Orbo’s Odyssey (2023): Designing the “PERFECT MAN” Horror Sequence

John Ellis explores subverting expectations in horror.

Find the developers on Twitter: [Johnny], [Ben]

Orbo’s Odyssey and Horror

Hello there, my name is John Ellis, though you might know me by the moniker Feverdream Johnny. 

During August of 2023, my friend Ben and I released a 3D platformer called Orbo’s Odyssey where you play as an accountant/living bullet/mascot character going on a silly adventure to escape his boss’s office.

While Orbo’s Odyssey is generally considered a comedy game, I made an effort towards the end of development to insert some secret levels that would add a bit more texture to the game’s overall tone. The result of this was a sequence of short horror-themed segments leading towards a hidden ending. For the purposes of this journal, let’s scope in and talk about how a particular horror level toys with player expectation to deliver its scare.

Entering Perfect Man’s Level

The player starts in a graveyard outside of a building at nighttime. On closer inspection, the night sky is actually a set of LCD panels, revealing how small the area actually is. My intent was to try and create a pseudo-exterior environment that feels claustrophobic, in direct contrast to the main game’s large and spacious platforming stages. The game’s DnB soundtrack is absent from this area and you are instead treated to the lull of crickets chirping and leaves rustling in the wind.

Once inside, the player is greeted by a warmly-lit room with a single painting mounted to the wall that depicts a disturbing face made from collage parts. The title of this painting is “PERFECT MAN,” which is stamped repeatedly over the frame. A text entry outside of this room foreshadows that the painting is dangerous in some way, but doesn’t clarify how. You can approach this painting and nothing will happen, and no matter what angle you observe it from, the room’s lighting keeps the man depicted from being parsed beyond a vague silhouette.

The halls to the sides of the entrance room are brightly lit with these strange glowing balls mounted to the ceiling. I wanted this section to feel a bit more mystical and comforting to try and slightly twist the player’s expectation built up from the last room. More crucially, the various colors blending together create a near-white lighting scheme which works great for revealing details, something also necessary for the setup of the following scare.

In the final room, you’re treated to a dark chamber with the same faux-exterior LCD walls as the beginning. You collect the Obol Fragment (one of the 3 items required for the secret ending), and this is where the horror sequence begins. The player unlocks a steam achievement simply labeled “I Am Coming.” Breaking the kayfabe in this manner helps to immediately heighten the player’s attention.

After that, the sound of a summer night is suddenly replaced with dark droning ambience, and you can hear faint thunking from the room you came from, as well as the occasional burst of stuttering radio static. At this point, the player knows something is obviously pursuing them and they will likely peer out into the brightly lit hallway to see…

The painting from the entrance room making an approach. Not the entity inside of it, but the entire painting frame it’s housed in. The importance of the aforementioned lighting in this hallway is that it fully illuminates Perfect Man, allowing the player to make out more of the features of his face.

Now, this is a game designed around moving as fast as possible. The importance of Orbo moving quickly isn’t how effectively the player can run from the threat, but how urgent the player is in starting their escape. When you’re able to move fast, it drastically changes how you respond to approaching threats.

This also ties into my decision to have the threat be an entire painting frame instead of a conventional monster: The painting feels clumsy, maybe even a bit silly. Sure it’s still unsettling and everything surrounding this sequence is meant to inform you of the approaching danger, but the actual presentation makes the player question how urgent of a threat Perfect Man actually is. I mean, as long as they feel they can outpace it, why can’t they get a closer look at it and simply inch back as it tries to reach them?

As you might expect, the majority of the streamers, friends and testers I watched play the game were tricked by Perfect Man’s clumsy movement, the game’s mechanical framing, and the bright lighting exposing his face and indeed chose to let him approach so they could get a better look at him. This is where Perfect Man’s actual ability is demonstrated.

When you get within twenty feet of Perfect Man, he extends a tentacle from within the painting that attaches to you. While you remain within range, an additional tentacle is stacked on, up to a total of six. Each tentacle contributes a pull force trying to drag you into the painting and while a normal player might be able to escape with one-to-two tentacles attached, the longer it takes you to react, the harder and harder it is to get away. In a sense, your curiosity rapidly becomes a threat. Even if you manage to break the sight-line with Perfect Man, the tentacles won’t lose their grip and can pin you against the wall of another room, allowing him to catch up and pull you in. 

I won’t go over what actually happens when you’re pulled inside since I feel it’s a bit underwhelming due to time constraints, but I was quite proud of the sequence as a whole and thought it might be nice to share the thought process behind it.

The Conclusion

My general takeaway from designing this sequence was that toying with expectations shouldn’t just be done on a broad scale: The typical subversion in comedy/cutesy games having a scary twist usually just sticks with that idea by itself instead of exploring how moment-to-moment expectations can be twisted to trick players without them immediately realizing.

It’s one thing to throw a jumpscare on screen randomly when the player doesn’t expect it and swap genres, but it’s a whole lot scarier for the player to be immersed in the threat the whole time and finally realize what’s happening too late.

My Bounty

I’ve actually been trying to work on my bounty for some time, but for financial reasons I’ve had to step back from it occasionally to make money elsewhere. It’s a first-person shooter called Nowhere, MI where you go on a weird adventure through a supernatural town to try and find your little brother. It’s got an emphasis on customizing your talking gun with fun modifiers to experiment with new ways to defeat enemies. It’s a bit silly, pretty heartfelt, and I’m hoping when it’s done it’ll be fun for other people to play too.

Thanks for reading!

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