One day a couple of parents started to worry for their child because it begun to act strangely, they prayed and prayed for the child's protection and against diseases.. but something was still wrong. After consulting with their local priest there was only one explanation left, the baby was been possessed by a demon!
Worried for the safety of their child, the parents called YOU, a recently ordained priest who doesn't have any exorcism experience. So how do you remove the demon from a baby? Well, you SHAKE the demon away, and slap the demon back to hell... obviously.
Disclaimer: No babies were hurt during the creation of this game and the group does not support the shaken baby syndrome.
The Possession of Baby Junior was created during a week-long workshop with Tatiana Vilela dos Santos at Universidade Lusófona, the main challenge for this week was to learn more about alternative controllers and how they can provide a different experience with games or even make them a more performative experience, on top of that also creating a memorable game.
Although the game isn't playable at home there is an itch page documenting the game that can be found here. This game was presented in some events such as Over and Out 2023 at Universidade Lusófona, where it ended up winning the award for the Best Alt-Ctrl Game of 2023, and Lisbon Games Week.
For the workshop each team was given a joystick and four buttons... and in the corner of the classroom there was a baby doll. With those elements an idea started to shape that would generate a lot of debate inside the room, from the baby enjoying the pain, to a bad babysitter that wasn't aware of how to take care of a crying baby to, finally, the player being a newly ordained priest called for their first exorcism. The common aspect between all the ideas was that the joystick and button would have to be inserted inside the baby.
Gameplay
The goal of the player is to expel the demon of a baby or, in other words, to successfully complete an exorcism.
The player must use the controller, a baby doll modified to fit a button and a joystick, and shake it to fill the happiness meter before the demon starts to manifest, Once the demon starts to manifest the players must slap the baby to send it back to hell, or scare it away in a sense, if the demon manifests for an extended period of time the happiness meter will drastically drop and the sadness meter fills rapidly.
At the end of the exorcism, either successful or failed, it is presented a slideshow of pictures taken of the player during the exorcism.
Mechanics
Happiness Meter
The happiness meter is going to determine if the players are able to complete the exorcism a.k.a win the game. This starts at 0 and increases according the shakes per second.
There are four levels for SPS (Shakes Per Second): Easy: 2 SPS | Medium: 3 SPS | Hard: 4 SPS | Extreme: 6 SPS
If at any given moment the player doesn't meet the minimum SPS a hidden "Sadness Bar" starts going up and as it keep growing the faster the happiness level starts decreasing until the player slaps the baby (a button in the backside) to reset this hidden meter. Engaging in continuous slapping will prevent the happiness meter to rise and end in a failed exorcism.
Shake the Baby
A joystick that uses a 4 axis input, every time one of the axis is triggered a new shake happens. Each new shake will count towards the happiness meter.
Slap the Baby
Uses a button on the back of the controller to reset the sadness meter.