A small byte of interactive horror against the backdrop of guard duty in National Service.
Hantu Hunter
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Hantu Hunter is a game that celebrates the cultural diversity of storytelling in Singapore. Set in the mundane hell that is guard duty at an army camp, players must prepare themselves for a surprisingly accurate depiction of the horrors of being a national serviceman. With the night shrouded in mystery and more night, players must choose wisely who they believe.
Slammed into creation by a bunch of guys who have done guard duty before, and just so happen to know how to make a functional game.
For this game, I was in charge of most of the game mechanics and the general flow of the game. It was a week long game jam, so there were quite a few mechanics that had to be cut and we focused mostly on making the game as intuitive to play as possible. It is a straightforward narrative experience punctuated by ghost stories that have been well and truly alive in Singapore’s history for a long time.
Writing the game’s dialogue took me back to my experiences in National Service. Since the theme of the game jam was ‘Heritage’, I took extra care to make the dialogue seem as natural and organic as possible, although we weren’t allowed to swear in the dialogue so that definitely made the army talk a little less accurate.
The decisions you have to make in Hantu Hunters were simple and affected the game in small, quiet ways. My intention were that these changes were subtle to create creepy moments where when you notice what had happened, you would do a double take.