Devlog #1: Welcome to ScareZone

What’s up, nerds?

You can call me Thoosie. I’m really excited to introduce myself, Thoosie Labs, and our first project - ScareZone: Haunted Attraction Tycoon.

ScareZone was born out of a deeply nerdy Sunday afternoon experiment; I’d recently learned the Godot platform for a work project and had just finished a rewatch of Defunctland’s incomparable Shapeland documentary. After a glass or two of wine, I built a very simple simulation of throughput in an HHN style walkthrough attraction and found myself falling down a rabbit hole in the best way.

Over a year later, what was a bunch of moving dots queuing on a grid is now becoming a 3D reality in ScareZone: Haunted Attraction Tycoon. ScareZone will allow you to build the haunted attraction of your nightmares, while juggling staffing, throughput, and real life management challenges. I’ve brought in a few friends with experience in gaming, theatre, attractions, and more to contribute and advise as we bring this world together. We’re calling ourselves Thoosie Labs.

A bit more about me: My obsession with amusement parks, themed entertainment, and all things Halloween began at the impressionable age of nine — tagging along as my neighbor built elaborate home haunts in the days before Spirit Halloween made it easy. Annual trips to Disney, Universal, and regional parks fed the frenzy, not to mention a childhood lost to Rollercoaster Tycoon.

I started scare-acting at 12 alongside the high school drama kids - every September, we’d put our heads and hands together and assemble a new maze and theme out of theatrical flats and an empty former auto garage. Haunted hotels, hospitals, houses - we did them all, with a short budget and whatever wood was in the warped pile at Lowes.

Since those early days, I graduated to working in attractions and theme parks professionally, on and off. This has included stints with Universal Orlando, Merlin Entertainments and several regional haunts in acting, training, and management roles. I’ve also managed to have a career in tech, I've spent a decade in training and graphic design, including work with Riot Games.

Thanks for checking us out and I can’t wait to share more with you all soon. If you’re reading this far and you haven’t wishlisted, get to it. It's the best way you can support our game as we work towards Early Access. We’ll be sharing dev logs every two weeks or so to keep you up to speed.

-Thoosie