Anabelle, a 9 year old girl, dies mysteriously on Ramsey Mansion, grounds in Boulder Colorado. After her death, Anabelle’s older sister Emily began to have weird dreams about her. After a while, Emily realizes that these are not just her mind playing tricks on her and decides to tell her boyfriend, Nathan, about the dreams and then begins to investigate her little sisters death.
As the story unfolds, Nathan realizes that Emily was much more intrigued by the history of this so called Ramsey Mansion, its occultism and association with mystic arts. By following her footsteps, Nathan embarks on a mysterious adventure.
First and foremost; our main goal with Curse of Anabelle is to present a cinematic experience to players. Also to make it much more intriguing to the players all around the world, we were inspired by real world locations and, maybe more importantly, real world myths and legends.
We were always interested in the supernatural concepts as a team. Especially those based on (loosely or firmly) real world stories and events. When we first discussed the history of King Solomon and The Key of Solomon in the office, we weren’t thinking of a concept for a game – it was just small talk. But in the following days we dug deeper into the topics of esotericism, rituals, pseudoscience and various forms of western philosophies and finally decided to work on a game concept based on the legend of King Solomon.
As a more globally known legend, we decided to base our lore and storyline around the legends of King Solomon, the Seal of Solomon, the Key of Solomon and the Demon Servants of King Solomon. As our development continues, we continued to dig deeper into the topics like esotericism, pseudosciences, ancient grimoires, rituals, ceremonial magic and various forms of eastern and western philosophies. We then decided to also include these elements in our project.
Throughout the game’s development we are trying to stay true to the written sources as much as possible, both fact and fiction, so you will be able to find the traces of our story in the real world as well!
The Key of Solomon is a pseudepigraphical grimoire (also known as a book of spells) attributed to King Solomon. It dates back to roughly the Italian Renaissance in the 14th or 15th century – presenting a typical example of Renaissance magic.
The book is called The Key of Solomon, which is attributed to King Solomon, and it contains ancient rituals that allow the reader to communicate with demons – widely believed to contain as many as 72 different demons. Although the original copy is nowhere to be found, records that date back to the 1200s refer to this ancient script.
In the Renaissance era, the ancient texts that had been written in Hebrew, ancient Greek, and Latin, were put together and published under names such as Clavicula Salomonis Regis, Lemegeton, and Pseudomonarchia Daemonum. It was also re-written in modern English in 1904 by none other than Aleister Crowley, under the name The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King.
Even though the texts grant the power of control over demons, one should not forget that these are dark and malevolent forces and should be careful. The ability to control these beings are directly connected to the individual’s will.
Curse of Anabelle includes a selection of the most dangerous demons, with the Seal of Solomon and The Key of Solomon being both usable items in our game.
With the help of the Key of Solomon, you will face the demons of Ars Goetia, and perform ancient rituals, and these will be integrated into the crafting and puzzle systems. You will also uncover the dark and mysterious past of a cursed mansion and its past residents.
We’ve been working on Curse of Anabelle for a while now, and we’re in the final stretch of game development as we move closer and closer to the finish line. The last push includes balancing the AI system, which has already been programmed, as well as some final bug squashing and implementing a final set of content for the final story arc.
With video game development there is always the risk of having to delay a game’s release, and if that ends up happening for Curse of Anabelle, you can be rest assured it will be done to improve the overall gameplay experience so that you get to enjoy the game and be immersed in its universe.