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Six students decide to try out this mysterious board game – only to find out that aside from its strange rules and nondescript title, it's also unplayable – so they quickly forget about it. However, the game hasn't forgotten them.

The students are whisked away to a twisted version of their school, where they find themselves surrounded by traps, deadly puzzles and menacing creatures chasing after them. There is no other way out, they must finish the game if they want to survive.
Playground is a story-focused, puzzle-solving rpg horror game. Take control of all six main characters throughout the story as you make your way through the cursed school, trying to solve the mystery behind the curse and struggling to stay alive.

The main gameplay feature is the solving of puzzles by interacting with objects, reading notes, picking up items and figuring out what's going to kill you and what's not. It'll feature different endings that you can get depending on your choices during the game, although the gameplay itself is quite linear. Despite the gameplay's simplicity, it's a very story-heavy game so it'll feature plenty of dialogue-heavy and interaction between the characters. Horror-wise, it doesn't have many jumpscares and it relies on a creepy atmosphere to make the game spooky.

Latest Blog

New Updates

Yes, this is still in development! It might be slowly (but surely!) crawling towards its end, but I'll get there one day. I’ve finally got through a particular scene that I was stuck in for ages and also the scene after that, and now I’m back to making a more puzzle-oriented section (which is kind of a pain at first, but after you get the puzzle figured out and what you need to do, it’s a breeze to go through). There’s still quite a bit of work left to be done (not counting the playtesting and adjusting afterwards), but I’ll get there eventually!

Here are a few updates:



Changed up the title screen! It's more dynamic now, with the portraits of all the main six (not shown in the gif for size reasons) fading in and out. I think it has a more 'title screen' feel to it than just the static image I had before.



Changed up the message box! Also instead of the arrow pointing down, it's a little dice rolling around. At least it was supposed to be a dice.



Here's a preview of a bonus scene. It'll be part of the unlockable optional content along with a gallery of unseen sketches of the cast. I wanted to go full blown color CG at first, but then I realized that would be waaay too time consuming considering each scene will have at least five separate images, so I decided to do this style instead (bless my new drawing tablet and all that’s holy, I don’t know how I survived without it). There’ll still be colored cutscene images inside the game itself, though.

So yes, Playground's still in development! My biggest problem so far is that I have other game ideas I want to work with so inspiration for this comes and goes, but I swear I'll finish this one day. I'm especially motivated by how well From Next Door was received and I'd like to see how a full out game would do (although considering I started this before From Next Door, there are some things I'd like to change but won't because I'm already too far in development and that would just set me back by a lot). I'm also motivated by what I'm going to do afterwards, I have big plans that I won't start until Playground is finished, haha
  • Production
  • SpaceZeta
  • RPG Maker VX Ace
  • Adventure Puzzle
  • 11/11/2015 12:03 AM
  • 03/19/2017 10:07 PM
  • N/A
  • 59080
  • 84
  • 1074

Posts

Pages: 1
Frogge
I wanna marry ALL the boys!! And Donna is a meanc
18536
This looks awesome <3
shayoko
We do not condone harassing other members by PM.
515
the was some movie about people dying in a game and dying in real life the same way.
i wonder if that inspired this :3
"The students are whisked away to a twisted version of their school,"
Corpse Party was the first thing that came to mind upon reading that.
This reminds me of Corpse Party a lot, I'll give it a try!
Notoh
*Deeply Thinking*
1928
Looks interesting! Gonna give it a go and respond to it after!
This will be my playground tonight :)
shayoko
We do not condone harassing other members by PM.
515
Random thoughts may include spoilers
i love the sound for the title screen! some random scenes would work really well with that :3

nice artwork for character :3

i like the mapping for the school :3

Eris a ghost! she appeared out of no where! :O if she came but of the room there was no sound either!

disabling sprint may be a good idea for this game as it reduces the atmosphere a bit.
and with the area of travel it isn't necessary.

i am surprised your character(starting guy) had no reaction to the game note.if it were me? i would of
came to the conclusion of what the situation could be to some degree (not including what it meant by
players are enemies

hopscotch was tedious to pass. had to trial and error it. many deaths :3

nothing for the 2nd and 3rd group


General 52M No spoilers
Game is easy to finish

-the atmosphere was good. and for my personal taste it didn't get too depressing (yet anyway) for me to dislike the game.
-The grammar is great
-The custom artwork is great
-The characters are good (great if built more,with flashbacks and depth to personality)
-there was no music playing which during longer dialog felt weird but i think it was a good choice in the end.(same with walking sounds they're hit and miss for me)
-the use of items was nice too
-the puzzles were easy


Overall
i am looking forward to the full version of this. keep up the great work!

