I am Sergio Escanciano, who together with Arturo Casado and with support of Natalia Pérez, form Tenebris Studio. We are proud to announce that, after some long months of porting and management, Your Computer Might Be at Risk launches today on Xbox and Windows PC . This is a high milestone for us, as it is our first game, self-published, and our first console game.
This release comes one year after its original launch on PC and with a new final chapter for the game: La Rata Escarlata, which I believe is our best iteration of the gameplay mechanics and story.
From a technical standpoint, we have worked hard to ensure that the game runs at a solid 60 FPS on all Xbox consoles, also with full 4K resolution support starting with Xbox One X.
Being a studio with just two core members means that we have both worked on most tasks involving game development at some point. Some of my key contributions were the game design and script writing, so this article will delve into the tone of the game and how the plot and game mechanics combine to create an experience that guides the player trough a crescendo of emotions until the end of the story.
Your Computer Might Be at Risk is a game about wrong decisions and the unavoidable weight of its consequences. Accepting them is not always an option, as there are some things that cannot be undone.
Game development is not currently our main job, and working on the game part-time made the process take several years, much longer than we could have expected at the beginning. The feelings of losing your way, being consistent with your past and facing the unexpected while trying to move forward are the pillars on which I wrote the script. I truly believe that players will be able to immerse themselves in the story and get carried away by the events and puzzles of the game.
In terms of art, the game takes the “Giallo” film genre (murder/mystery/fiction) as its main source of inspiration, with a strong use of vivid colors and a soundtrack full of classic synths and drum sounds.
Locked in a room after a strange car accident, the player is faced with a series of tasks and puzzles created by his captors, directly connected to the events and development of the story. Accompanying these moments, quieter more narrative sequences help the player to always be in tune with the emotions the protagonist feels throughout the game.
As the story progresses, the mundane situations of the beginning become increasingly bizarre and dreamlike.
The puzzles of the game cover different spectrums of the genre, from logical and self-contained to ones that evolve in subsequent chapters or require the use of an object in the player’s inventory. We have iterated a lot on the difficulty of the game and, while I think there are some puzzles that require the player to really work their deductive skills, we have tried to make all players feel comfortable with the game with a fair difficulty curve and a special and totally optional hint mode that can give a clue to solve the puzzles.
In terms of accessibility, the game contains a colorblind mode to allow more players to fully enjoy the game. This mode not only changes specific colors for the main types of color blindness, but also adapts some puzzles with a lot of colors to ensure a balance with the default game. In case you are interested in this aspect of the game, I wrote an article about this in our Itch.io page.
I would like to emphasize the new content included in the game: La Rata Escarlata.. Accessible from the main menu, this final and independent chapter takes place in a new location not seen in the main game: the bar in the middle of the desert “La Rata Escarlata”.
This chapter explores the origins of the game’s story and contains the most elaborate puzzles. While it can be played standalone at any time, I encourage players to play it after the main game to fully understand what happens in this strange new location. Check the trailer on the ID@Xbox YouTube channel for a look at the new content.
And that’s all! Thank you for reading the article. Before concluding, we would like to thank the ID@Xbox team and their colleagues for their support during development.
Your Computer Might Be at Risk is a classic single player experience, so please sit back and take your time to enjoy the game. We have left a part of our lives in it.
Your Computer Might Be At Risk
Tenebris Studio
An unfinished story, forgotten twenty years ago, returns to be concluded.
A story about wrong decisions.
Your Computer Might Be At Risk is a first-person narrative puzzle game. Locked up in a room after a mysterious car accident, you must figure out how to escape while surviving dangerous trials and solving dozens of puzzles. Narrated in parallel, twenty years later your son unravels the story of your mysterious vanishing.
The game includes the special chapter “La Rata Escarlata”. This last chapter explores the origins of the story and adds new interconnected puzzles in a unique new location.
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Source: Xbox Blog
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