Project Exist:About

This page is about the game itself. For the people that have been, or are on the team, see The Project Exist Team. For Lawrence Wright's covert operation, see Project Exist.

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Project Exist is an English visual novel (of the psychological horror genre) being developed by a team that, to an extent, rotates. It will be released for Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. The gameplay will follow a somewhat-branching plot line using a pool of pre-determined scenarios, and the player's choices. Rather than use x/y branching, nearly all branches in the game are point-based. The choices themselves focus on how the player interacts with the other characters. It features two main storylines.

The main "themes" are the thought process and dreams; it is intended that much of the horror doesn't come from what humans do, but how they think. Along the same lines, rather than focus on nightmares, dreams are set-up to influence reality as opposed to the other way around.

The game is meant to break several game design standards/tropes.

• A God Am I
  • One common "issue" that other RPG's tend to have is the tendency for the main character to become nigh-godlike so that he can take on some other god, or understands/believes that he is more powerful than humanity. Kazuki Kamata will not become so drastically powerful (although Katherine Faust might be.
• Bumbling Sidekick
  • A sidekick that can do nearly nothing isn't worth having around to most people. Most of the sidekicks/party members the player is able to enlist are actually more powerful or useful than the player.
• One-Hit Kill
  • As far as many other games are concerned, in exploration, combat, and story branching, there are possibilities to die (or lock yourself out of a storyline) due to one choice you make. Such possibilities are heavily diminished in Project Exist. Many of the branches that will occur through points, and not yes/nos.
• Follow the Plotted Line
  • "You're just on time!" "Oh, thank God you're here!" The player will not have ridiculous timing, nor will he magically find himself on the path to a "good end". (The timing won't be ridiculously bad either; "You just missed the train!")
• Exponential Potential
  • "Exponential Potential" refers to the tendency for combat-based characters to gain an obscene number of usable skills. The number of skills such a character "knows" will be limited.
• Fake Longevity
  • Increasing game-play time is good, but only if there is actual content. Fetch quests, repetition... there should be none of that.
• Jump Scare
  • Jump scares are false scares; a good psychological horror uses a human's mentality.