A downloadable game for Windows

A sci-fi horror adventure by Jay-Leo E.

About the game

A stranger has appeared aboard Calypso-4 Station. No one knows who he is, how he got there, or what he wants — but one thing is certain: he has foul intentions towards the crew.

You are the station's sole pilot. Arriving after the initial dust has settled and trapped aboard with an unknown extraterrestrial threat capable of wearing the faces of friends and family, you must decide who to trust, who to save, and how far you are willing to go to survive.

Rictus is a choose-your-own-adventure horror game where your decisions shape who lives and who is claimed by the stranger. Every choice matters. Every wrong call could cost someone their life — or your own.

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Inspiration

Rictus draws on the atmosphere of classic sci-fi horror movies, the paranoia of The Thing, the isolation of Alien. The gameplay fits closer to games like Until Dawn, where no character is safe and no outcome is guaranteed.

The visual design of the game mirrors that of something that would be found on the Nintendo Entertainment System. It uses the exact same restricted color palette for the art and it's all made using hand made 16-bit pixel art that I created myself. Each character sprite is given only three colors, not only to mimic the three color restrictions of NES sprites but to also show the characters role on the station (example: purple for scientist's, red for security and green for Botanist).

Gameplay

Built in RPG Maker MV, Rictus uses the engine's top-down adventure framework where the player can move, explore, interact. The focus is not on combat but on narrative choices. Conversations with crew members, discoveries in the station's rooms, and branching decisions form the core of the experience.

Most scenes present the player with a choice. Some feel small. Some are obviously critical. The game will not always tell you which is which.

Design intent

The central design goal of Rictus is player agency, the feeling that your decisions genuinely change the world around you. In a story about trust and deception, the player should never feel certain they made the right call.

Exploring the station should build a creeping, sustained dread, not as in jump scares but the slow accumulation of wrong details. When a choice arrives, the player should feel the weight of it: the urge to choose carefully, and the fear that careful still won't be enough.

Skill Atoms

Saving the game

Player Action: Player uses move keys to move to blue panel and press the interact button.

Simulation: Check touch and player action.

Feedback: Save menu appears on screen.

"I can use these blue panels to access the save menu"

Moving between areas

Player actions: Player uses move keys to stand on square with broken lines.

Simulation: Check touch.

Feedback: Fade to black, player character appears in a new room.

"These tiles show where I can move from one room to another"