It started with a question: “How do we make a game you can play with your eyes closed?”
Project Dark is a narrative-driven, immersive audio game that draws on the classic “choose your own adventure” genre to create a unique and compelling interactive experience. With an overarching theme of darkness in this first anthology, there are several settings and casts of characters to get to know and multiple endings for audiences to discover. Each episode plays for roughly 30 minutes and can be replayed with different decisions to reach each unique story conclusion.
As a player, you are the driver of the story; each choice in these branching narratives guides you towards a different ending, putting the direction in your hands. The controls are simple swipes, left and right, with sound mini games to bolster actionable events within the narrative. The gameplay of Project Dark is simple, yet it is the simplicity that keeps the experience immersive. Our developers wanted to ensure that the player stayed within the narrative while adding interactive elements of gameplay, marrying an audio novel to a choose your own adventure game.
After working on Project Dark for nearly two years, our team has become intimately familiar with the worlds we’ve explored and the many nuances they hold. Here are some of their favorite episodes:
Jared T., Junior Programmer:
“During my time working on PD, I ended up mostly working on VO audio, timelines, UVS logic, and programming one of the mini games found in one of the episodes. It was a lot of work but it allowed me to learn new systems and continue developing some of my skills. Out of all of the episodes, I would have to say Bliss is my favorite. The voice acting and the sounds were done beautifully, the story was immersive, and the setting was full of nostalgia. It felt like I was a little kid again watching one of my old TV shows. Overall, Bliss is really well done and one of the episodes I can just keep playing and never get tired of.”
Curtis C., Lead Game Designer & Project Manager:
“My favorite episode has changed throughout the games production. Initially I really enjoyed Submersive as I’m a sucker for the ocean and deep sea exploration. Though as we onboarded more episodes and I dug into them, Game of three took the title of my favorite. The different types of human connections, commentary on current issues in the world and how people deal with them really hit home. These factors entwined with an environment and premise that gives you a lot to picture in your mind, makes for a great episode from start to finish. 10/10 would play again.”
Diane “Iya”, Game Developer:
“Oh, picking a favorite episode is hard! They all have different ideas and value… If I had to pick, Home Invasion is my favorite for drama and tension. Cleaning up the sound files for that had me crying sometimes! For comedy and chaos, Cave of Spirits. I cleaned the audio for a lot of the lines with the VAs for Jester and Oswin recording together, and it near impossible to tell if the background noise is gone over my own stifled laughter!”
Moe S., UI Game Programmer:
“I mostly focused on the UI aspect of PD; helped set up the skeleton, logic, and practicality of the UI. Also worked on audio edits (cutting/adding effects to audio) and replacing the AI generated with the VA audio. It was a lot of fun! I always enjoy creating UI and learning new ways to make them fancy and appealing to the users. My favourite episode would have to be Cave of Spirits. It just felt wholehearted and fun with the Jester’s voice lines. The story felt intriguing, the ambience was on point, the voice actors portrayed their characters really nicely.”