The game You Should Not See is a horror game focus on the mechanic of if the player see the adversary the player is dead. Simultaneously, the player must seek the way out of a locked environment. This game utilized a face recognition tech for transforming real-time facial facing and eye gaze directions into the first person controller of the game. This feature intends to give player more immersive experience and creates a unique controller experience.
The inspiration of the game came from the eye tracker challenge trend years ago, which is people try not to look at specific places of an image or video.
Then I think why not make this into a horror game? When the player sees the adversary, the player is dead. This concept is really close to a SCP, which is SCP-096 The Shy Guy.
The Shy Guy will hunt anyone saw its face, whether saw it directly or through any medium. It’s a cool adversary design.
This is a horror game where the main adversary is an entity that “You Should Not See,” as the title suggests. The player is placed in a mysterious environment (still undecided), and while trying to find a way out, the entity will obstruct them with its presence. Whether it suddenly appears in front of the player or hides within the scene, it tries to make the player look at it unknowingly. The entity will also try to lure the player’s visual attention, creates a tension between curiosity and surviving.
I centered my research topic with two main points, the facial tracking first person controller and the player psycology of looking at things they shouldn’t look at. Facial recognition in games is far from a new thing, it has been in games for at least a decade. But this piece of tech is often used for simulation training such as plane simulator, or games that using it as an additional feature that with or without the eye tracking doesn’t mean much, such as FPS games or any pilot simulation game. This game concept is using the gaze as the gameplay centric, not just a accessibility thing.
This is an example of the feel that I want to achieve, but without the additional device required. My tech work on a single webcam, which is much more accessible for regular players.