Darkness loving Xenomorphs invaded and severely damaged your ship. With the ships’ generator failing every 10 seconds, you have to use timing and sacrifice to save as many crewmembers as you can. To make your escape quota of course, so the damn ship’s AI lets you leave.

That’s Love Your Pets in a nutshell. Love Your Pet aims to be survival horror puzzler slash meat grinder in a scifi setting. It preys on the constant threat of the invisible evil, and on the player being helpless in the dark.

the main mechanic in the game is the duct grates, and avoiding those grates. Scattered about the map are grates with Xenomorphs in them. Crew members passing the grate wakes the Xenomorph. During the next blackout the Xeno will attempt to devour a nearby Ensign. The lights flip on and reveal a bloody corpse and a bloody trail leading to the vents.

Simple no? Grates equal death. Death equals horror. Or so I thought.

This is what really happened.

For maximum effect the player needed to be at least tensed up enough to dread the lights going out, only to be freaked out by the sudden fresh corpse.

In reality this did not happen. Prior knowledge of the grates is critical to the player understanding and getting immersed in the game, and this mechanic was simply not obvious. I hinted to it in the narrative of course, and the blood and damage to the grates helps, but since the action happens in darkness the players eyes are never drawn towards the danger.

How can we fix this?

To remedy this in the post compo version we need to educate the player beforehand to help build tension, and draw the players focus to the ducts, and the inherent danger. 

• Expelling particles (steam) / spores from ducts.
• Bright Lighting on the duct.
• Infestation near first threat areas.
• Pet signals.
• Sound effects!
• Crew dialog
• Foreshadowing with narrative, sfx.

A clear threat should help build tension better and enhance the survival horror theme.

Next up: Don’t Forget Adding Content!