At first, it was hard to decide what kind of game we should go for - the very first idea was horror with multiple mini-games, but how should we execute that? What would be the story? Where would it take place? What would be the main mechanic of the gameplay?
The place and main mechanic were determined together - it is going to be the labyrinth and getting out of there would be the main objective. We were also determined to include various minigames spread out within the level.
The storyline was fast to follow - we would enter the maze in search of our lost dog, and looking for it, we would encounter scary characters inside - ghosts or demons. The characters will be somehow connected with the minigames. Then someone came up with the idea of the ghost family - mother and twins, endlessly trapped in the maze.
We decided that the story should have two layers - realistic and supernatural. In the former, we are pursuing our dog, and in the latter we are interacting with a ghost, that would show us their own story.
We were a bit too enthusiastic when thinking about the minigames - we wanted to design one each, what should give us 6 of them. After some time, we decided that we should rather focus on quality over quantity, and we should create only 3 - one for each ghost.
Choosing the view the player is going to experience the world with was sort of a tricky one. First person i not commonly used within the horror genre, but I guess the ease with we could interact with the First Person template of the Unreal Engine helped us to make a choice.
And here we are, after assigning the roles, ready to jump into the design itself!