Devlog #3: Rhythm

Welcome to this third devlog post for Side Alley, a psychological horror game with demons in an office setting.

They'll haunt and hunt you, but they are also... your colleagues.

This time I’d like to discuss something elusive and abstract, but oh-so-important for many games: rhythm.

For a game relying relatively heavily on text like Side Alley, one might think rhythm isn’t the most relevant aspect. In a typical visual novel, the player or reader reads at their own pace, then clicks ahead. No room for rhythmical aspects, right?

Well, in Side Alley, just off the top of my head, here are three aspects that are affected by rhythm and timing:

• Scene transitions
• Back-and-forth between feeling safe and feeling exposed (it’s a horror game)
• Interweaving dialogue, inner monologue, and navigation or object tinkering

The rhythm of scene transitions

In the typical old-school visual novel, there are transitions between swaths of text, and also between “scenes” (typically a background image with one or two characters at the front).

These transitions can vary in duration and style. A straight cut? A slow dip to black? A cross-fade? A fast wipe?

One reason I’m sticking to my own “engine” (inside the Unity engine, that is) is that I want as much custom control as possible over these presentational aspects, because they can make or break the game.

The player may not consciously register the duration of a fade, but even so, the atmosphere and feel are probably affected by it.

The rhythm of the horror pendulum

I’m sure there’s an established name for this, but I’m referring to the simple fact that tense, scary, or stressful sections of a game (applies to other art forms as well) are more impactful if preceded by sections of relative calm.

So in Side Alley, the story beats are timed with this very much in mind.

The rhythm of changes in narrative mode

The moment a dialogue ends and is replaced by the player navigating in a hallway, the player experiences a shift in what is demanded of them.

In a dialogue, with its pondering of alternative replies, the player is asked to use different mental faculties than when navigating around, discerning directions, and choosing paths to familiar or unfamiliar destinations.

The rhythm that emerges when the narrative moves from one such mode to another may be the most central one to Side Alley, or to any similar game.