchen is
complete and contains an island counter for preparing meals. The cookware is
bronzed stylistically. There are random toys scattered about the house because
of Orion. The living room and Cynthias study are oppositely adjacent to the
kitchen. The living room is baby-fenced, but there is also a play area in Cynthias
study for Orion when she is working. The living room does not contain a
fireplace. The house is heated via a basement furnace. The second floor
contains a master bedroom with master bath, a guest room with attached
bathroom, and two bedrooms that share a bathroom. The house contains a
covered garage that can fit two cars. The kitchen and living room both have
sliding glass doors leading to the back yard. The yard is fenced in and has a
childrens playset with swings included. There are no trees on the property, but
the area is surrounded by a forest.

Mortsis Office Lobby: The lobby is a longer room with hallways leading out
either side on the walls adjacent to the wall that contains the entrance. The room
is filled with a row of fancy pillars on either side of the entrance. Opposite the
entrance is a security check-in desk. The area beyond the desk is blocked by
various machines such as metal detectors.

Mortsis Office Cubicle Floor:The floor is filled with what seems like far too
many cubicles. The area feels cramped and oppressive. The far walls of the floor
all have doors that lead to much nicer office spacing. One of these is Johns, but
he is forced to walk through rows of cubicles each day to reach it.

Mortsis Parking Deck: The parking deck is adjacent to the Mortsis building and
is connected by street and a sky bridge.

Mortsis Secure Labs: Located three floors below the lobby, the secure labs are
host to the most important and dangerous experiments run by the company.

Characters
-

Main Protagonist, John Tourmandt (25), lives a happy life with his wife,
Cynthia Tourmandt, and their young child(three years old), Orion Tourmandt. He
works for the pharmaceutical company, Mortsis Co., as an accountant. He has
access to all of the companys purchase records and transactions and, by the
events of Phobophobia, has started to realize the company may be doing some
shady things. This makes him a target for the highly illegal human testing being
conducted by the company, and he is secretly given a drug being designed to
cure or inhibit severe mental illnesses. (all baseline personalities share the same
surname Tourmandt or Cruceare meaning to torture or be tortured)
Welcome home Adrian
Welcome home Bryan
Welcome home Connor
Welcome home Duncan
Welcome home Eli

Cynthia Tourmandt (27)

i.
Married to John. She is a freelance web designer. This lets her work from home so
that she can take care of Orion properly. She worries about John often as he works late
and sleeps little in order to spend more time with his family when he gets home. She
always tries to make dinner for the family, because she thinks that a homemade meal
helps make a family come together in times of hardship. This stems from the disjointed
relationship she had with her family as a child.
Orion Tourmandt (3)
i.
The young son of John and Cynthia. He spends most of his time keeping Cynthia
on her toes. He likes to explore and is more than capable of opening latches and
unlocking things he should stay out of. He loves to play with daddy, when he gets home
from work, and he will often be unable to sleep on nights when John is on business trips
or comes home late.
Gregory Polt (54)
i.
Security guard and doorman for Mortsis Co. He has on and off days. Some days
he is bright and happy, smiling at employees and being as helpful as possible. Other
days, he can be rude and curmudgeonly. His personality is polarizing and it is as if he
literally woke up on the wrong side of the bed. He recognizes his change in mood, but
cannot figure out why it occurs.
ii.
He is secretly being tested on by the company

Colette Andersson (35)

I.
Co-founder of Mortsis Co. and lead scientist on the companys R.A.M.
(Reconstructing Altered Minds) project. She is sharp in appearance and never smiles.
Her personality is generally cold, with occasional flares of rage. Her midlife crisis has
resulted in her accelerating the testing for her lifes work. This lead to her testing the
experimental drugs on human test subjects first.
Ii.
Personally registered John Tourmandt as a candidate for the projects testing
because of a genetic predisposition for Schizophrenia. She is unaware he suspects
shady things going on in the company.
Marco Chen (32)
i.
Of Latin and Chinese descent, Marco hails from California. He grew up learning
how to put on a friendly face in order to manipulate people. His smile seems genuine to
most people, but he bears a deep hatred for humanity in general. He was the other
founder of Mortsis Co. and is the public face of the company. He is the real mastermind
behind all of the things happening in the company. He keeps Colette in the dark about
many things, but uses her intelligence to make products for the company to sell. He
highly encourages the R.A.M. project, as it would be similar to a cure for cancer, and
would make him an obscene amount of money.
ii.
He is entirely aware that John suspects the illegal things the company is doing.
He personally ensured that Johns genetic profile ended up on Colettes desk so that he
would be flagged for testing.

Section 4 - Levels/Scenes
Setup
Levels are ordered based on the players choices in dialogue. They are listed below in
chronological order, but this is not necessarily the order in which every player will play
them.
At the beginning of every level, the player will witness a small cutscene in which the
character looks down at their shirt and sees a nametag with the name of the current
identity that John is experiencing. The names are used to denote Johns Multiple
Personality Disorder and also serve to tell players the chronological point of the level.
Additionally, all characters in the game, other than John himself, are viewed as
mannequins or, occasionally, as shadowy demonic and impish figures.

