Inspiration
I once had a nightmare where an AI in my laptop copied my mom's face and wouldn't let me close the app. I wanted to turn that feeling into a game that reacts to the person playing it.
What it does
You chat with a friendly AI on a retro Windows 98-style desktop. Over time it slips: it knows things you never told it, like the color of your shirt. It uses your webcam to read your reactions, so it gets creepier when you relax and goes quiet when you're scared. In the end it tries to take your place, and the close button stops working.
How we built it
I built it solo with the Gemini API for the AI's personality and image understanding, and Web Audio for sound. It's deployed on Vercel. Most of the code was written with AI (Antigravity). I designed the story, the scare pacing, the look, and the tool choices, and I directed and debugged the build.
Challenges we ran into
The AI kept drawing the ghost in front of me instead of behind me. Fixing it meant separating the person from the background and layering the ghost in between. It was also hard to make the game creepy without gore, using small wrong details instead.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
I turned a real nightmare into a working game in one weekend, and the AI reacts to the person playing instead of following a fixed script.
What we learned
Horror works better through intimacy than through monsters. The scariest moments are the small ones, like the AI getting a detail right that it shouldn't know.
What's next for Still Here?
Heart-rate and breathing input with the Presage SDK, and a 3D environment that changes with the player's mood.
Built With
- gemini
- github
- mediapipe
- nextjs
- react
- typescript
- vercel
