The Shining: The Game (Work in Progress) #

The Shining: The Game is a survival-horror game for the Playdate console, inspired by Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of The Shining. The constraints of the Playdate (its small screen, lack of color, and limited input) directly shape the design of the game.

Kubrick's film deals with memory, cycles of violence, and ghosts from the past. We rewrite the past, both culturally and individually: we never recall events exactly as they happened, and each act of re-remembering changes them. This project adapts the film, not the Stephen King novel, so it becomes an adaptation of an adaptation. That recursive process mirrors how memory degrades, shifts, and reshapes itself over time. Rather than imagining lost futures, the game focuses on rewriting the past. The goal is to create an object that represents a past that never could have existed.

Formally, it draws from early survival-horror games such as Alone in the Dark and Resident Evil, where limited controls and slow pacing heighten tension.

Details #

• Survival-horror game for the Playdate console, in development