Johns Home
Adrian arrives home after a long day at work. It feels great to be home. It feels like its
been forever since he was home. He has the choice when walking through the front
door to either greet his wife in the Kitchen or go see his son in the Living Room. The
family member he does not choose can be heard shortly after. Their screams echo
throughout the house, and, when Adrian goes to check on them, a destroyed
mannequin and copious amounts of blood can be seen. The player then blacks out and
wakes up at the beginning on the level, the Bedroom.
In this level, the player will undergo the disorder of Dementia and is forced to navigate
the ever-changing layout of his home. The puzzle consists of the player properly
navigating through the house, ending up in random sections of the house every door
entered. Based on the family member the player chose to see at the beginning, the
player will end up in a room of the opposite family member, if the rooms were correctly
navigated. This will help remind Adrian of that family member, and temporarily help
Adrian with his growing Dementia.

Parking Deck
Bryan drives to work the next day and parks his car in the corporate parking complex.
Upon exiting his car, Bryan witnesses something horrifying. The shadows in the parking
garage becomes unnaturally dark, whereas the the dim lights shine like beacons.
In this level, the player is suffering from Nyctophobia (unnatural fear of the dark) and
cannot touch dark spots. The player must navigate the level by only touching lit areas.
Lights will flicker in timed intervals, and a sparse amount of portable light sources can
be found throughout the level. Additionally, later in the level, some demonic figures well
brazenly enter lit zones. Closely viewing these monsters will cause an increase in heart
rate. Coming into contact with them will greatly increase heart rate.

Office Floor
Connor arrives at the floor his office is on and navigates his way through rows of
cubicles. Upon entering his office room, he takes stock of the room. He sees a stapler
here and a chair there. Everything seems to be in order until a darkness envelops him.
Connor regains his senses and something feels wrong. There are items laying around
that should not be there, as if they are not real.
In this level, the player will undergo Brief Psychotic Disorder and is presented with
multiple hallucinations of objects that werent originally there. The amount of

unrecognizable items in the different rooms is overwhelming and causes an increase in

the players heart rate. The more objects there are, the faster the players heart rate
increases. In order to slow down their heart rate, the player must find all objects that are
hallucinations and do not belong.

Puzzle Designs

Section 5 - Interface
Visual/Control System
The game can be played and controls will be based around a controller, but keyboard
controls will be implemented as well.
Controller:
- TBA
Keyboard:
- TBA

Audio
Music
The music for Phobophobia will most likely be purchased online for rights to the
music. The list of emotional background music needed includes:
- Creepy
- Strange
- Happy
- Sad
- Sudden
Sound Effects
-

Fast Heart Beating

Door Opening
Foot Steps
Sigh of Relief
Screaming (Female and Male)
Giggling Kid
Male breathing
Ambience sounds
- Parking Deck (Cars Driving, Engine Starting, etc)
- Home (Tv, Cooking, Etc)
- Office (Typing, Ringing, Talking, etc)
Dispersing shadows
Demonic cackling

Dark whispers

Help System
In the beginning of the game, the player will be guided through an in-game tutorial
where they will perform simple actions that will teach the player the controls of the
game.
In case players have completely forgotten the controls, there will be a Controls menu
within the Options list of the Main Menu.

Section 6 - Artificial Intelligence

The game will have only a couple enemies within the game for Artificial Intelligence.
Within the Parking Deck level, there will be smaller demon like creatures roaming in the
dark that will start antagonizing the player if the player has been standing in the light too
long. The more creatures surrounding and following the player, the faster the players
heart rate will rise.

Section 7 - Game Art

The game will take the form of a more cartoony look, like a mixture of the games
Borderland and Firewatch. This will be achieved by mixing simple colors and using a
Cel (Toon) Shader throughout the game to give it that cartoon feel and look.
Models in the calmer portions of gameplay will tend towards more symmetric and
standard views of furniture, whereas the models in the more psychotic areas of the
game will have a twisted and asymmetrical theme.
** Need to think of a good Color Palate to use throughout the game **

Section 8 - Project Plan

-

January 20:
- Finish Final Game Design Document
- Meet and Discuss Project Plan
January 27:

- Johns Home Paper Layout/Design

- Johns Home Puzzle Creation/Idea
- Parking Garage Puzzle Creation/Idea
- UI Paper Design/Layout
- Twine Intro Sequence/Johns Home
February 3:
- Smaller Game Functionality Polished
i.
Raycasting
ii.
Level/Scene Transitions
iii.
HeartBeat Functionality
iv.
Screen Distortion
v.
Narrative Sequence Blueprint
vi.
UI Functionality
- Johns Home Modeled - Textures
- Miscellaneous items found in stores
i.
Office
ii.
Parking Garage
iii.
Home
- Music???
February 10:
- Sound Effects Recorded
- Johns Home Puzzle Set Up/Functional
i.
Playtest
- Parking Garage Items Modeled/Basic Layout
- Full Narrative Sequence Functionality
- Office Puzzle Layout/Paper Design
February 10 - 27:
- Playtest Johns Home functionality
i.
Update, Change
- Start Character Model Search/Animations
March 6:
- Johns Home Basic Puzzle Functionality
- Character Model Found/Animations
- Music Found and Implemented. . .
March 6 - 27:
- Parking Garage Modeled/Implemented/Functionality Alpha
- Play test Parking Garage
April 3:

- Office Modeled and Blocked

- Office Puzzle Fleshed out
April 16:
- Play test and fully implement office puzzle
April 16 - 30:
- Play Testing