Athaza Project
Horror, Narrative
ABOUT
Athaza Project is my passion project: Follow a dog, Laika, through a post-apocalyptic world and discover the mysteries of its origins. With the help of an equally lost person called Atlas, search, solve puzzles, and survive to reach not only the center of the cause but also to help him recover his mysteriously lost memories.
YEAR:
2024
STATUS:
In Development
TYPE:
Puzzle, Narrative, Horror
World Building
You wake up as Laika in an alley, suddenly feeling a sense of urgency.
The world has crumbled to pieces
Entire cities destroyed
People have either fled or have fallen victim to what now populates the world: the Shadows.
Shadows are entities that manifest from negativity. They are pain, suffering, and hate, and therefore live in pain. They seek to drive fear and dread into the hearts of everything that lives.
Gameplay
Exploration
Open-World Navigation: A semi-open world city with RPG elements, divided into multiple districts.
Environmental Storytelling: Clues and lore scattered throughout the environment.
Collectibles: Collect scrap, electronics, documents, and magazines to progress. Atlas can carry everything, but Laika can only carry up to 10 items.
Survival
Health: There is no health system. If a Shadow catches either Laika or Atlas, the player restarts from the last save point.
Stealth and Evasion: Survival gameplay is focused on avoiding, dodging, or escaping threats rather than fighting them directly.
Dual Character System
The core gameplay mechanic revolves around using both Laika and Atlas together, taking advantage of their different abilities to progress through the game.
The player can switch between characters to use different abilities, while the inactive character follows the active one. However, the player also has the option to separate the characters.
Before leaving a safe zone, the player chooses whether to leave:
with Laika alone,
Atlas alone,
or both together.
Once they leave the safe zone, this choice becomes locked, and the player cannot change the dynamic until returning to another safe zone.
Stamina
Atlas and Laika both have a stamina bar. Running and certain abilities consume stamina.
Skill Tree
Atlas and Laika each have their own skill tree that upgrades existing abilities or unlocks entirely new ones.
Fear
The player has a fear meter that measures how afraid Atlas and Laika become.
The fear meter increases when characters:
spend too much time in darkness,
encounter Shadows,
or witness Fallen.
As the fear meter fills, the player experiences gameplay effects such as:
Increased chances of enemy encounters
Visual and auditory hallucinations
Reduced movement speed
Sprinting becomes disabled when fear reaches 70%
Fear can be reduced by staying in light sources or using certain items.
Gallery
Shadows
Laika
Extra Characters
