"Hamven is a place on Earth" is a game concept, loosely based on my job as a deli associate.
You play as Brie, a mouse working in the Big Smart Grocery deli. Work begins normally, serving customers and joking around with coworkers. But, as time goes on, things become stranger and stranger. Consistent coworkers stop showing up (though there's always a reason to brush it off as nothing), strange new people work for a single shift then disappear, and customers begin making odd requests. Eventually, you are alone, and something is wrong.
You finally leave your post to investigate, and find the entire store twists into something terrible. The walls warp into oozing, weeping meat, squishing beneath your paws. Following the trail of flesh leads you to the deli meat cooler, where you discover the rotting corpse of God.
You don't want to believe it, but somehow, deep down, you Know. You cannot deny what lies before you. It is an awful pile, like a body stretched and squished, then thrown to the ground and left to decay. It has a strange, flat face, unlike anything you've seen before. Then, it speaks. A thousand voices whisper of its hunger, its desire to consume and control. It is heavily implied, if not outright stated, that YOU, the Player, are responsible for this. As you step back, it tries to appeal to you in familiar voices. The faces of your coworkers, your friends, stretch from its flesh and beseech you to join them. As you try to run, the cooler seems to stretch on forever, twisting into narrow labyrinth of freezing halls.
What happens next and how the game concludes is still being written, as well as some in-between details.
(Actual gameplay plans are currently rough concepts and may be subject to change.)
The game begins with a tutorial, framed as regularly scheduled LMS training, going over information already known to Brie herself. As the tutorial concludes, it is interrupted by what appears to be a strange captcha. This is not explained in the moment, but implied to be the player themself interacting with the world and displacing God, leading to its twisted existence and presence in the meat cooler.
The first half of Hamven is a cross between visual novel and management sim. Bond with coworkers, handle difficult customers, and fulfill their orders for sliced meat and cheese. The management difficulty increases as coworkers begin to disappear and the requests become stranger. Eventually, you leave your post in the deli to investigate, and gameplay switches into exploration and puzzle-solving. Figure out how to access locked areas that will provide clues as to what happened, and eventually make your way to the meat cooler.
The first half of Hamven takes inspiration from the general genre of visual novels and the Papa Louie customer service & management gameplay. The second half takes gameplay inspiration from Mad Father's horror and puzzles.
Bugsnax and Doki Doki Literature Club are also significant influences as cutesy games that slowly reveal themselves to be psychological horrors. Bugsnax similarly focuses on food, and Doki Doki addresses the player directly.
Many of the characters within Hamven are loosely based upon real people I interact with at work.
Brie was initially design as a self-insert character to complain about work (and is still used this way), but came to serve as Hamven's protagonist as the universe began to develop around her. She's a hard-working mouse with an excellent customer service front, though she'll complain to coworkers as soon as they're gone.
- Aria, badger. The deli manager, quiet but kind and diligent
- Leah, ferret. The assistant manager, totally incompetent
- Zephyr, doberman. Laid-back and overworked
- Penny, sheep. Chronically late but caring with a penchant for nicknames
- Paperlady, fox. "PAPER THIN but NOT chipped. THIN."
- Goatman, goat. Insists on ending every interaction with "God bless you"
- Old Veteran, buck. Pleasant old man in a tan coat and baseball cap
- 12 Slices Cooked Salami, sand cat. Small woman with a very consistent order for her spouse
- Mr Swiss, mouse. Old man who is very excited to get cheese
- Blockhead, bear. "I need a pound, but in one huge chunk.."
- Cooked Ham, various. One pound cooked ham
