Nightmare Doll Web game

Concept & Story

One day, he wakes up in a dark and strange world, only to realize that he has turned into a weird-looking doll. He can’t feel his own breath since he’s not breathing. He has two shirt buttons as eyes which can’t neither blink or close. He can’t feel anything and his eyes are always seeing. He doesn’t have ears but still catches the sound of the wild wind blows. There’s a zip on his mouth but he can’t utter a word after unzipping it.
The trees, the grass, the river, all appear so natural to him, yet he can’t tell where he is or what he is. He thinks that he’s been living for a long time now, yet little to no memories remain.
Filled with vague feelings, he starts to wander about. He finds himself in a quiet forest after exiting a small cave. Walking towards the moon, he soon reaches a graveyard, where he realizes that he can read the tombstones.

A terrifying roar distracts him. Following it, he sees a huge ogre fighting three other dolls. The dolls look exactly the same, also similar to his river reflection. Despite being oversized and overpowered, the ogre moves rather slowly, failing to hit anything with his heavy club. Getting to a closer tree, he sees another doll in the ogre’s huge palm. A thin line of memory hits him. The word “friendship” blurrily renders in his mind.
“Run, you fools”, he thinks as the first doll gets stomped by the ogre. Being an experienced and superior fighter, the ogre has learned the dolls’ movements, hitting them all to the ground. After destroying the dolls’ legs with iron nails on his club, the ogre leaves. Two dolls which can still move their arms are crawling, trying their best to get the four of them together.

A crow, another crow, and yet another one. Out of nowhere, half a dozen of crows gather to the dolls’ place. They move around the dolls slowly to scout, before starting to peck. Two dolls are swinging their arms desperately to defend their friends.

“I don’t even have an eye, what is this liquid that’s flowing?”
“No one’s making a sound, where are these screams inside my head coming from?”
“Why are my legs refusing to move? And why am I crying again? I...”

The moon was unusually bright that night.

Gameplay

The player starts the game in the shape of a cursed doll with limited physical senses and little to no memories. Spawned into a strange world filled with dark caves, wicked forests and graveyards, the doll travels on and on to recollect its memories, as well as to unveil the mysteries of this new world, in hope of breaking the curse it’s in.

The doll is not alone. The crows, the ogres and the likes all live in this Black world. There are also numerous similar cursed dolls, whose souls all come from the White world. By restoring its memories and interacting with other dolls, the player will be able to learn more and more about both world.

The ultimate goal of the game is to gather as much information as possible to break the curse. In order to do so, the player has to dig deep into the memories of each doll as well as to solve the hardest mysteries out there.

But nothing is easy in this harsh Black world. The player will have to face death constantly unless he or she knows how to navigate and act smartly. Each time a doll dies, the player is reborn into another doll, with another past life to regain and learn from, but all knowledge of both the Black and the White world remains. So the player has to survive as long as possible to reach the depth of a doll, but has to die often to reach a wider range of past lives and knowledge.

It’s a real time multiplayer game. The players can exchange knowledge, travel together, help or even trick each others. If a wicked wizard give you a bodyguard ogre for a week in exchange for ten dolls’ souls, will you accept the offer?

We're recruiting!

We're looking for a 2D character artist who can create assets close to the game's current style. This is a rev share project so if you're interested, contact us at kikaiteam@gmail.com!