Freak Real Estate is an entry level strategy game about being an old ghost who is annoyed about all those ‘peksy kids’ that keep on tresspassing in your house! And in the only way that a ghost can obviously do this, is by scaring them to death!
Scaring
Freak Real Estate aimed to be a simpler turn based strategy game, so that it could act as an entry level to new people to the genre.
The Aim of the intruders was to break in, and steal an item that they would consider valuable. However, the player does not know what they would go after. To tell, the player would have to determine what item they would like from how they spoke.
Each intruder would have their own looks, needs and wants that would evolve over the game. For example, if they got hungry, they would try to go to the kitchen to find food. This allows the player some foresight when planning their traps.
Once the intruders got the item they wanted, they would make a mad dash for the door. This would be the last chance for the player to stop them, or they would flee in their van, with all of their valuables.
Design
The game takes place in a single level: The Mansion. This was created to resemble a real life house that you could find, but also facillitate the needed space for creative gameplay.
The player had a set amount of action points available to them each turn, they would have to spend them on a series of traps that would scare the intruders. Once the intruders were frightened enough, they could be dispatched of in a variety of ways.
The traps were designed to create synergies with eachother, so that the player could pull off well timed “chain-scares” that would reward the player greatly for trying to predicct and plan where the intruders would go.
It was out goal to create a gameplay loop that was simple to learn, but could have a high skill ceiling that let experienced players show off their prowess.
My Work
In this team, I was in charge of Gameplay design.
I created the baseline for how every trap would work, look, sound and behave when the AI would trigger it. Working closely with the AI programmers and the artists, we would try nd create something that would not only be fun be fun for the players to use but also highly valuable functionality.
Constant gameplay testing and iteration were at the forefront of every decision I made. Once I had programmed in a change based on feedback from previous tests, I would plan for another.
When not working on the design, I helped to create function and visuals for the world space UI, and also I worked on the audio for the game. The sound FXs used were usually bashed together using Adobe Audition.
I also co-wrote the piece of music used in the trailer below.
Watch the Trailer!
Post Mortem
Freak Real Estate was an interesting project that went through many different iterations. It was the first project that I worked on that really worked on player feedback from playtests and tried to adapting to said feedback. We tried different mechanics from a card draw system of traps that you would tailor from level to level to even making it local multiplayer.
It taught me mostly what I know now of gameplay design. How execution is everything when it comes to strategy games. From the visuals needing to feel right, and the payoff mentally and physically from getting a great play that you needed to win the game.
Looking back on it now, I think I would change everything. Which in my eyes is a good thing. It’s good to know that I can look back at my old work and think that I could do a much better job at it now. It shows progress and understanding I have now, that I didn’t have before.
For example, I would change the game from having all the traps available at all times, to a pool system. A limited amount of the more specialised traps would make the player think about how they would use them, and how best to optimise it. I would also think about adding a way to upgrade traps down different paths. To change their function to suit different needs. Player agency was always a little lackluster in Freak Real Estate, and adding that choice for players to change the gameplay to fir their styles or to get new synergies that weren’t there before sounds like a much more engaging and interesting game to play.
Thomas Simpson - Game Designer 