A short cinematic narrative game built in Unity 2022 HDRP. You play as Bas, a brown mouse searching for his sister Myea after a white cat named Mog separates them. 45–90 minutes. Bittersweet, restrained, quiet. Not a power fantasy. Nobody wins, but they don't lose each other.
BASIL is a short cinematic narrative game. You play as Bas, a brown mouse searching for his sister Myea after a white cat named Mog separates them. It begins in warmth — a dollhouse, a chess game, afternoon light, tea. It ends in survival. Not triumph.
The emotional core: nobody wins, but they don't lose each other.
The tone is bittersweet, restrained, cinematic. No dialogue-heavy exposition. No power fantasy. Just a small creature trying to get back to someone.
BASIL is unusual because the story was fully locked before a single line of code was written. Every system, every room, every trigger exists to serve the emotional truth of the narrative.
The white pawn means something. The grass hat means something. The moment Mog says 'Colder' is a taunt, a warning, and a game all at once. Every mechanic has a symbolic purpose before it has a technical one.
The question driving every technical decision: does the coded game still follow the story exactly?
19 phases, fully documented.
Phases 0–3: Unity HDRP setup, Bas's full movement controller (walk, run, crouch, climb, carry, squeeze through gaps), opening cinematic.
Phases 4–5: Greybox of the full house interior at mouse scale. Every room has a narrative purpose before it has geometry.
Phases 6–7: Mog's threat AI (patrol, detection, alert, hunt), checkpoint/save system, RoomProgressionManager.
Phases 8–11: Every authored moment — dialogue, silence, clue discovery, the terrarium reveal, the shatter, the ending walk.
Phases 12–18: Character models, environment models, art pass, animation, audio, narrative continuity review.
Phase 19: Trailer, PC build, itch.io release.
The project is in the planning and documentation phase — fully designed, fully spec'd, ready for active build. Every room, every scene, every system, and every AI prompt needed to build it has been written.
What exists: a locked master canon document, a complete 19-phase implementation roadmap, scene-by-scene specs for every authored moment, system design docs for the Bas controller, Mog AI, progression gating, checkpoint system, and scene transitions.
The build is next.