The Buried Name

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 first-person atmospheric archaeological horror exploration game titled “The Buried Name.” The player is an archaeologist exploring a large, dark subterranean stone complex beneath an ancient pyramid/desert site. Use a Three.js-like 3D renderer with a perspective FPS camera, very low warm-brown lighting, black shadows, volumetric-looking fog, a strong circular vignette, and suspended dust motes that become visible in the flashlight beam. The visual style is restrained and cinematic: nearly black surroundings, sandy brown stone, occasional cold blue moonlight, faint orange ember light, rough ancient masonry, scattered rubble, columns, ruined statues, and a mysterious ritual/crypt atmosphere.

Start the player in an entrance chamber at approximately eye height, facing down a long gallery. The level is a connected playable slice: a broad entrance room, a long corridor/gallery, a puzzle area, descending steps, and a crypt/ritual chamber. Build the architecture from rough rectangular stone floors, ceilings, walls and repeated cylindrical columns. The entrance has two prominent columns with capitals, while the long gallery has pairs of columns receding into darkness. Include a stepped pyramid-like structure or distant entrance silhouette behind the starting area. Add random small stone rubble/debris across the floor. Farther down, include a stair run descending toward a crypt pit, a ring of eight ritual columns, a stone sarcophagus, and two broken statue forms with cylindrical bodies and heads.

The central objective displayed in the HUD is: “Find the erased chamber beneath the eastern gallery.” Place three dark rectangular glyph plaques on a wall/area around the puzzle section, each with three small inset rune marks. The player aims a tiny center-screen circular crosshair at an interactable object and presses E or Enter (also allow a mouse click/tap) to interact. Reading a glyph turns its plaque gold and marks it solved; update the objective text to “Glyph 1/2/3 answers the chamber. N/3 aligned.” Once all three glyphs have been read, open the sealed dark stone gate by lowering it into the floor, change the objective to “The sealed gate is open. Descend into the crypt.” and show the centered prompt “THE STONE REMEMBERS.” Include a dark cylindrical pedestal and a small horizontal gold relic near the puzzle, plus the gate beyond it. Interacting with the pedestal or relic should display “A name has been scraped away from the relic.” Interacting with the sarcophagus should display “The coffin is warm from the inside.” and increase the hidden fear value.

Use a hand-held unlimited flashlight: attach a bright warm-white spotlight to the camera, aimed directly forward, with a cone-shaped beam that illuminates the floor, architecture, dust and objects. Its HUD label at lower left reads “FLASHLIGHT // UNLIMITED POWER.” Maintain a subtle white glowing circular reticle at screen center. Add a warm orange point light deep in the chamber as a ritual ember. Add weak dusty ambient illumination and a cold directional moonlight that gives distant surfaces a faint blue-gray edge.

Add understated supernatural events as the player explores. After roughly twelve seconds and then at intervals of about eighteen seconds, increase an internal fear value and randomly trigger one of these visible effects: briefly spawn a tall black veiled humanoid entity in the distant gallery, have it face the camera and approach if it gets close; briefly dim/black out the screen; rotate the sarcophagus; subtly rotate some gallery columns; replace the objective temporarily with “Something behind you is breathing.”; or flare the distant ember. The veiled entity should be a nearly black elongated body with a translucent dark cone-like veil/head covering, and should disappear after a few seconds. If it approaches very close, briefly darken the screen. Do not add combat, weapons, enemies with health bars, inventory, or a conventional score; the tension comes from exploration, light, interaction, darkness and scripted/random hauntings.

HUD: fixed full-screen overlay with a warm serif archaeological-record aesthetic. Upper left: large spaced uppercase “THE BURIED NAME,” with “ARCHAEOLOGICAL FIELD RECORD // SITE 07” below it. Upper right: the current objective in small muted beige text, right aligned. Center: tiny glowing ring crosshair. Near the lower center, when close to a glyph, show a translucent dark rectangular prompt with a thin tan border reading “PRESS E TO READ THE HIEROGLYPHS.” Lower left: “FLASHLIGHT // UNLIMITED POWER.” Use a dark radial vignette around the whole screen and occasional smooth blackouts for supernatural moments. On touch devices, provide a large translucent circular virtual joystick/control at the lower right, matching the mobile FPS presentation visible in the reference; desktop players should be able to move and look with standard FPS controls (WASD and mouse). Keep the camera at roughly 72-degree perspective, first-person, with jump/gravity movement but no need for an elaborate platforming system. The intended experience is a slow descent from the entrance through the gallery, aligning the three glyphs, opening the gate, and entering the crypt while discovering that the relic’s name has been erased.”,