Working title: Choco Hell
Sentence pitch for the game : Sugar, pumpkin spice… and something not quite right!
Genre: Horror, Fantasy, Comedy
Intended:
To bring surprise to audience (make them find the game cute and creepy at the same time)
To make connections with people who enjoy vintage/ gothic aesthetic
Overview
Choco Hell is a third person interactive level based mobile game. The persona, Jazzie, was a mascot/ plush toy of Retro Candy Shop. She is tired of being trapped in a man-made body, longing to break free. On the 31st of October, a mysterious fog awoke Jazzie and she was given a power to escape from the shop.
About how the game works, the game will be accessed on mobile devices in landscape mode. Players slide their fingers on the screen to control Jazzie to help her escape different levels.
Players are able to have an amusing and terrifying game play experience. Choco Hell is a horror game disguised in its delicate designs. Cute characters hurt terribly after being assaulted, such as their eyeballs may fall off or their head may expose.
This game is highly inspired by the theme of Halloween, sweets, horror, cuteness, vintage and egl culture. Game arts and character designs include the above elements, hoping to make connections with people who enjoy horror but cute games, and also people who intend to understand more about/ love subculture.
Essential experience :
Anxious and Exciting, In levels game, in order to create an anxious and exciting atmosphere, it only allows Jazzie to run but not walk to move forward.
Shocking, both Jazzie and other characters’ bodies will be ruined horribly when they get attacked, like their organs burst out from their stomachs when get punched or their eyeballs fall off and their face when they get hit right into their face
Narrative
Settings:
The story is based in Retro Candy Shop in Hollow hearts street in the UK during the late 30s. After Jazzie has her self conscious, she went into a whole another space, Choco Hell, it is a super dangerous place where harmful chocolate lava and sweets monsters are everywhere.
Plot summary:
Retro candy shop was an ordinary sweets shop located in Hollow heart streets. THis shop designed its own mascot, Jazzie, to attract young customers and was made into a physical plush toy. Jazzie has sat in the glass-fronted showcase since the day it arrived at the shop.
There was a secret that the shop owner didn’t know. A drop of human blood was accidentally dropped onto the plush toy, which made it have a soul and self consciousness from the day she was made. The plush toy has been knowing that it was trapped in a man-made body, it spent countless days sitting motionless, watching kids come and go, longing to break free.
On the 31st of October, a mysterious fog covered Hollow heart streets, the fog awoke Jazzie and it was given a power to control its body. Jazzie jumped off from the showcase and escaped from the shop. When she was thinking it finally could start off a new journey, she went into a dangerous place with chocolate lava and sweets monsters, which as known as choco hell, Jazzie is trying to escape from this nightmare and find the reason for her existence. Players are going to discover the journey of Jazzie by clearing levels.
World building
Human world: Normal human world in the old Britain, people in this world do not own any super powers. It is also the world that Jazzie used to stay in.
Hollow hearts street: A street where wealthy families love to shop, shops are mainly bakeries, cafes, and sweets shops.
Retro candy shop: A vintage sweets shop located in Hollow hearts street, Jazzie is the Mascot that represents this shop and it is also the place where Jazzie used to stay.
Choco Hell: It is a very dangerous parallel world with the structures of sweets. There are chocolate lava, doughnut monsters and more threatening creatures everywhere. After Jazzie escaped from Retro Candy Shop, a strong swirl inhaled her and brought her into this world.
Characters
Jazzie
Description: The persona of the story, mechanic that players control with. She is a delicate and adorable rabbit
Physical appearance:
A rabbit plush toy/ mascot represents Retro Candy Shop. Jazzie’s body is in cream color, she has a pair of check patterned ears, with her right ear flopped and skull pattern under her both feets. Jazzie’s face is covered with stitches, with a pair of candy like ruby eyes and a tiny pink hearted nose.The defaulted costume of Jazzie is a strawberry jam/ blood flow like collar, a pair of ruby hand gloves and an orange bloomer.
Personality / characteristics :
Daring, Jazzie might be terrified and cry when she is facing bad situations, despite that, she still choose to fight
Compassionate, Jazzie escaped from Retro Candy Shop and started an adventure in a dangerous place alone, so that she can understand the hard feelings of the poor ones and show caring to them.
Dounutman
Description:
Jazzie’s Alley ,the second creature Jazzie meets, and was once Jazzie’s enemy when they first met. Jazzie first thought Dounutman is the same as those nasty marshmallows who are going to harm her, but turns out he was also a victim that was trapped in this place and they decided to team up and fight together.
Dounutman’s origin is unknown, even himself does not know where he is from. However, he has been wondering about the human world, he learned that daisy flowers are from the human world and wish someday he could go to the human world and see the authentic one.
