Cutting Room

Overview

Cutting Room is a Mascot Horror game where the player has been hired as a night shift security officer at a warehouse being used to store props from an old sci-fi show that is getting a reboot. The day time security guard is waiting for you at the security office on the other side of the building. Your mission is to reach him: sounds simple enough!

Little do you know of Delta, a test robot made by a company that was contracted by the old studio. After being corrupted by his creators, he’s out for vengeance. He connects to some of the old show’s mechanical props and dons an alien suit to hunt the player, in a sadistic game of cat and mouse.

Armed only with a stun gun, that packs enough of a punch to boot some of the systems in the building, the player must avoid delta and uncover the mystery of what ideas were left on the cutting room floor.

Project Design Goal

Create a game falling into the category of Mascot Horror that analyses the tropes and conventions of the subgenre and uses them to its advantage. While also creating a compelling narrative for the player.

Detailed Information

Cutting Room was made for a solo game project based on the genre of mascot horror.

I very early in development decided that my Cutting Room would be built surrounding a sci-fi show. I wax inspired by the sense of horror that came from the uncanny valley surrounding aliens such as the classic Cybermen from Doctor Who. For assets I began looking for a variety of Sci-Fi assets that were under creative commons. I found several props and an alien and robot spiders to populate my game.

I knew that alike many other mascot horror games I wanted to have a central “gimmick”” that the player would use to solve puzzles. The “gimmick” I chose was a stun gun that could be used to power up machines around the building. In order to balance this mechanic I has the stun gun have limited charges and be recharged at generators around the building. I also decided that the stun gun would have the ability for the player to avoid the enemies by using the stun gun on them.

I also aimed to add collectables that would flesh out the narrative and two endings in order to encourage players to explore.