I wanted to make an exploration game with a melancholic atmosphere and detailed 3D environments.

The first draft only had one level. You had to find your way through the inside of an obstructed wall by crawling under piles of various stuffs, walking on wooden beams and jumping down pipes to reach the bottom.

You could hear muffled voices and sounds coming from the other side of the wall along the way. The intension was to make the player feel alone, confined and kept away from an unreachable world: the inside of the house.

It was also a practical way to tell a story with only few elements, leaving a lot to the imagination of the player.

While designing new levels, I came up with the loop concept where the final level leads back to the first level, the bedroom. 

Each loop introduces subtle variations in level design, ambiance and puzzles to use the player's expectations to surprise him.

Examples:

• A bridge present in loop 1 is broken in loop 2, making a level more difficult with an additional platform section.

• The same level is now plunged in the dark in loop 3 and requires the use of the flashlight to be crossed.

As a reward, at the end of each loop, the player can explore a new room of the house, leading back to the bedroom.

Once again, it's also an efficient way to create interesting content while reusing assets.

The game is inspired by House of Leaves for the setting, Half-Life for the exploration and by various walking simulators with detailed environments like Gone Home and What Remains of Edith Finch.