#Secret neighbor characters how to
#Secret neighbor characters full

The Neighbor does the same, searching for his own special items that boost his abilities. All of this is happening while the house is logically locked off with keycard doors, so players explore through the house in search for loot and the precious basement keys. In the release version of Secret Neighbor, the Neighbor needs to level up and explore the house with all other players - and it makes sense for him to go into attack mode only once he reached a certain level. We added player classes, allowing for different playstyles - and a progression system for the Neighbor. Iteration number three revolved around mid-match progression. This shifted the balance in favor of the Neighbor. The second was adding more items for the Neighbor, for example a smoke bomb or the ability to turn into any object. Some doors are permanently walled off during the match, forcing players into using alternate routes. The first thing we did was add randomized walls in the house. Earlier playtests showed that everyone loves the core loop, and after 4-5 matches figure out the optimal route for scavenging through the house, not leaving the Neighbor player much room for setting up traps and gaining trust.

#Secret neighbor characters full

The biggest challenge was preventing the Neighbor to immediately taking off the mask and going full Rambo on other players, while they also canвЂ™t quickly get all keys scattered through the house and win.

#Secret neighbor characters how to

With the core gameplay done, we headed off into production вЂ“ figuring out how to make the game varied enough for replayability while also keeping it fresh.

There are actual вЂњhorror gameвЂќ elements where youвЂ™d have jump scares, traps, and more - the real horror though comes from actual social interaction with your (possible) friends, and knowing that you canвЂ™t trust anyone around you. And I somehow convinced the whole group to eliminate a player who wasnвЂ™t the neighbor, only to run off laughing. I was leading that detective session, shifting blame between a few other players. The whole session just stopped for a detective-style investigation: figuring out who was where, and whom the group could trust. In an early prototype, one of the players got eliminated early, and the whole group became suspicious of 3 players that were close by. Almost instantly we knew there was something special about the core loop. So we started prototyping what would eventually become Secret Neighbor вЂ“ weвЂ™d have six-player playtests, during which one of the players would have the ultimate agenda of betraying everyone, and socially engineering themselves into being trusted as they take out players one by one without knowledge. We love playing social games like Werewolf where the gameplay comes from actual social engineering, reading peopleвЂ™s reactions, strategy, and ultimately betrayal.

The whole team has always been into board games. Only problem is one of the players is a traitor in disguise вЂ“ itвЂ™s the Secret Neighbor. Up to six players work together making their way through a bizarre house filled with traps, scattered loot, easter eggs, and basement keys as they try to unlock the door. In Secret Neighbor, a group of friends are trying to get into their creepy neighborвЂ™s basement. The gameвЂ™s premise of sneaking into your creepy next door neighborвЂ™s house lent itself to that idea perfectly, and we spent two years making that idea into a full-on game.

When we launched Hello Neighbor on Xbox One back in 2017, the biggest requested fan feature was the ability to play as the creepy Neighbor.