Liminal Descent

Cinevva's analyzer read this game's design doc and its source, then wrote the brief below. "Make your own" hands it to the game creator as your opening message, so you start from a real spec rather than a one-line idea.

Create a playable 3D first-person liminal horror maze called “Liminal Descent.” The player wakes inside a procedurally generated Backrooms-inspired building and must explore each rearranged maze to find a glowing green doorway/threshold at the far end, then walk into it or use the interaction control to descend through 10 sequential levels (LEVEL 0 through LEVEL 9). Use a realistic, subdued Three.js-style presentation: textured walls and ceilings, dense woven/stained carpet with visible fiber-like repeat and damp discolorations, soft shadows, exponential atmospheric fog, dark corners, subtle screen noise/scanline overlay, and a sickly warm fluorescent ambience. Keep the camera at human eye height in a 75-degree first-person perspective with a small pale crosshair at center screen; no visible player body or weapon.

Generate each floor as a square grid maze with solid wall blocks, narrow orthogonal corridors, a stained floor, a low drop ceiling, and randomized layout/props. The spawn point should be selected well away from the exit, and the building should regenerate/rearrange after each descent. Place intermittent rectangular fluorescent ceiling fixtures that emit point light, buzz, and flicker irregularly; in the darkest level they are dim or broken. The exit is a bright translucent green vertical rectangular doorway with a green halo/point light, visibly standing in the corridor. The player can collide with walls and cannot walk through them.

Implement these exact level themes and visual palettes: LEVEL 0 “Yellow Halls” with yellowed wallpaper, wet brown/yellow carpet, fluorescent buzz; LEVEL 1 “Concrete Service” with gray utility corridors, pipes, and distant-machinery mood; LEVEL 2 “Pipeworks” with dark brown narrow heat tunnels and rusted horizontal mains; LEVEL 3 “Flooded Rooms” with blue-green tiled rooms, shallow transparent water patches, and occasional pipes; LEVEL 4 “Empty Offices” with pale gray/beige abandoned desks, chairs, cabinets, and occasional dead computer monitors; LEVEL 5 “Hotel Corridors” with dark warm red/brown carpet, old-door/corridor mood and cabinet-like props; LEVEL 6 “Lights Out” with nearly black walls/floor/ceiling, very low visibility, emergency-like dim lighting, and increased darkness/fog; LEVEL 7 “Archive Stacks” with muted tan corridors and simple wooden shelf units; LEVEL 8 “Maintenance Mall” with gray service-hall colors and closed-store/metal-shutter-like cabinet props; LEVEL 9 “Sublevel Exit” with cold blue-gray loading-bay colors, exit-sign/cold-air mood, and cabinet props. Office/store furniture can be represented by realistic low-poly abandoned furniture and monitor models, while skull enemies should be dark animated ghost-skull models with a small red eye glow.

Populate every level with skull stalkers. Use between 1 and 5 enemies, increasing with progression, and spawn them away from the player’s initial position and exit. They patrol by selecting open neighboring maze cells; when within roughly 13 world units and there is an unobstructed corridor line of sight, they chase the player faster. Their animated ghost-skull bodies hover slightly, cast shadows, and have dim red eye lighting. If a stalker is within about 5 units, continuously drain the player’s Calm. If it reaches the player, sharply reduce Calm, show a centered “RUN” message saying “Something dragged you back to the start,” and teleport the player back to that level’s spawn. Calm also slowly drains over time, with faster passive drain on Lights Out. There is no combat mechanic.

Use desktop controls: click to wake/start and request mouse pointer lock, WASD or arrow keys to move, mouse to look, Shift to sprint, and E to use an exit. Sprinting moves faster but drains Stamina quickly; walking drains it slowly, standing still restores it. Use mobile dual virtual sticks: a left stick for movement and right stick for looking, plus an ACTION button to use the exit. Support touch start from the overlay and controls.

Build the HUD as restrained translucent dark panels with thin pale borders and cream text. At upper left show the current title, for example “LEVEL 0 — Yellow Halls,” and a concise objective such as “Find the green threshold. wet carpet, old wallpaper, fluorescent buzz.” At upper right show “Level 0/9,” approximate “Exit signal: N rooms” based on grid-cell distance, “Stamina: 100%,” “Calm: 100%,” and elapsed level time. Show the centered crosshair and a bottom hint: “Walk into glowing thresholds to change levels. The building rearranges each time.” At startup, show a large centered dark translucent title card reading “Liminal Descent,” “Click or tap to wake up inside the maze,” and the controls; hide it after starting. During a descent, briefly show a centered level transition card such as “LEVEL 1” and “The building throws you somewhere else.” Keep the tense audio feel with a low continuous hum and faint sawtooth-like fluorescent buzz after user interaction, slightly stronger in Lights Out.

The experience should be atmospheric exploration and avoidance rather than combat: realistic procedural Backrooms architecture, buzzing/flickering lights, changing themed floors, green threshold navigation, limited sprint stamina, draining Calm, and patrolling skull stalkers are the complete core loop. End the sequential progression at the tenth generated floor/LEVEL 9 rather than inventing extra story systems or objectives.