Aysa Atalay

Contribution Colour-Coding Key

Aysa / Camilla / Combined

Potential Competitors Listed

• Needy Streamer Overload (2022, WSS Playground)
• Parasocial (2023, Chilla’s Art)
• Milk Inside a Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk (2020, Missing Calm)

Needy Streamer Overload

Needy Streamer Overload [2022, WSS Playground] (originally Needy Girl Overdose) is a visual novel/management sim where you play as P-chan, managing your girlfriend Ame’s livestream career as “OMGKawaiiAngel,” aiming for 1 million followers in 30 days, while dealing with her severe mental health issues, drug use, and extreme need for validation, leading to numerous dark, multi-ending paths that explore internet fame’s psychological toll.

Whilst there are some similarities between our game and Needy Streamer Overload in terms of the core play style, streamer related themes and the shared genre of physiological horror the similarities between the two are more surface level. The core concept of our game doesn’t revolve around building or managing a streamer career, the player character is already an established streamer.Instead user_unknown focuses more on telling a compelling narrative of online stalking and its psychological impact. Yes the themes of the game are very similar but with our added minigames and differing overall goal and narrative we doubt it will be hard to differentiate our game concept from Needy Streamer Overload. 

The main issue when comparing this project to Needy Streamer Overload is in being able to clearly establish it as its own concept with its own identity. By highlighting the differences in its theme, narrative focus, and the game play through marketing and in the game description we can avoid direct comparison before purchase. Doing this supports user_unknown in establishing its own independent identity outside of needy streamer overload despite their similarities. 

Parasocial

Parasocial [2023, Chilla’s Art] is a Japanese horror game that follows a Vtuber streamer stalked by an obsessive fan. The stalking begins when the fan exposes her real face online, which leads to threats resulting in escalated paranoia in the player character.The stalker in this game demands the streamer plays more games or they will leak more information about her to the public.

Ensuring that our projects narrative focus, mechanics and the payer experience are clearly distinct is vital. Whilst parasocial explores themes of online stalking, these are the actions of an obsessive individual fan. User_unknown presents online harassment and stalking as a coordinated action from an incel group that is motivated by misogyny. Although both games have a similar subject matter, the motivations and causation of that differ dramatically. Our game concept aims to highlight and bring awareness to the misogyny women face in online spaces, offering a thoughtful and very real experience to its players.

Another key difference between the two games is in their visual style. User_Unknown has a vibrant aesthetic influenced by 2000’s internet culture, vaporware, and cyberware. This visual distinction already establishes a strong and recognisable profile, which is likely to stand out amongst other games in the genre. 

Milk Inside a Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk

Milk Inside A Bag Of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk [2020, Missing Calm] is a visual novel game that follows a young girl. The main character struggles with social anxiety and the player acts as a voice inside of her head. You must guide the girl on simple tasks such as buying milk, through this you will reveal both her traumatic past and the internal struggles she faces. The game includes intensive internal monologues, distorted perceptions and highlights the struggles of something with social anxiety. The clarity at the end of the game is dependent on the player’s choices.

The main consistencies between User_Unknown and Milk Inside A Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk lies in both the gameplay and visual styles. The gameplay for both games relies heavily on text-based interactions for its story telling alongside images adopting somewhat of a visual novel style. The artstyle for the game also somewhat closely resembles that of our game concept, whilst ours will be more vibrant and adopt a 2.5D style the overall aesthetics of the game are very similar in this regard. User_Unknown is less pixel art-like in comparison, having a slightly more unique and retro stylistic approach to the artstyle. Because of this it is unlikely that the two games may be compared visually, as they have a similar aesthetic but User_Unknown also has its own unique visual identity through its vibrancy and the retro, vaporwave, and cyberware inspirations.

Both games are psychological horrors that attempt to make the player understand and empathise with the main characters. Milk Inside A Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk has heavy themes of social anxiety and portrays these in a way that feels very personal to the player and is thoughtfully done. User_Unknown aims to handle its harsher themes in a similar way to this game, something that brings awareness and understanding to its players rather than simply another addition to the story. The themes between these two games whilst yes dark and play into the more psychological themes of the games are very different, with our game concept focusing on the mental effects of harassment and stalking were as Milk Inside A Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk explores social anxiety.

Purchase Motivators