Garrett Dockins

ALLURE is a prototype for a video game about dealing with addiction and the recovery process.

It was developed over the course of my senior year at KCAI as my senior thesis, and was shown April 16 - May 15 at the KCAI Annual BFA Show.

BFA show

Short Video showing insight into the development process. Played on loop in BFA Show.

Design/Concepting Showcase

Character Design Showcase

Installation in the H&R Block for BFA Show

I made Allure with the goal of talking about how addiction occurs (notably how subtly it does so), and the difficulty of the recovery process. I wanted to do this in a way only a video game could- by engaging the player directly and getting them "addicted."

The game so far is a boss-rush of sorts, but as you play through the game, a mysterious figure known as "The Keeper" gives you powerful abilities. These special powers are tailor made to help you against or sometimes even trivialize the boss fights, and so the player relies on them frequently.

When they reach the end, however, the final boss is revealed to be the Keeper himself. For every time in the previous bosses you had used his abilities, he got a little stronger- and so by the time you reach him he is impossibly difficult. You are addicted.

The only solution, then, is to go back through and re-challenge the bosses and defeat them without using your abilities; the recovery process. This forces you to relearn each encounter and use completely different strategies and skills to defeat them. When you make it back to the Keeper for your rematch, you have the skills you need to defeat him- and leave stronger than you were even before the addiction.

I wanted to show with this that recovering from addiction is not like playing "catch up" to be as good as you would've been without the addiction, but rather you can leave a better person than if you hadn't gone through it at all.

CONCEPT ART