Ashioto – Concept art and
Sound teaser
A presentation by Lucas Pledge and Charlie Shafe
Idea
 Our hypothetical game idea is about man from the Edo period of Japanese
history, who wakes up in an abandoned period-specific town. The town will be
surrounded by mist, other than the one shrine on the outskirts of the map. The
audience will not know why this has happened and will have to find clues as they
go to find how to escape. The reason our character has woken up like this is
because of a Japanese spirit (or yokai), betobeto-san. The legend goes that he is
a harmless spirit who will follow you at night, until you let him past. However in our
game idea he can attack you if you run out of lantern fuel at night. He has also
taken you to his own realm where he controls day and night, because he feeds
on the fear of humans and would like you to be scared, however our nameless
player is scared of the dark, and will be taken over by fear if he runs out of lantern
fuel.
Mechanic
Betobeto-san has rules in his realm. These are that every 6
in-game hours (24 minutes) you will have to flip a coin,
either sun or moon. Depending on which side the coin
lands on, the atmosphere will become either intense or
calm. The time until you have to flip a coin is indicated by
a mysterious tattoo you woke up with at the beginning of
the game. In order to enforce this rule, if you do not flip
the coin, you will automatically be in night mode, this also
adds a challenge-style mode for competitive gamers.
Genre/Trends
 Our hypothetical game would be adventure horror. We believe this
will be popular because it is not dissimilar from games like slender,
amnesia and outlast. Games that were all well-received. This is
because people (particularly our target audience of males aged
15-25) tend to enjoy thrill-seeking. This is because it allows them to
feel a rush of fear without actually endangering themselves, not to
mention the element of challenge. Also many people enjoy the lets
play videos associated with this genre, people seem to enjoy
youtubers getting scared. Also our game has a unique selling point
in the fact that it has no jump-scares, and is creepy only half the
time (unless the player chooses otherwise).
Platform
Our decided platform is PC. This is because, although
mobile is the where the most predicted revenue is for
indie developers, our idea is based on immersion,
because without immersion there would be no fear. We
believe PC would create the right level of immersion,
more so with headphones on. Also PC games have the
largest online community, particularly as we are planning
on building hype using YouTube lets play videos and
twitch streaming.
Work we will be producing
We shall be producing a concept art and sound teaser in
order to pitch the idea to a publisher. We took inspiration
for this from the concept/sound teaser of ‘Ashen Falls’:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24DVApbWq2c
Inspirations
We have taken inspiration from the mechanics of
amnesia, our game will essentially be a survival horror with
no combat mechanic. We have taken inspiration
stylistically from traditional Japanese architecture, zen
gardens (day mode) and Japanese urban legends &
ghost stories.
Prototype/Draft art
Design Doucment

Lead Character:

Name: No name

Gender: Male

Race: Japanese

Appearance: Black Hakama, white tabi socks, straw zori, black haori with right forearm torn. Hourglass tattoo on right
forearm. Black short hair.

Weight: 13st

Height: 6ft

The character is the only one there other than BetoBeto-San and the character picks up multiple items but doesn’t
really change the environment other than fact that he has the coin flip ability that changes the atmosphere of the
environment although he is not the one who actually changes it.

Other Characters:

BetoBeto-San: Invisible, tends to follow the character around but never attacks unless you run out of time or lantern
fuel. BetoBeto-San is the one who actually changes the environment when the coin is flipped.
Design Document

Environment:

Location:

Not an existing place. Name: Enomoto. Where: Japan When: Sengoku Period, Feudal Japan.

Why: So we can incorporate the Yokai story of BetoBeto-San which within games is a very original concept.

What will happen within the environment?:

Within the game there is mechanic called the “Coin Flip” where , the environment changes depending on the side of the
coin it lands on; Sun side: Nice calm atmosphere and it’s slightly lighter at night time; Moon side: There’s mist during the day,
normal darkness at night and footsteps and horror style sounds can be heard (much darker atmosphere).

The story of our environment/game is that everyone has gone missing and it is down to the player to find out what happened
but they’re not alone as BetoBeto-San follows the player when the coin lands on the moon. There is a way to fail because the
character requires a lantern for certain parts at night and there’s only a set amount of oil in the map so if the player gets
caught out at night with no lantern fuel after flipping moon then its game over and they have to start again.

What will make your work fit the genre you have chosen?:

The mechanic of the atmosphere changes helps the game fit into the adventure horror genre we’re after but the aspect of
trying to figure out what happens fits into the exploration genre that we’re also after.

What is the focal point of the environment?

The focus of our environment is to create juxtaposition through atmosphere as the environments atmosphere can vary
between calm and peaceful to dark and creepy.
References
 Lost at Sea. (2015). Ashen Falls - Concept Art & Sound Teaser. [Online Video]. 9 June 2015.
Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24DVApbWq2c. [Accessed: 12 May
2016].