Game dev looking for writer to make a HP/backrooms style horror RPG!
I wasn't sure which area to put this, so let me know if this is the wrong place. This is a bit of a weird request, but I make games (basically interactive fan fics) and wanted to make a Backrooms style horror with the Harry Potter world and characters. If you've never heard of the Backrooms, it's an idea that started back in 2019 about liminal space... odd/warped/unfinished places where people end up when they accidentally fall through broken parts of reality. I figured that would be fun combination with magic.
The game is set a week or so after the Battle of Hogwarts and you're helping to clear up and search for remaining bodies/survivors. You enter the Room of Requirement, but due to the magical damage the castle has suffered, you accidentally end up falling through to a much older place that was there long before the castle and the surrounding area was built (huge lay line?). It's an unfinished version of reality where everything is twisted, warped and dark. You have to try to find a way out (if one exists) and your magic is very weak/unstable in there as the normal rules don't apply. I want it to be a slow reveal thing, where the concept of the place isn't really explained until much later on. Until then, it just seems like a twisted nightmare where everything is wrong.
You're not the first person to end up there and other people (who may or may not still be alive/sane) have left behind notes and items that you follow. Snape is one of those people and is a few days ahead of you (someone found his almost dead body during the Battle, used a broken portkey to send him to St Mungo's to die and he went there instead and just about survived due to the 'oddities' of the place). You don't know it's him at first, but pick up and read notes/items he's left for anyone who follows him and you eventually meet up with him and other survivors along the way.
Snape acts like a sort of unseen narrator to begin with. But once you catch up to him you can choose to either hunt him down and finish him off or heal and team up with him (which slows you down and increases your risk initially, but then improves your chance of survival). He's gone a bit insane to begin with, as by the time you reach him he's been in isolation for a while and is also still affected by his injuries, the venom left in his system, and various potions he consumed (maybe the person who used the broken port-key on him also threw a bunch of random potions down his throat in a last ditch attempt to keep him alive). Insane Snape trying to attack you also adds to the psychological horror theme!
You'll be able to play as either a student, a house elf or apprentice with different stats (i.e. the house elf is faster but weaker, the half giant is stronger but slower, etc). There are versions of other creatures/characters in the game, such as warped versions of familiars that you can sometimes enlist to help you, versions of the founders that will either assist or attack you depending on who you align yourself with, a dark version of sorting hats, etc.
I'm (roughly) following the premise/layout in games like 'Escape The Backrooms', so various levels with different styles and puzzles that you have to navigate without dying. Instead of the military, in this version there is a secret department in the Ministry of Magic that knows about this place and sent a few people down there to research who also got trapped but are still working for the MOM and considered a threat. The main 'creepy/horror/weird' style will be the same.
I've made a start on it, but I'm more of a techie person than a writer and I'm looking to team up with someone who can write basic plot, dialogue, journal entries, notes, etc. Then I can build it for people to play. Although if someone wanted to write a continuous prose type story of Snape's POV of waking up half dead there, then I could rehash parts of that into his journal entries/notes.
I can do 99% of the work. It's just the wordy stuff that I need help with! : )
Edit: Ideas other people have added so far
- Instead of almond water, you can find and drink bottles of Butterbeer.
- The sorting hat(s) are possessed and talk gibberish. Don't go near them.
- Level 4 abandoned offices are from the Ministry of Magic.
- The lights out area in Level 6 has dementors. You can shine light at them to temporarily confuse them.
- Level 11 is an abandoned version of Diagon Alley at night.
- Level 37 is a warped version of the prefect's bathroom and spans several large areas full of interconnected 'baths' of various sizes.
- Hidden sub-level 37b is the same layout but dark, mouldy water and an apparition of Moaning Myrtle that you have to avoid.
- Level 39 is the Forbidden Forrest.
- Familiars are twisted versions of owls and cats that sometimes help you if you placate them with food or other items.
- The Level 51 abandoned ancient city has a dragon (based on Histria in Romania).
- Level 76 is the sewer systems of Hogwarts castle, complete with Basilisk.
- Level 80 is the Hogwarts library, but it goes on forever and has phantoms that attack you. Some of the books are also dangerous.
- Level 90 is Shell Cottage, but an empty ruined version infested with rats.
- Level 94 is part of the Hogwarts castle surrounded by Scottish wilderness. The houses are made of stone and the vans are the carriages drawn by thestrals (which you can't see unless your sanity is very low).
- There are four 'kings' in Level 94 based on the Hogwarts founders. You choose which one to help and they reward you. The others then try to attack.
- You can use cauldrons to cook various items in the game in order to eat and heal.
- The 'partygoers' level is a giant chess game. You have to get around the figures without being seen.
Forgot to add... I'll be posting videos on https://chorus00.itch.io/hpbackrooms of progress and some pics on here. There's a very basic vid showing the main menu, start area, basic layout, movement test of Level 0. I've added the inventory, dialogue and pick up item systems today. Plus a few animated walls, movable door locks, etc. But it's mostly just the mechanics so far with a bunch of free UE assets thrown together and I'll add 'nicer' looking level content later on.
Update: Trying to get a ruined-after-the-battle feel to the corridor (the white squares will be damaged/empty paintings).
Also added a floor puzzle that you have to cross in the correct order (or the tiles and your character falls down into a much darker and harder to escape part of the level).
Adding basic UI elements: bag inventory and character menu (where you can check stats, open your magic abilities, general skills, craft basic items, etc)
"secret department in the Ministry" gives Department of Mysteries vibes
^ Totally! In my head-canon, the MOM is vaguely aware of how the school and surrounding area was constructed and protected and why it was built where it was built. But the magic used is a very ancient and a rare talent that isn't taught or needed much any more.
There is a statue of the school architect inside Hogwarts, who helped the four founders. I'm assuming magical construction is a powerful skill that (at least traditionally) involved finding nearby sources of naturally occurring magic and bending them into physical reality to use as buildings or whatever else to keep wizards safe. So originally that might have just meant someone who was very aware of magic, could find large sources of it, then 'will' the magic to transform into something physical (like the clan shaman creating a cave for everyone to live in).
So it's different and harder than regular transfiguration, which is taking an existing physical object like a cup and changing it into another existing physical object like a book. And different to muggle architecture, which is taking a load of physical materials and manually creating another physical object (a house) from them. It's an old form of conjuration which is difficult to begin with, but using a large amount of raw magic to continually draw power from to keep the structure stable and safe for however long it is needed (indefinitely). The best wizard architects 'back in the day' would have to use non-physical magical energy to build physical reality with a lot more often, as the world wasn't full of easily accessible things to work with. That's why the school founders needed an architect when they built Hogwarts, despite being powerful themselves.
This does sound like a fun game. 🙂 How are you planning to handle copyright issues?
I'm not going to make any money from it. It'll be very clearly a fan-made game just for fun.
Update: Room of Requirement wrecked (I might add some more small flames, not sure yet)
