The game the studio is working on is an atmospheric indie horror with elements of a walking simulator and psychological horror, under the working title «Whispers of the Eternal Forest» (or simply «Eternal Forest»).
The setting is an endless cursed forest deep in the Japanese mountains, inspired by yokai folklore and stories about "lost travelers." The main character is a mysterious spirit girl named tú, who serves as both a guide and a potential killer. The player wanders along procedurally changing forest paths, collecting old yellowed notes, diaries, and audio recordings from missing people, gradually uncovering the tragic story of the spirit.
The game is short, lasting 2-4 hours, but features multiple endings: from saving and redeeming the spirit to being completely consumed by the forest. All of this is presented without direct jump scares—the horror is built on atmosphere, loneliness, and the constant feeling that someone is watching you.
***
Yeonmin entered the studio office early in the morning, as usual the first one there—with a cardboard tray of coffee from the nearby café in his hands and a backpack with his laptop slung over his shoulder. The door clicked quietly behind him, and he paused for a moment in the dim room, lit only by the faint glow of streetlights filtering through the blinds.
Something was off. Again.
His chair at the desk was slightly pulled out—not the way he'd left it the evening before, when he'd been the last to leave. On the desktop lay his sketchbook, but it was open to a different page: one with a sketch of the game's main character—the very spirit girl from the cursed forest that he'd been drawing for months. Only... there was more ink on the page now. Someone had added thin shadow lines around the eyes, making the gaze a little more alive, almost... real.
Yeonmin frowned, set the coffee down on the nearest table, and slowly approached. The air in the office felt heavier, with a faint smell of damp moss and rain—the same kind they were trying to capture in the sound design for the forest locations.
He ran his fingers over the sketchbook page. The ink was still fresh.
"Hmm... Mike pulling another prank overnight?" he muttered to himself, but his voice came out quieter than intended.
***
Almost a month had passed since that strange morning. The oddities in the office hadn't stopped: the chair kept ending up pulled out, unplanned glitch effects sometimes appeared on the monitors—similar to those in their forest locations—and once, someone had left a damp barefoot print on Yeonmin's desk: small, neat, like from a woman's foot.
He hadn't told anyone. Not even Mike. He just quietly arrived earlier than everyone and left later, trying to catch... something. Someone.
Tonight, he'd stayed especially late—deep night outside the windows, New York twinkling with lights far below, and in the studio only the lamp over his desk and the dim emergency lighting in the hallway were on. Yeonmin rubbed his temples, saved the final version of the menu, and quietly cursed: the needed old character sketches were in the archive downstairs, in boxes with concept art.
He grabbed his phone's flashlight, threw on his black leather jacket, and headed down.
The studio archive was long rows of metal shelving in a semi-basement room, crammed with boxes, old tablets, and dusty folders. The air was always cool here, smelling of paper and old cardboard. Yeonmin walked between the rows, lighting the way with his phone, and stopped at the right shelf.
He'd just reached for the box when he heard it.
A quiet rustle. Like fabric sliding across the floor.
Yeonmin spun around sharply.
At the end of the row, in the weak glow of the emergency light, something dark flickered. A dress? Hair?
"Hey..." he called quietly, his voice echoing off the shelves.
The movement stopped. Silence.
Yeonmin stepped forward, his heart beating louder than usual. He checked one row, then another—no one. But the rustle came again, this time from behind.
He quickly turned and ran in that direction.
There, between the tall shelves, she flickered again. A silhouette, the outline of a face, hair—exactly like in his art. tú stood for a second, looking at him through a strand of hair, then stepped back into the shadow, as if dissolving into the air.
"Wait!" escaped from him.
Yeonmin dashed after tú, weaving around the rows, his phone swinging in his hand and catching pieces of space in its light. He saw her again and again—ahead, in a side aisle, near the exit—but every time he almost caught up, she slipped away. Not running—exactly slipping away. Like forest mist.
He stopped, breathing heavily, in the farthest corner of the archive. The phone's light trembled in his hand.
"You're... you're here, aren't you?" he asked into the emptiness, his voice a little hoarse. "I know you're here."
Silence.
And then—very close, almost right in his ear—a soft sigh. Not male. Not familiar.
Yeonmin turned slowly.
No one.
Only on the nearest box, right under the flashlight beam, lay a single sheet—an old sketch of her face that he definitely hadn't left there. On it, someone had carefully added the eyes with fresh ink. Now they were looking straight at him. Alive.
Yeonmin reached out and touched the sheet—his fingers trembled slightly, though he wouldn't admit it to himself. The paper was cool, but the ink on the drawn eyes wasn't fully dry yet: a faint dark smudge remained under his fingertip.
He frowned, brought the sketch closer to the flashlight to examine the details. The eyes in the drawing weren't just looking "at him"—they were looking into him. The pupils were slightly dilated, as if the girl on the paper had just seen something important.
And in that moment, everything changed.
First, the sound vanished—the hum of ventilation, the distant noise of the night city, even his own breathing. Then the flashlight went out, though the phone was charged. The archive around him seemed to dissolve: shelves, boxes, the smell of dust—all gone, as if someone had turned off the world's render.
Yeonmin felt soft, damp earth under his feet instead of concrete floor. Cold air hit his face with the smell of wet bark, rotting leaves, and something metallic, like before a storm. Around him—a dense forest. The very trees he'd drawn hundreds of times: old sakuras with black bark, twisted pines, low fog creeping over the roots. Moonlight filtered through the canopy in rare pale patches.
He was still holding the sheet in his hand, but now it was just blank white paper—the ink had completely disappeared.
And across from him, three steps away, stood she.
tú.
Not a drawing. Not a glitch. Real.
Hair slightly damp from the mist, a simple dark dress clinging to her body from the dew. Bare feet ankle-deep in soft moss. She looked exactly like in the final asset—but alive: her chest rose and fell subtly with breathing, her eyes reflecting the same moonlight.
tú wasn't smiling. She just looked calmly, almost sadly, and tilted her head slightly, just like in one of the animations he'd made himself.
Then she spoke. "Did you come on your own... or were you brought?" Her voice was quiet but clear, as if it sounded inside his head rather than from outside.
Yeonmin instinctively stepped back, his back hitting the cold trunk of a sakura. His heart pounded so hard that there was a roar in his ears. He clenched the blank sheet in his fist, knuckles turning white, and only now noticed how badly his hands were shaking.
"This... is this a dream? Or am I really..." his voice broke; he swallowed and forced himself to meet her eyes. "I came on my own. No one dragged me here; I just picked up that damn drawing." A pause. "Listen, I don't know what's going on, but... how do I get out? Tell me what I need to do to get back. Please."
He hadn't wanted to beg, but the fear was stronger.
