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Kanagawa Igazaya

A virtual escape room experience inspired by Japanese Yo-kai culture. (Also my first video game)

Date:Sep 2020

Project Duration: Two Week

Teammate: Rosie

My Role: Game Developer / Visual Director

Keywords: First-person Game, History, Fantasy, Japanese traditional culture & pop culture.

Video Demo

Background Story

The protagonist is a Japanese American who takes a break traveling to Kanagawa, Japan and visits a random izakaya. Our protagonist decides to get some mustard for the sushi and finds no one is in the room… While looking for the mustard around, the protagonist accidentally touch the statue of the Great Wave off Kanagawa and had a time travel back to the 19s…

- Join his journey and find out the secret of his family and own identity, while escaping out of the room...

Research & Literature Review

Yo-kai in Ukiyo-e Culture

Japan has a long history of Yo-kai (monster/ghosts) culture. With the prevaence of Ukiyo-e culture, artist take inspiraions from folklores and draw them with Ukiyo-e paintings.

Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Specter by Utagawa Kuniyoshi

“般若”(Hannya mask)

It is a kind of ghost in Japanese folkllore, which belongs to the spirit of resentment. The origin is that people are jealous, which causes their soul to leave their body while they are alive, and the soul can attack or even kill the people they envy. At this point if the soul can return to the body and is able to return to reason, this state is called "generation", when hatred takes over all the mind, unable to return to reason, the person will be transformed into a ghost, namely "Prajna".

"Strange Story of Kamikiri” by Utagawa Yoshifuji

Gameplay Design

Interaction Design

Click to investigate
Walk to explore
Drag to interact (puzzle solving)

Puzzle Design

Hint object + Puzzle Object
The flying Ramen
水清无鱼 Fish and Water
The Two Statues/Netsuke
The two Masks - The Color of Waves

Technical Details

1. Cinemachine & Timeline

Smooth Camera Switching
Various Camera Angles

2. Cinemachine Dolly Track + Collider + Post-processing: Booming Lighting

During the technical research, I found that utilizing cinemachine not only creates special camera language, it can also be combined with post-processing to trigger "special moments", such as light booming, that somehow looks like flashback of memory.