Physical appearance:
A strawberry doughnut with heart shaped sprinkles white chocolate coat at the top. He has tiny eyes, hands and legs. The hole in his tummy is an irregular heart shape which makes him look hollowed. He always wear daisy patterned sky blue baking gloves and shoes which made by himself.
Personality / characteristics :
Comedic Relief, His reactions toward accidents are dramatic and often hilarious. His huge plus a bit formidable body with his exaggerate reactions, this contrast creates an unintentional humor
Protective, In moments of danger, he always steps up to protect Jazzie, he dislikes seeing harm to those he cares about.
Marshmallow goblins
Description:
A large army that belongs to Choco Hell. The weakest but has the greatest number of them. They are the most common enemies that can be seen in levels.
Physical appearance:
tiny pastel color marshmallow with unpleasant facial expressions. They have sharp fangs and so they bite to attack. There are multiples of them and they look similar to each other.
Personality / characteristics :
Evil: Despite their cute tiny size, they are evil and aggressive. Their characteristics are similar to chihuahua
Cupcake Boooogy
Description:
One of the bosses of Choco Hell, numbers of small monsters including marshmallow goblins are under his control. He extends his large and long tentacles to attack and uses his sharp fangs to cut enemies’ heads off. His extremely strong abilities makes nobody dares to go against him.
Physical appearance:
A hybrid of giantantic cupcake and a shadowy monster with malevolent facial expression. It has a giant melting chocolate cupcake head, light purple cup body, 10 extensive purple tentacles, a pair of green sinister eyes and a huge mouth with 8 sharp fangs.
Personality / characteristics :
Heartless and cruel monster. Shows no mercy to the weak ones, just to do what he wishes. His aim is to dominate Choco Hell and make this place an eternal nightmare, he will kill whatever interrupt him from achieving his goals. He can extend his tentacles to attack and use his sinister eyes to release lasers to burn enemies, his weakness is his heart inside his throat.
3 game pillars
- Jazzie’s room. A small space for players to customize their own goth & vintage style room, it’s also players and Jazzie’s safe and secret place. Players use coins/ choice bars gained from clearing levels to buy furnitures
- Levels, Story based levels, the core of the game, players clear stages to continue with the main story. Each stage comes with stories and small talks between Jazzie and other characters.
- Events, Story based levels which work the same as level games but are only able to clear within a limited period (around 2 weeks). Players enjoy new stories, new game art and can collect exclusive items (new costumes for Jazzie) by finishing stages
Perception
Players control Jazzie in third person perspective in all game modes, audiences are more able to appreciate the game art on a larger scale. Players progress by earning experiences and cherry candies from clearing level and event games and use the rewarded items to purchase/ exchange items that players need.
Levels
Levels is the main focus of the game, it contains the main plot of the story. Level game mode starts with an introduction that explains the situation of Jazzie, after that, the game starts.
About the game play, it allows only single player mode, players need to collect requested items (sweets ingredients) without dying before arriving at the goal counts a win. The difficulty of level game mode is fixed, the higher the levels are, the more difficult to clear. Most levels end with short talks (story scenes) whenever players clear a stage.The difficulty of level game mode is fixed, the higher the levels are, the more difficult to clear. Player’s aim is to unlock new characters and events that are going to appear in Jazzie’s journey, and players progress by clearing levels.
Events
Event is a game pillar that provides exclusive stories, characters or items in a period of 14 days. Those exclusive plots are mainly side stories about other characters besides Jazzie’s Journey or story collaboration with other officials. Players.
Event’s gameplay method works similar to level game mode, there is only one difference which is players are able to choose the difficulty of the gaming mode (normal and hard) as to make sure most players can enjoy event stories and awards within the limited event time.
Mechanics in level and event game modes
Game controls work the same in both game modes. To move forward, players are allowed to run and jump instead of walk. In attacking actions, players can pinch, swipe and draw on the screens of their mobile gadgets to make attacks, the more complicated and longer the durations of the finger actions are, the higher damage the attack brings to the enemies.
Movements:
Running: Players slide their fingers to the right side of their screen to move forward.
Jumping: double tap
Attacks:
Wrecking ball : A weapon inspired by the structure of cake pop. Draw a ¼ circle on their screen to swing, takes 0.3 second for outputting, brings 10% damage to enemies
Flash Bang: Tap onto the screen, takes 0.5 second for outputting, swipe to the left side of the screen and release to dump brings 15% damage to enemies
Gravity Gun: Pinch (bring two fingers together on the screen) to pull the trigger ,, takes 0.8 second for outputting, brings 23% damage to enemies
Core game Loop (making weakening ball as the example of the weapon)
Jazzie’s room
Jazzie’s room works as a small space for players to customize their own style of bedroom for Jazzie. In Jazzie’s room, players are able to use the item rewarded from level and event to purchase furniture (wallpaper ,sofa, closet, windows, curtains, room decorations and more) and clothes (tops, bottoms, jumpsuits, one piece,and accessories) and customize them for Jazzie.
