cwu-breathing-mechanic

A test project where I made my breathing mechanic for my game about sleep paralysis, CAN’T WAKE UP (cwu).

During an in-game paralysis episode, the player has to manually control their breathing by holding and releasing the spacebar (or in this case, the backslash key) at a slow, steady pace. You have to feel the rhythm and stay calm while everything else in the scene is trying to distract or scare you. If the player rushes their breathing, hesitates for too long, or falls out of sync, the system treats it as panic/a fail, and the episode ends badly (i.e. monster jumpscare). The goal is to turn something automatic into something tense and deliberate, forcing the player to stay composed under pressure.