One Armed Samurai

One armed Samurai is a short Demo of a horror game I made for my Bachelor Thesis about perspectives and perception.

In the game you switch between 3 perspectives and try to avoid monsters that only become aggressive if you look at them.

The player is also restricted in what he can see, based on what the character would be able to see.

One Armed Samurai is a horror game in which we control a character who only has one arm. The fear of the unknown, what we do not perceive and what could be, is the approach to involve this theme in a horror game. This fear is complemented by the vulnerability of the character.

There are two levels in the game, each with two different variations. These differ in the camera perspectives that are taken. The player is limited in what the character would be able see, things that take place outside this area are stylized or unrecognizable. There are also enemies that interact with this field of vision by changing their behavior based on whether they are being looked at or not. Darkness and the fear of the unknown go hand in hand, so it is not always possible for the player to use a lamp as the character only has one hand.

The game was designed with a larger coherent narrative in mind, however this is not directly addressed in this version, but serves as a bafoundation for design decisions. The actual realization of this narrative is subject to future goals and is manifested in a design document. The idea is not just to change perspectives in order to view existing content in a new context, but to subtly change the content aswell. For example not only the perspective could be changed, but also the character when a first person perspective is taken.

I made a short Video Essay about the experience of creating this game which you can watch here.