With Halloween just around the corner, seniors Elmo Tang (‘22) and Serena Zhou (‘22) created the perfect way to spend the holiday with a scary, interactive game that they have been working on since quarantine.

“I started because I got accepted into Cosmos, a video game design cluster, sophomore year, and then COVID happened… I tried doing it myself, and I realized I needed a friend so I called Serena,” said Tang. 

The game is an interactive horror game where the player plays the role of an ex-executioner and goes through different interactive scenarios, with the player up for execution. There are different outcomes based on how one plays the game which makes it more suspenseful and spooky.

“I liked the horror genre. Especially for video games, horror is one of the more attractive genres for most people playing and the emotions it can bring out,” said Zhou.

When creating the game with an interactive setup, they faced a variety of challenges of adding different elements into the game helping them to find unique solutions. 

“I am pretty happy with the music. I play the violin and [Serena] plays the piano, and for a few of the songs, I had to go to her house to compose and arrange music for the game,” said Tang.

Tang and Zhou noted that their time spent in AP Computer Science and the club AVBotz made it easier to transfer skills while still learning the new programming. WIth their partnership, both were able to compliment their skills in order to create an all around excellent video game. 

“[Elmo] was basically in charge of the art, and I did the dialogue, and then we had to coordinate the plot and the art, but other than that, we coded stuff independently,” said Zhou.

The partnership is extremely important in creating a well rounded video game including all unique elements of animations, plot, and music, and they couldn’t have done it without each other. 

“You should probably work with one other person because if you’re a procrastinator, you need someone to keep you on schedule… I was the procrastinator, but in the end it all worked out because we grinded the last couple weeks before releasing,” said Zhou.

You can play the game at the link here.