Midnight Mascots

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 top-down 2D survival-horror game titled “Midnight Mascots.” The player controls a small child trapped in a dark springlock-style diner and must survive six separate nights, progressing from 12:00 AM to 6:00 AM each night. A night lasts about 82 seconds on Night 1 and becomes 8 seconds longer per later night; surviving advances to the next night, while being caught retries the same night. Completing Night 6 shows a final “6 AM — You Escaped” victory screen and allows the player to play again.

Use a single responsive canvas that fills the screen, with a dark navy/black atmosphere and a fixed top-down map. The diner is a roughly rectangular maze with outer boundary walls, long vertical partitions, horizontal barriers, narrow chokepoints, an OFFICE area in the lower-left, a STAGE area in the upper-right, and three blue hiding spots labeled HIDE: Supply Closet in the upper-left, Birthday Closet near the lower-middle, and Back Closet in the upper-right. Draw the floor as subtly alternating dark blue tiles, walls as blue-gray rectangular bars with a slight light edge, the stage as a muted purple rectangle with a soft golden overhead glow, and the office as a dim blue room.

The child is a small white circular character with a cyan triangular facing indicator/flashlight direction. Move with WASD or the arrow keys; diagonal movement should be normalized. Hold Shift to sprint, making the child faster than normal. On touch devices, provide a large translucent left virtual joystick and two large buttons on the right: a cyan “Flashlight” button and a yellow “Hide” button. The child’s facing follows the mouse/touch pointer when one is active, and otherwise follows the movement direction.

The main survival mechanic is managing darkness, pursuit, flashlight battery, and closets. Press F or tap Flashlight to toggle a forward-facing flashlight cone. The light illuminates a small circular area around the child plus a warm pale-yellow cone extending roughly 22 world units in the facing direction. Flashlight use drains the battery quickly, about 9.5 percentage points per second, and it automatically turns off at zero; when off, the battery recharges at about 4.5 points per second up to 100%. A flashlight beam slows any mascot inside it to roughly 35% speed, reveals it, and reduces its pursuit buildup. Press E or tap Hide while overlapping a closet to hide. Hiding turns the flashlight off, stops movement, prevents mascots from catching the child, and breaks active pursuit; pressing Hide/Leave again exits the closet. If the player tries to hide away from a closet, display a message explaining that no closet is nearby. Turning the flashlight on while hidden should make the child leave hiding.

Four original canvas-drawn springlock mascots hunt the map, each with a distinct name, color palette, silhouette, and patrol route: Goldbear (gold head, brown body, red accessory), Spring Hare (yellow-green head/body with long rabbit ears and purple accessory), Brass Fox (orange/brass head and reddish-brown body with pointed fox ears and red accessory), and Showbear (lavender/dark-purple bear with a small hat and cyan band). Draw them as tiny blocky robotic sprites with rectangular bodies, legs and arms, large heads, pale muzzle, glowing eyes, and their accessories; use red eyes while chasing and pale eyes while patrolling. Show their name above them when visible. Mascots should be partially transparent/dim when farther than about 9 world units from the child, becoming clearly visible when nearby or inside the flashlight beam.

Each mascot follows a looping patrol route through the maze and uses wall collision. If the child is not hidden and remains within that mascot’s detection radius for enough time, the mascot enters chase mode and moves directly toward the child. Patrols become faster and detection becomes larger with each night. Activate mascots progressively: use two on Nights 1–2, three on Nights 3–4, and all four on Nights 5–6. If a mascot touches the child while not hidden, trigger a short frightening caught effect with screen shake and a translucent pink/red full-screen flash, show the mascot’s name and “found you,” then display a “Caught!” overlay explaining that the mascot found the player before 6 AM and offering Retry for the current night.

Darken the playfield with a heavy black fog overlay. Always cut out a small visibility circle around the child; only the flashlight cone reveals the surrounding halls beyond that. Keep the map, child, mascots, closet labels, and world labels visible through the appropriate lighting. Use subtle ambient pulsing in the stage glow and floor shading to reinforce the midnight horror mood without adding scenery not present in the map.

Add a prominent HUD overlay at the upper-left with the title “MIDNIGHT MASCOTS,” Night as “1 / 6” through “6 / 6,” a clock showing the simulated time from 12:00 AM to 6:00 AM, Battery as a percentage, and State. State should read “Sneaking” normally, “Light On” with a gold tint when the flashlight is active, “Hidden” in green when concealed, and “Caught” in red after capture. Include an upper-right instruction panel reading: “Move with WASD or arrows. Hold Shift to sprint. Press F for flashlight, E to hide near a closet. On phones, use the left stick and the buttons on the right.” Show a dark message panel across the upper map with contextual messages such as the mascots waking up, a nearby closet prompt, hiding confirmation, and battery warnings.

Begin with a centered dark overlay titled “Midnight Mascots,” explaining that the child is locked inside a springlock diner and must survive 12 AM to 6 AM for six nights while Goldbear, Spring Hare, Brass Fox, and Showbear hunt the halls. Provide a Start Night 1 button. Between nights show a 6 AM overlay announcing the night survived and offering the next night. On the final victory, show the six-night escape message and a Play Again button. Preserve the tense, minimalist visual style: nearly black navy background, blue-gray maze geometry, small luminous character sprites, sparse HUD typography, and flashlight-driven visibility.