A multiplayer couch co-op game focused on teamwork and emergent player experiences where you and your team of amateur ghost hunters travel to a haunted island to catch some pesky ghosts.

Overview

Spooked! is a chaotic cooperative game inspired by games like Luigi's Mansion and Overcooked. It was developed by a team of three as the final Capstone project for the Creative Technology and Design program at CU Boulder. In Spooked! players work as amateur ghost hunters who must use communication effectively to scare and capture ghosts  through a series of levels.

Gameplay

Spooked! put a humorous spin on the typical ghost game where instead of ghosts scaring you, you scare the ghosts. The primary gameplay mechanic of Spooked! has players coordinate a specific series of button presses or "scares" simultaneously in order to break apart and capture ghosts.

Ghosts start off hidden while periodically peeking their head from the ground. Players must scare a ghost while it is peeking to scare it from hiding. Once a ghost is out of hiding it will display an icon above it's head indicating which of the four face buttons (AXBY) players must press to successfully scare the ghost. If more than one player presses the same button, a player presses a button that is not displayed above the ghost, or not all required buttons are pressed within the scare window the scare fails. Upon a successful scare, the ghost will break apart into a number of smaller ghosts. Players catch these ghosts by running or diving into them to collect them. Players then deposit ghosts they are holding at the van to score points. Players must reach a certain score within a specified time to complete the level.

While players are hunting, there are a number of elements that add to a chaotic gameplay experience including ghost attacks and chaos events. There are five different ghost types each with a different type of attack. If a player is struck by a ghost attack, they are momentarily stunned and drop any ghosts they are holding. 

Some ghosts are golden in color and they require every single player to successfully scare. When a golden ghost is scared they drop more ghosts than a regular ghost as well as trigger a chaos event. Chaos events include turning players invisible, inverting controls, and obscuring an area with smoke.

Development

The game was developed using the Unity game engine and all assets were modeled in Blender. The early gameplay mechanics went through many iterations and many rounds of playtesting before the final version was settled on. Early gameplay ideas included using various traps that could be placed to catch ghosts, triggering a number of towers which have a radius effect when activated, and detecting and capturing ghosts that are invisible. Early game prototypes can be seen below.