Dev Log 1 - A New Beginning

As many of you may know, Hello Neighbour, the stealth horror game released in 2017, was a buggy mess upon release. The game fell short to the alphas, and it was flooded with overly complex puzzles and a story that was way too deep for its own good. After that, everybody forgot about it, until Hello Neighbour 2 dropped several years later, but unfortunately, it was not the redemption that the series needed, and it was just as bad, if not worse. As poorly executed as this series was, I always loved its charm and storytelling, so a couple weeks ago I decided that I would make a very unique fangame that would hopefully fix the game’s problems, and it would be called Goodbye, Neighbour.

This game would be a point and click minigame rush hybrid that doesn’t feature the neighbour in main gameplay. It mainly consists of puzzle solving, exploration, and quick reflexes. The story would be simple. You would play as the main character from Hello Neighbour 1, Nicky Roth, and this would be an alternate take on your dream at the beginning of Act 3. In this reality, you are once again trapped in the neighbour’s basement, but this time, there are several Mannequins that you have to worry about. As you explore the house, you will have to overcome several short challenges called Fear Minigames. These are normally present in Act 3 of Hello Neighbour 1, and this time, I decided to make them one of the main focuses of the game. Luckily, I had a lot of free time during this point, so I decided to start developing the game.

The first thing I did was make the title screen for my game. Since I’m only fluent in Scratch, I had to make this game as high-quality as possible for people to take it seriously. Because of this, I spent an hour recreating and animating different objects and characters from the game, like the ravens and the Mannequin. I’m personally most proud of the Raven animation wise, as to me it looks really fluid. I’m also really proud of my Mannequin recreation, and I think it’s very accurate to the games. The next thing I did was code the doors so that they took you to the next room upon clicking them. This didn’t take all that long, so I took some extra time to fully animate it. Next, I decided to add a short cutscene to quickly explain what was happening in the story. This didn’t take all that long, but I do like how it utilized pre-existing sound effects from the first game. I should probably say that all of the audio in this game will be taken from the first game, as that is what this game is a remake of. Speaking of audio, this is also when I added background music to the game, and it definitely added some much needed atmosphere.

Next, I implemented a key system so you could use keys to open certain doors. I also added an electric gate that could only be activated by pulling a lever. I implemented both of these into the main gameplay. After that, I made a room with a Neo Mannequin present. These Mannequins are robotic, futuristic versions of their regular counterparts, and are way more powerful. In this room, there is a hole in the wall that will lead to the first Fear Minigame.

That is all that I have made so far. Make sure to comment your ideas for Fear Minigames below.