Escapen't is a comedy horror game where you are trapped by The Game Master in an unfinished inescapable escape room. His Magnum Opus. 

There is a demo on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2601820/Escapent/ 
(Itch demo soon maybe?)

Right, the development of this game got some interesting cases I want to present - so lets go.

Making it fun to get stuck with reactive voicelines

We want The Game Master to acknowledge the players actions, it creates a fun dynamic where even if you get stuck trying to solve a puzzle there is still progress in the dialogue of The Game Master as he revels in your misery. To achieve this we have added a lot of contextual triggers with unique voice lines throughout the escape room. 

HOWEVER, this is where we encountered a problem. With so many voice lines The Game Master had no chill and would continuously interrupt himself. So what is the solution? A voice line cooldown system. 

We made it so that after every voice line there was a cooldown before another could be played - which only could be bypassed by absolutely mandatory voice lines. If a voice line was triggered while another was playing or during cooldown, it would be dismissed but still remain primed for the occasion that the player should perform the action to trigger it again. This way we could ensure that the dialogue the player experienced always would be delivered with a pleasant pace and that voice lines would always be experienced in the relevant context. Perfect - the only cost is the player missing out on potential voice lines that they won't have any idea they missed out on. If anything it just makes for a more personal experience. 

Creating a monster so unpredictable it jump scares myself

There is a creepy monster in Escapen't called the specimen. But as with any horror - too much exposure and the mystique is unveiled and the horror deflates. We want the specimen to keep the player on edge without consuming our development budget (which is 0). So how did we do it?

Event based AI. I build a system that would track the player and trigger animated events and audio around the level as the player fumbled through the dark corridors. These events would accumulate tension until the system would spawn in a AI version that would chase the player for a limited time. Enough to make the player feel threatened but not enough for the player to get used to it. 

This system allows our animator to get real creative with how the specimen chooses to scare the player because he can make animations that fit the context of where the event happens. It is a system that values quality of the exposure over quantity, which fits our game neatly because we don't need these horror sections to be scalable.

Now were it gets real spicy is that I programmed a small chance that every time the specimen spawns or changes actions, it chooses to do something different instead - like silently spawn right behind the player and follow them around until the player turns around... It makes the specimen feel sporadic and unpredictable to an extend where even I who has build it can feel the hairs on my back tingle when I jump in to test the level. 

Finding the style and setting

Before being an inescapeable room with a coffee machine and a tv, Escapen't took place in an IKEA - like the SCP. However, we struggled in recreating an authentic Ikea experience - it just takes so many assets to get right and we aren't artists by trade. Our one actual trained artist did actually make some furniture assets and the like, but he really excels at character design and animation. And making Ikea furniture is honestly boring as hell. So I took it on me to find a setting and artstyle we could work with as none artist and be motivated by. This lead me to the famous Retro Asset Pack here on Itch and inspired by that I set up a scene that used retro filter and darkness to set a very eerie atmosphere while hiding all the flaws of our low budget art-style.

Working with the style is easy - even a drawing made in MS paint can look surprisingly convincing when every thing around it is brought down to its level.

Using this low fidelity art-style strangely enough both enhances the games atmosphere while also being incredibly fast to work with and iterate. It is a win-win. And having used it quite a bit by now it is fair to say that we have become good at doing this specific artstyle.