PEEK on Steam

Rose: For someone who has never heard of your game, how would you describe it without using the usual genre labels?

Peek is an audio-driven puzzle game in a horror wrapper. It takes place in one room, and is an audio-based call and response game, like an auditory version of the old toy/game “Simon”.
You sit in the middle of a 5x5 grid and try to determine which square the spirit made her sounds on. Then, you must place the correct relics on the correct squares in order to complete the ritual.

Rose: Where did the idea for this game come from?

I thought it would be cool to have a game that you had to play with your ears rather than with your eyes. My first thought was to make the clues delivered strictly by 3D audio, where you’d think “That sound came from the rear-left of me, and it was right next to me”.
After a lot of early feedback and confusion, I realized I had to ditch that in favor of distinct sound cues associated with individual grid squares, instead, to actually make sense and not frustrate players!

Rose: What makes your game different from other games in the same space?

I don’t want to sound arrogant in saying that my game is “one of a kind”, but I don’t really know of any other game like this out there. I saw a demo on itch while looking for games like this one that was about a cat in high grass and you had to pounce on birds by using 3D sound, and there have also certainly been games made before that rely on using your sound or some sort of echolocation as their navigation mechanic, but I haven’t come across anything like this, though some hidden gem may exist out there somewhere!
I think it’s neat that this game may be unique in that way, but I would have absolutely loved some other examples to figure out how people solved the problems I was stuck on, as well!

Rose: Was there anything you had to cut that you still secretly wish you could put back?

Yeah, probably the pure 3D sound aspect of the puzzle. It was my golden goose, and what I had promised from the beginning, but feedback was brutal until I stripped it.
There are specific plugins that use what’s called HRTF (Head-related transfer function) features, which help listeners distinguish not just left and right, but front and back through headphones. It is pretty cool, and I did leave it in the game (go stand by the cuckoo clock in the front center of the room and slowly turn around) but it wasn’t doing the job I’d hoped.
I can’t and don’t expect every player to have crazy fancy hardware or anything, so I guess 1) either the technology isn’t there yet to make front/back recognition reliable enough for the puzzle I made, or 2) I’m not talented and creative enough to figure out how to make it click! (Probably the latter.)
I could go on about this topic and my frustrations with it forever but I’ll spare you.

Rose: What is something players probably won't realize took an absurd amount of work?

Figuring out how to not frustrate players and not make them feel completely lost took by far the most amount of work. I again cannot overestimate how often I literally heard, “I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing”.
As far as maybe “underappreciated” work that players won’t realize, though not technically difficult, there are many, many creepy and eerie things that can happen in the game during the “Placement” (non-listening) phases of the game. As far as I’m aware, nobody has discovered (or at least mentioned) them yet.
They were meant to not be in your face and call explicit attention to themselves, but rather make you second guess yourself whether you actually saw or heard them. If you idle in the room between rounds for a while, you may encounter some.

I won’t spoil them all, but for example, one of the pictures on the wall might change until you look at it, you may hear a faint whisper from behind your head, or you may even be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the spirit standing in the room with you if you turn around quickly enough…

Rose: What is the weirdest bug you've encountered that you almost wanted to keep?

I don’t think there was specifically any bug that ended up making gameplay better…it all takes place in the same room, so there’s not really much to the loop that isn’t supposed to be curated. I did, however, scare the s*** out of myself accidentally on many bugs before.
The spirit is placed outside of the room while not in Listening phase, and I’ve had her path-find her way through the wall toward me and be standing behind me when I turned around (this was before I changed the way pathing worked).
I’ve also had the game register “game over” before while it shouldn’t have, so I’d be testing the puzzle normally and have my neck snapped suddenly, complete with jumpscare sound and everything.
My kids have laughed at me a few times for jumping in my chair with my headphones on this way. You could call it buggy, but I swear the early versions were straight haunted.

Rose: Is there a particular emotion you wanted players to walk away with from your game?

More than anything I think I just wanted players to play a game where you use audio rather than visual to solve puzzles. The game could have easily been about a frog on lillipads if I wanted, and have ultimately had the same hook.
I was hoping that players would at least be able to appreciate the atmosphere and tension a bit as well, and I’ve always thought that enemies in games (or books, movies, etc.) were always much more frightening when they weren’t seen. I guess I was going for goosebumps more than straight coffee-spilling jumpscares or anything.
For those that haven’t played it, there is one jumpscare that happens when you fail the puzzle enough times to “piss the ghost off enough”. Other than that, nothing really overly-frightening happens. I definitely would not lead with this being a horror game first.

Rose: What's one piece of advice you wish you'd had before starting?

“Give up on the spatial audio; it’s not gonna work.” I keep coming back to this, but that’s the honest truth. Other than that, since this was my first Steam release, I’d honestly probably have appreciated more advice on the non-gamedev stuff, such as marketing and getting the word out about your game.
Making the game itself can be the easy part, but you have to wear a lot of hats. You have to jump through hoops to open your page, make convincing and interesting copy to describe that game, email content creators and use spreadsheets to track Steam keys and those who have gotten back to you, post on social media, record and cut a friggin’ trailer. Hell, I was even looking up interior decorator sites to make the room believable enough.
There are so many things that go into making a game (especially solo) that a lot of your time is spent not even working on the game itself. Also, don’t be afraid to (as long as it’s functional!) call it “good enough” and ship it, especially if it’s your first game.

Rose: Five years from now, what do you hope people remember about this game?

I hope that people remember that while this game wasn’t the best game ever nor was it even close to being the scariest game they’d ever played, at least it was something new. Like a gaudy dress at a fashion show. “I’d sure as hell never wear that, but I’ve definitely never seen it before.”

Rose: Why should someone reading/watching this go play your game today?

Again, if you want to try something new out. I can’t promise that it’s for you, but I can assure you that I think it’ll offer something different. And if it’s not, please let me know because I’d love to see other games like this and see how those folks tackled these issues! I know there’s probably some techniques that are super obvious and will make me smack my forehead that others probably blazed right, through.
But, if playing a game where you need to use your ears, concentration, and memory (I know that sounds scary…my memory sucks and I really try to avoid including “memory” in the description, but if I can get through it, so can you!) sounds interesting to you, then give it a shot.
There is also a Blind and Low Vision mode, which is not just a modification of the normal game, but a completely different mode that allows you to play through the entire game without using visuals at all. So, as long as you have a keyboard on your lap, you can play this in bed with your lights off if you want.

Rose: Finally, the question we ask every developer: After everything you’ve told us, can you officially confirm that your game is, in fact, probably a game? Why should we believe you?

You tell me! If you’re willing to admit that my game is a game then my job has been done and I’m much more relieved than I should be. Or, I could be super full of myself and say that “it’s not a game…it’s an experience” if that helps.