Threshold Night

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 3D apartment horror decision game titled “Threshold Night.” The player is trapped inside a dim, worn crisis-era apartment and must survive four nights by correctly judging eight people or creatures who knock at the front door—two visitors per night. The central gameplay loop is: wait for a knock, walk with WASD through the apartment toward the door, look with the mouse, and press E when aiming at an interactable. At the door, inspect three distinct objects: a peephole, a wall intercom, and an official checklist clipboard; then use the door itself to make the decision to let the visitor in or turn them away. Also include a small crisis radio on a table that can be inspected for an ominous broadcast, though it is not part of the decision inputs.

Use a dark, atmospheric first-person camera with a 68-degree perspective, subtle fog, a nearly black background, and a compact apartment bounded by worn brown walls, a stained low ceiling, a dark floor, and a solid wooden front door at the far end. The door has a brass knob, a peephole, a thin chain lock, an intercom mounted to its left, and a clipboard/checklist mounted to its right. A dark hallway is visible beyond the door with a red emergency light. Furnish the room with a dirty couch, small table, radio, and round table lamp. Lighting should be horror-focused: weak warm flickering lamp light in the room, dim red light in the hallway, faint cold bluish light, heavy shadows, and atmospheric fog. Use simple stylized low-poly furniture and human/monster character models, with idle animation when available. Visitors stand outside the door in the dark hallway, facing into the apartment. Include a small central circular crosshair and a peephole vignette that blacks out the screen edges when the peephole is inspected.

On-screen HUD: upper left shows “Night 1/4,” Resources, Panic, Danger, and Correct calls; upper right shows a “Directive” objective and the latest narrative message; lower left shows a short event log such as the latest knock; near the bottom center show contextual prompts such as “E: Look through the peephole.” Use a serif/old-fashioned type style, warm cream text, translucent nearly black panels, muted red accents, and brass/tan borders. Start with a full-screen title card reading “Threshold Night,” the line “The city says stay inside. The loudspeaker says the things outside have learned to knock.”, control instructions, and a “Begin Night 1” button. Support touch devices with a WASD button cluster plus E and LOOK buttons.

Start values are Night 1, Resources 5, Panic 70, Danger 0, and zero correct calls. After starting, trigger the first visitor after a short delay and play a low, irregular three-hit knock sound. Maintain a quiet horror drone and click sounds for interface actions. While a visitor is active, panic gradually drains, faster as danger rises; panic also drains slowly between visitors. The player cannot walk through the door. Visitors are handled sequentially, with the following exact roster and information:
1. Night 1, human, “Mara Voss” (female): claims she lives upstairs and gives the shelter code “amber, four, left.” Clues: breath fogs the peephole glass, blinks often, shadow aligns with the hallway lamp. Questions: “What was the last shelter code?” Answer: “Amber, four, left. They repeated it until the sirens cut out.”; “Why are you alone?” Answer: “My brother ran for medicine. I waited too long.” Tell: normal human signs; risk 0.
2. Night 1, monster, “The Thin Man” (male): insists he is human and says his hands are cold. Clues: never blinks, fingers rest backward on the door frame, voice repeats the player’s last word. Questions about the lobby carpet and number of knocks receive evasive/copied answers. Tell: wrong hands, no blinking; risk 2.
3. Night 2, human, “Jonah Reed” (male): from apartment 2C, offering canned food and a radio battery. Clues: mud matches the stairwell, checks behind him, small cut bleeds red. He identifies Mrs. Ilyin in 2C and lists beans, one battery, and a cracked flashlight. Tell: useful supplies, red blood; risk -1.
4. Night 2, monster, “Smiling Neighbor” (female): says she brought a smile. Clues: smile is unnaturally still, teeth cast no shadow, knuckles knock without touching. Questions about apartment number and the broadcast get wrong answers. Tell: impossible shadow, bad answers; risk 2.
5. Night 3, human, “Officer Hale” (male): civil patrol clearing floors and marking the unit occupied. Clues: scratched but real badge, shaking breath, wet boot prints. Gives badge H-17 and explains patrol protocol. Tell: consistent protocol; risk 0.
6. Night 3, monster, “Mother Voice” (female): claims to be the player’s mother. Clues: uses a name never given, face looks familiar only when looked away, shadow has too many arms. Questions about the player’s name and last meeting receive impossible answers. Tell: knows impossible things; risk 3.
7. Night 4, human, “The Courier” (male): carries a final evacuation card for the building. Clues: official red stamp, natural trembling hands, smells of rain and diesel. Gives route 9 to the library basement and explains why the delivery came at night. Tell: evacuation card checks out; risk -1.
8. Night 4, monster, “Borrowed Face” (monster model): says it is the last real visitor and promises the knocking will stop. Clues: face flickers in the peephole, no breath/footsteps/weight, checklist ink crawls while it speaks. Answers “Open. Open. Open.” and “A room. A mouth. Your permission.” Tell: everything is wrong; risk 4.

The peephole panel must show the visitor’s name, exact claim/speech, visual clues, and a tip that monsters fail at bodies, shadows, memory, or breath. The intercom panel must show the visitor’s questions and exact answers plus their claim. The checklist panel must show these rules: breath fog/coughs/uneven pauses; blinking/focused eyes/tear shine; five fingers, correct joints, natural knocking; shadow attached to feet and cast by teeth/hair; memory answers local questions rather than copying words; humans ask for shelter or supplies while things ask for permission. It should also show the current visitor’s tell. The radio panel should state: “...do not trust familiar voices after midnight. Do not open for anyone who asks for permission more than shelter. If you reject the living, the building remembers...” and note that its battery meter is almost red.

The decision panel must offer exactly “Let them in” and “Turn them away,” explaining that rejecting real humans costs supplies and raises panic, while letting in a monster ends the run immediately. A correct decision is letting a human in or turning a monster away: increase Correct calls, reduce panic by 8, and for a negative-risk human restore one resource (maximum 8). An incorrect decision increases mistakes, reduces panic by 18, raises Danger by 1, and records rejected humans when a human is turned away. Turning away a human also costs one resource; after three rejected humans add one additional danger. If a monster is accepted, immediately end with a “Threshold Breached” game-over panel. If resources reach zero, end the game with the supply-depletion loss; if panic reaches zero, end with the panic loss. After a nonfatal decision, wait briefly and bring the next visitor. Survive all eight visitors and end with a “Survived Until Dawn” victory panel that states dawn breaks and shows correct decisions, mistakes, and humans rejected. Include a Restart button on the final panel. Escape closes open information/decision panels. Use pointer lock after the start button or canvas click, and release it on game over.