The original concept
On 18-06-2008 i posted a game idea i was working on for a competition that required the game designer to come up with a new mechanic for death. To use death as a game mechanic. I decided on the concept of a doctor who goes around scaring patients to death, where the death aspect of his career was his achievement.
Over time, i have refined this idea a million times in my head and i have twirled the story and concept so many times and came up with some pretty ridiculous stuff. For example, each patient is procedurally generated and includes a handful of irrational fears that you can play on. Sometimes the fears are real world phobia's and sometimes they are a fear of burnt pizza. The idea is that you can influence the level of horror in patiences by carefully planning around things.
Leave a radio with sounds of [insert an irrational fear] in the cupboard, whip out a giant chainsaw for dramatic effect. You know. Scary stuff. 
You can even group patients, take all the emo patients and put them in the far corner alone. They are bound to get more scared just because they are together.
What happened to it?
I got distracted, sidetracked, over scoped etc etc. The point was i never finished it (in fact i had game play, it was just never playable). Now that i have learned so much from working in game development full time, working on projects all over the place - I am on a completion rampage. There are a handful of my smaller games chasing me down, and this is why i am posting.
The 2010 Version
Having scoped the game play differently (it may or may not be bigger scope, but a lot of the mechanics are the same), I am back to implementing the game mechanics first, and then implementing the rest if it is worth it. The major changes are obviously visual to the readers at this point - But there is a lot of cool stuff that i am working on.
I am currently implementing the mechanics and game play using my own Laboratory ( read what that is here ). 
I have also decided to rework the level and game art, because i have never really approached an isometric pixel art project before (i have only messed around while making a room for The joint).
I love pixel art but i also really love painting and lighting (see this). As with the original version of this game, i will be mixing the two. Below you can see a rough style test to see if i like the direction and so far I am not displeased.
Click the image to see a full scale version in a new tab.
So what am i saying?
Hold me to release this as a fully playable prototype. Once that is done, i move on.
I appreciate badgering, mailing, and general harassment to remind me that i need to finish things. I am saying this here so that i can always look back at my posts and hold myself to it as well.
Thanks for reading!