There is a photography function where players are welcomed to take photos of their room and Jazzie after decorations. Players will be rewarded if they share their pictures on their social medias through the function “Share it” in My room (once per day)
Jazzie’s room is the game pillar intended to make connections with people who are interested in egl and vintage cultures. As Jazzie’s room provides gothic and Victorian interior designed furniture and character costumes, players are able to manipulate with the game art like collage, on the other hand, players are also encouraged to share images of their customized room and Jazzie through photographs captured. These interactive gameplay methods help players make connections with each other plus audiences outside the game.
Art and Visual Style
Art style: The game is in 2D cartoon style and highly inspired by horror, vintage sweets, vintage graphic arts, and the cultures of the 30s Britain.
Character design: Characters were designed with the structure of vintage sweets, (e.g.marshmallow goblins, doughnut man) Halloween elements (e.g.blood drop bottomed ears, hollowed body) and cute elements (e.g. heart shapes and chibi proportions).
Environment design: There are three environments that appear in the game, Human world, Choco Hell (level and events) and Jazzie’s room (my room).
In human world, the setting is based on the Hollow Hearts Street, it references the street designs of the 30s Britain such as Cambridge, Policemen, Sidney Street 1931 and Castle Street Bristol 1930s. The environment in Hollow Hearts Street is magnificent as it is a place where the wealth and royalty love to shop.
In Choco Hell, the setting is based on a sweets parallel world, the whole environment looks adorable but a bit horrible as Choco Hell is dangerous. There are choco lava, strawberry jam volcanos, sweets monsters and more.
In Jazzie’s room, the concept of it is a wardrobe plus bedroom of a little girl’s house,letting players customize their ideal room. The environment will first appear like an empty space and players purchase furniture to decorate the space. The styles of the furniture are diverse, from victorian era style, gothic to festival special editions are available, depending on how players like to customize them, and so the environment design of Jazzie’s room is flexible.
The designs of instructions, game UI, user interface is inspired by graphic art of the packaging of vintage sweets.
Sound and Music
Mechanics’ sound effects in Levels and Events
Movement:
Footsteps: Soft pitter-patter footsteps effect “squish-squash” when Jazzie runs
Jump: Cute sound “boing” when Jazzie does jumping
Grab: A soft and short “boop” sound when characters grab items during story scenes after levels.
Attacks:
Wrecking ball : A strong “Dong !!!” then fades out
Flash Bang: “Flash” and “Bang’, the “Bang” sound fades out
Gravity Gun: First comes with a charging sound “Vwoooommmm…” and then a burst “Boom !!!“
Interactions:
A sharp scream “Eyaaaa” when tiny enemies are defeated
A long and horn like sound “ohhuuuuu” when large sized enemies are defeated
Sound effects in Game UI
Grand and shimmering sound whenever players taps onto instructions on Game UI
A gentle and soft whoosh rises in pitch when players gain new collections
Background Music
Game UI/ UX: Mysterious and light melodic minor music played by piano to present the theme of horror and vintage of the game. Gymnopédie No. 1 by Erik Satie as reference.
Levels: An adagio orchestra music with high dynamic contrast.The music keeps players on edge to create an exciting emotion. Don Giovanni, K. 527: Act 1 Overture by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as reference
Events : Do not have a default background music for events, depending on what atmosphere of the settings and plot want to bring.
Jazzie’s room: Soft and elegant Strings to present a pleasant and grand atmosphere. Music that is able to show Jazzie’s Room is a safe place plus the environment can be graceful after players’ decorations. String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 12 by Felix Mendelssohn as reference.
Platform Specification and control mapping
Available for most mobile devices, Minimum iOS/ Android version, supported screen resolutions
Market
Target Audience:
This game targets cute and horror theme enthusiasts aged 15 or above, secondary audiences are people who are interested in egl culture. This game is a mobile game and all information will be written in English, and so focus on mobile players from North America and Europe.
Genre and Trends:
Horror is always the most popular game genre among the young community. Using Resident Evil 4 and Dead Space, according to BBC news these two horror games as examples, underscores the genre’s appeal, with these titles ranked among the top sellers in 2024. It shows the golden age of horror genre games is now.
Marketplace positioning
There are direct competitors including “Shadow Hearts Series” and “Koudelka.” They are both famous horror RPG games. Unlike these, Choco Hell includes cute designs into game world and character designs. Our game also provides comedy reliefs through characters’ deaths which many horror games would not like to include. Most RPG games require complicated platform specification and control mapping to run the game, Choco Hell can be played with mobile gadgets, it makes RPG game play more convenient.