Not So Spooky is a frantic, 2D arcade-puzzle game about the afterlife, built in GameMaker by a team of 3. Players take on the role of a newly deceased ghost who must attend classes to learn how to scare humans. The gameplay revolves around traveling through portals to the living world, where players phase in and out of reality to knock over objects and haunt houses. The catch is that every time a human gets scared, they panic and move faster, while the ghost maintains the same slow speed. Players must strategically manipulate the environment to maximize scares while dodging the accelerating humans.
For this project, I served as the Lead Artist and Gameplay Developer, helping research the concept and implementing the core loop.
For the soundtrack, I composed a Halloween-themed horror track, but twisted it into a funny, high-vibe arcade style. Instead of being genuinely creepy, the music does the exact opposite—it features an evolved, upbeat arcade pace that brings a sense of humor and fun to the gameplay. I designed this specific rhythm so that when players are frantically dodging humans, the music perfectly captures the irony of the game's title, tying the whole experience together alongside the cute, dark art style.
On the artistic side, I hand-drew the entire main scene environment and created all the 2D animations for the character and object sprites from scratch using Krita. I also illustrated the complete art set for the main menu. On the technical side, I implemented all of these visual assets into GameMaker and developed the core gameplay loops. I programmed the player movement, the dimension-shifting mechanics, and the menu systems from the ground up. Finally, I focused heavily on gameplay polish, refining the movement and physics interactions to make sure the frantic arcade pacing felt smooth, while seamlessly integrating the soundtrack directly into the engine.