Cheap Tricks

This is a whole new game. The original was a VR game that was connected to an Arduino that controlled real life shackles that the user was strapped into. In order to escape they had to solve a spooky puzzle in the virtual environment. Originally I was going to do a straight remake and try and update the game to be wireless and play with whether or not I could convince a player to behave as if shackled without physically being so using Quest hand tracking. Then COVID hit and the thought of making a VR game for a specific piece of hardware that no one had access to became very unappealing. So I went back to the drawing board and started with the base principle of The Dire Machine — horror is a cheap trick in VR.

While I’ve kicked myself many times for the scope creep, it has really highlighted how much farther along my skills feel. Not much feels out of reach anymore, which isn’t to say that I know how to do everything, but more so that I have confidence I can learn what I need to to make whatever kind of game.

Beyond that I think it’s been very interesting to look back at an old project and be forced not to hate it. This sounds bad but I think, as artists, we often move on from projects and progress and have tendencies to hate everything older than a few hours, and the framing of Origin Stories kind of counters that, which is fucking neat.

Someone please stop me the next time I decide to make another horror game.