The Tsar's Secret

Let the noises guide you in The Tsar’s Secret. An isometric 2.5D stealth game about infiltrating the Tsar’s palace. The chore mechanic allows you to change between 2 different modes: Tenebris & Silentium. Choose between deafening or blinding the palace guards, but be careful! It will also affect how you experience the game.

Created by Otter World Games

The game itself is narrated by Grigori, the main character, with voice over acting. Grigori is a double agent with the mission of stealing classified documents from The Great Conflict. Their nation awaits for him to return, but the palace of Mitrovia is full of guards patrolling the corridors. Thankfully, he knows how to control ancient powers and alter the senses with occultist magic.

Will you be able to achieve the undercover mission?

The story takes places in the fictional country of Mitrovia, inside the Tsar’s Palace. This place is inspired by the soviet architecture from the tsarism.
This is how we transformed concept art into 3D models and game environments.

The main character, Grigori, is inspired by Rasputin. He's an occultist mage with a unique power - he can eliminate the sound or the light from the world. This translates into his enemies being blind or deafen by him, but this magic will also affect him.
This way, when you're playing, the game will be shown differently depending on if you use Tenebris to blind your enemies or if you use Silentium to deafen the world. This is the chore mechanic that players need to master in order to understand how to solve the stealth puzzles from the game.

When Silentium is active, the world is deafened and you can only perceive it through images. The music in the game becomes quieter and the palace wards will only catch you if you step on their vision cone.

When Tenebris is active, the world is blind. The way you perceive the game now is different, you'll be guided by the environmental sounds, such a fountain or an enemy coughing, that creates "sound" waves. This waves will reveal the map near them.
On the second screenshot, the map whole map is revealed by a thunder. The noise coming from the thunder is that loud that it lights up all the area.
On the following video, we show how the mechanics of the game looks like on action.

The music was composed for the game itself, matching the inspirations and the gameplay needs. And some tracks were played by the UCM orchestra.
We even recorded the voice-over for the main character with a professional voice actor.

We took the game to events, and for this we created promotional posters and  lanyards.

The Tsar's Secret was awarded with the PlayStation Talents Award to the Best Narrative in 2022.
If you want to learn more about the game you can visit
Itch.io: https://otterworldsgames.itch.io/the-tsars-secret
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2079410/The_Tsars_Secret/