Show Yourself Director's Cut

• Short description: A psychological horror where Charlie will have to deal with his memories and his demons... but are they really demons? Who can he trust? The flying brain or the mysterious voice? Every choice matters and will lead you to a different ending.
• Genre/gameplay: A first-person horror game with multiple choices and three endings.

How the project was born

The game was born from the ashes of an experimental trilogy called No Escape Room of which the spirit and some sections of the game were preserved such as the obstacle course to be faced quickly, changing the pursuer who in No Escape Room was a statue of bones. This trilogy was very short and, frankly, had a plot that did not hold together, hence the need to transform it into the game you see today.

Scrapped level

Early in the game's development, there was a tutorial level featuring a floating head that explained the game's controls and the obstacles that could be encountered when testing Charlie, but it was later decided to cut it as it was deemed unnecessary.

Why Director's Cut?

Because the game was originally released on Itch.io and GameJolt, we took the opportunity of the Steam release to rewrite and generally enhance the dialogues, while also adding a new level to enrich the overall experience.

Full Description (spoiler alert)

The game tells the story of Charlie, an ordinary individual who has only made bad choices in his life. These choices were driven by his excessive rationality, hence the clash between his brain and his emotions (the mysterious voice). The voice is perceived by Charlie as a negative figure simply because it does not know his emotions and vice versa. On the contrary, we see how the brain is always perceived as a friendly figure that will always provide Charlie with a way to get out and overcome every obstacle because he is worried, in his own way, about his health, and this is the problem: as much as his rationality has always led to a simple life, the problem is precisely the fact that he has listened too little to his emotions, for this reason he finds himself inside his conscience in this surreal journey.

The meaning of doors

1. "Door of Deception": contains an intricate puzzle that represents an ambiguous situation from his past: when Charlie discovered he was dyslexic. In the time he remains in this room, he relives the frustration of being mocked by his classmates for his inability to read and, unknowingly, follows what he did at the time. However, at a certain point, his memory begins to distort. He feels guilty, convincing himself that his parents had locked him in their room, scared of his anger. Emotions, then, lead him to believe that he even killed them. To prove the opposite, Charlie will have to collect his most cherished childhood objects that appeared only at that moment. Once the puzzle is solved, it will be possible to view the previously anagrammed notes now written correctly because Charlie solved them. Success will lead to a key revelation and the possibility of atoning for a past deception but will bring him closer to the middle ending (he is using logic), but if he fails, he will get closer to the bad ending.
2. "Door of Pain": here, the protagonist relives the worst day of his life when, during the massacre of his apartment by a serial killer, here represented by a screaming spirit, Charlie simply escaped through the window. Charlie needs to relive this bad memory to know if, going back, he would have made different choices and killed the killer. If he escapes, he gets closer to the bad ending and if he kills the spirit, he gets closer to the middle ending (he does justice).
3. "Door of Redemption": Charlie lives a completely invented moment that has never happened in his life: an individual trapped on the subway tracks that he usually takes and the train that is about to arrive. The voice wants to know if he has the courage to throw himself on the tracks to save him, for this the individual will reveal himself to be a simple mannequin who will thank him wholeheartedly for the gesture made. If he saves him, he will get closer to the good ending because, instinctively, he saved a stranger, but if he fails he will get closer to the bad ending.

Game Sequel

A sequel to this game is planned, titled Show Yourself 2- Into My Darkness, which will pick up where the first chapter ended. Charlie will discover that forgiving the demons of his past as he did in the first chapter will not be enough to wake up. The game will be just as scary, full of multiple choices and three endings like the first chapter.

Game adaptation

There are also plans for an adaptation of the game in E-Book format written in the first person in the genre of psychological horror novel in which the emotions and thoughts of the protagonist will be explored even more, thus offering a completely new experience suitable for those who already have the game in full but also for those who have never played it.

Convinced? Download it here