Let's Find Sophie
Let's Find Sophie is a 2D platformer game where you, your partner, and a little girl named Sophie decided to entertain yourselves by playing hide-and-seek in the house. As you two work together to seek Sophie out across different rooms throughout the house, you and your partner slowly realize that something is not right with the game.
No, something’s not right with Sophie.
Read about the game process in more details here.
Research
When it comes to narrative, I took inspiration from ‘The Others’ (2001), a movie where a mother and her two children believe their house is haunted, only to reveal that they are ghosts, feared by the living. The game narrative subvert initial assumptions, re-framing the protagonists as misunderstood figures rather than threats.
When researching into the emotional aspect I want to create for ‘Lets Find Sophie’, I took inspiration from a video game called ‘Little Nightmares’. This game creates a sense of vulnerability and fear in the player due to how small the character is in a hostile environment. It also play with the duality of predator and prey throughout the game, forcing players to reconsider who is truly the threat.
Gameplay
The game is divided into four sections of the house: the bedroom, kitchen, living room, and corridor. The first three rooms are compact and deliberately designed to be unconventional, reflecting Sophie's unique perception of her surroundings. These spaces serve as both a physical and emotional journey for the players, who must collaborate to find Sophie in a game of hide-and-seek by stepping on pressure plates corresponding to their body shapes while piecing together fragments of her story by collecting loose pages.
In the last room, players are made to chase Sophie through the corridor, and on the walls are picture frames of Sophie’s fear of the shadows consuming her. While the mechanics are more narrative in the final room, it portrays the anxiety Sophie has towards the players as she gained the courage to leave the house while trying to widen the gap between her and the players.
Art style
The characters in the game are drawn in pixel art style and are designed to be rather cute to have them contrast against the dark environment of the game, making the players feel emotionally unbalanced and have a sense of unease. The characters also give subtle clues in the game that something isn’t right - such as Sophie having dark eye bags under her eyes.
The muted color palette of the environment, dominated by dark hues and minimal bursts of color, subtly heightens feelings of unease and melancholy. The absence of vibrant tones creates a subdued atmosphere, emphasizing isolation and introspection.
Finally, the framing of the rooms. By closing off open areas and reinforcing the sense of being trapped, the level design evokes the psychological effects of anxiety, such as hyperawareness and enhancing the impression of being confined.