Plot assumption (obvious spoiler potential)
:3 foreshadowing how everyones going to die? at this point
its possible the story about the piggys will be the fate of the characters. theres also the potential of multiple schools(copies in different dimensions) which your walking around in.
so when you see bloody foot prints it could be one of your friends you as the player thinks is alive but as dimensions have different "speeds" then things could be in the future or past.
in any case you wont see your friends until they die or something that insinuates it.
damage,burns and other signs in areas.
theres things hinting towards that

i am going to assume there will be plot deaths but in terms of the game itself....i am not yet sure what the goal is.
it doesn't seem to be kill the other players despite the warning...also having so many weird dangers that could kill you would not make sense if your supposed to kill each other.
so...at this point my guess is the purpose of the game...is to test the wills of the players.its not about winning its about thinking,surviving and never giving up.growing as a person a point where nothing in life will faze you.
so rather then a game its more of a test

on another note. i hope we find out why that particular game curses people.
even as a bonus room thing. :3 maybe a god created it to test humanity every now and then :3

author=shayoko
Random thoughtsmay include spoilers
i love the sound for the title screen! some random scenes would work really well with that :3

nice artwork for character :3

i like the mapping for the school :3

Eris a ghost! she appeared out of no where! :O if she came ut of the rom there was no sound either!

disabling sprint may be a good idea for this game as it reduces the atmosphere a bit.
and with the area of travel it isn't necessary.

i am surprised your character(starting guy) had no reaction to the game note.if it were me? i would of
came to the conclusion of what the situation could be to some degree (not including what it meant by
players are enemies

hopscotch was tedious to pass. had to trial and error it. many deaths :3

nothing for the 2nd and 3rd group


General 52M No spoilers
Game is easy to finish

-the atmosphere was good. and for my personal taste it didn't get too depressing (yet anyway) for me to dislike the game.
-The grammar is great
-The custom artwork is great
-The characters are good (great if built more,with flashbacks and depth to personality)
-there was no music playing which during longer dialog felt weird but i think it was a good choice in the end.(same with walking sounds they're hit and miss for me)
-the use of items was nice too
-the puzzles were easy


Overall
i am looking forward to the full version of this. keep up the great work!

Plot assumption (obvious spoiler potential)
:3 foreshadowing how everyones going to die? at this point
its possible the story about the piggys will be the fate of the characters. theres also the potential of multiple schools(copys in different dimensions) which your walking around in.
so when you see bloody foot prints it could be one of your friends you as the player thinks is alive but as dimensions have different "speeds" then things could be in the future or past.
in anycase you wont see your friends until they die or something that insinuates it.
damage,burns and othersigns in areas.
theres things hinting towards that

i am going to assume there will be plot deaths but in terms of the game itself....i am not yet sure what the goal is.
it doesn't seem to be kill the other players despite the warning...also having so many weird dangers that could kill you would not make since if your supposed to kill each other.
so...at this my my guess is the purpose of the game...is to test the wills of the players.its not about winning its about thinking,surviving and never giving up.growing as a person a point where nothing in life will faze you.
so rather then a game its more of a test

on another note. i hope we find out why that particular game curses people.
even as a bonus room thing. :3 maybe a god created it to test humanity every now and then :3



First of all, thank you so much for the feedback! Especially this kind of detailed feedback ^^

I'll take on consideration all that you said and review stuff, such as playing a sound when Eri comes out of the classroom and other stuff. The main menu is still temporary, I might change it later on (although the music is the official theme of game c: ) I'm not quite sure what to do with the puzzles' difficulties, although I'm already trying to up the difficulty as the chapters pass.

But regarding the hopscotch puzzle (spoilers to those who haven't played it yet!):


The answer to the puzzle is actually on the phone call you get in the Faculty Office. The voice doesn't just keep repeating numbers, it precisely says 1 2 3 4 5 6 _ 8 9 10. It purposely skips the 7, which is the answer to the hopscotch puzzle :> I thought it wouldn't be hard, but I guess I was wrong, haha


Also, there will be bonus scenes for each chapter, that you can unlock by collecting collectibles during the chapters. These scenes will expand on the story and the background of the characters, and they will be available at the end of each chapter. I'm still working out the kinks on that, though :p

And lastly, I want to comment on all your assumptions but I'm gonna refrain from doing that or I might risk spoiling things so I will neither confirm nor deny anything :> But I can say that the origin of the game will play a part on the story later on so yes, you'll find out!
Hey! I love it! I did a lil video on it, If you don't mind! Here is the link!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zu2SW_wRHlg
This looks amazing! I Will give it a go tomorrow!
Just finished demo,..loving ^_^ Cant wait till its finished!
i'm going to make a whole let's play of this game.
Pages: 1