Haunted Housekeeping
A fast-paced, top-down strategy game.
You are the haunted house.
— PROJECT NAME
Haunted Housekeeping
— ROLE
Art and Design
— DATE
October, 2023
A top-down, fast-paced strategy game. Players take control of a haunted house under the premise that the house is tired of being haunted. By protecting a local repairman, the goal of the game is to allow for the house to be restored whilst avoiding creatures and obstacles. Completed in one week during the 2023 UW-Madison Respawn Game Jam.
A wolf, the enemy, keep him at bay.
A simple piano, for the musically inclined folk.
A ringing phone. It just keeps ringing…
A flying bat. Duck!
A knight in shining armor.
A painting of a bat.
A fireplace, how relaxing.
A patient, stoic grandfather clock.
Vision
The art style in Haunted Housekeeping encompasses an overall tense experience, tying the supernatural with an old-school charm. Through the assets used, while the player is engaged in that of an unexpected series of events, such objects aren't meant to lend themselves to distraction or deterrence from the core game-play. Instead, all items and characters are to assist in the broader ambience of being trapped in and in-control of an entity's walls.
A left-click to move furniture around.
A click and drag to pull items from inventory.
Designing a Tutorial
When crafting the images that would be displayed to supplement the tutorial descriptions in the game, it was critical to ensure that an action by the player could be displayed in a clear and concise manner through the means of a single frame. Such motions by the player could be highlighted by adjusting both the shadows and opacity of objects.
Click here to play a demo version