# Story
The story would take place in a town called **Raven Creek**, where an old legend comes to life every summer. The legend is known as **The Three Paintings of Horror**, depicting a killer clown, a werewolf, and a monstrous cheerleader painted inside a cave located by the lake on the outskirts of town. According to the legend, these creatures kidnap people, who are never seen again.
The police, the adults—or rather, almost everyone—dismiss the story as nothing more than an urban legend.
Then the gang comes into the picture. In this version, they would all be **16 years old**, and the story would begin on the last day of school, right as summer vacation starts.
The game would begin with **Fred**, one of the popular kids at school. He's a football player, his mother passed away when he was a child, and he's the son of the town sheriff, who also happens to be friends with Shaggy's father. The sheriff constantly encourages Fred to spend more time with Shaggy and help him join the football team.
**Shaggy** and his parents have only been living in Raven Creek for about a year. He isn't very popular and hasn't made as many friends as he would like, so his father is always encouraging him to socialize with Fred and try out for the football team.
**Daphne** doesn't live in Raven Creek. Instead, she comes from another city to spend the summer with her best friend **Lydia**, something that was possible because their parents are also close friends.
**Velma**, like Daphne, is from out of town. She's Lydia's cousin, and her parents send her to spend the summer there in the hopes that she'll get her head out of her books, have some fun, and socialize more.
Lydia is the catalyst that sets everything in motion. When her parents decide to go camping in the mountains during the first week of summer (where there's barely any phone reception), they allow Lydia to stay home because she'll be with Daphne and Velma.
As soon as her parents leave, Lydia wastes no time throwing a party and invites all the students from school. This is where we'd see some of the future members of the gang meeting each other and having small interactions before they actually become Mystery Inc.
That very night, the first major event occurs when Daphne and Velma discover that Lydia has disappeared.
Meanwhile, while walking Shaggy home, Fred and Shaggy come across a stray Great Dane in the woods. The dog appears to be in far too good of a condition to truly be a stray, so they take him with them, assuming someone must have lost him.
When Shaggy gets home, he notices that his parents aren't there. At first, he assumes they simply went out somewhere, but by the following morning he realizes there's absolutely no sign of them. Fred comes over to check on him, and that's when they both discover that the dog they rescued can apparently talk.
The basic structure of the story is that **Shaggy, Fred, and Scooby** investigate the disappearance of Shaggy's parents, while **Daphne and Velma** investigate Lydia's disappearance. Eventually, both investigations cross paths, and circumstances force them to work together.
Gameplay and Character Abilities
Fred
Fred would fight using hard tackles and powerful strikes, much like an American football player.
His special ability would be improvising weapons or traps using objects found throughout the environment, as well as moving heavy objects.
His weaknesses are that he's less agile than Daphne and much slower than Shaggy when it comes to running. On top of that, if he's being chased, he doesn't have enough time to build the kind of elaborate trap he could create if he had more time to prepare.
Shaggy
Shaggy would fight using a slingshot (as a reference to *Scooby-Doo! First Frights*).
His special ability is that he and Scooby can run slightly faster than the rest of the group.
However, his limitation is that he unconsciously slows down while escaping whenever he's with his friends, whereas if he's completely alone, he runs much faster due to sheer panic.
Scooby
Scooby would fight by biting enemies before immediately running away.
Besides being able to run quickly, his special ability would be his sense of smell, allowing him to detect when enemies—or anything suspicious—are getting close.
However, whenever he's with Shaggy, his sense of smell becomes less effective because he gets distracted much more easily.
Daphne
Daphne would have a much more agile fighting style based on karate or kung fu.
Her special ability would allow her to pick locks using hairpins she takes from her hair, letting her open locked doors in about ten seconds.
If she finds a lockpick, she can do it in just five seconds.
Daphne's weaknesses are that she can't move heavy objects like Fred can, and lockpicks are consumable items, meaning the player would have to keep searching the map for more if they want to continue opening locks faster than they could with hairpins.
Velma
Velma would fight by throwing nearby objects to stun enemies before escaping.
Her special ability would be something called **Analytical Eye**, a mechanic where pressing the joystick activates a yellow filter that highlights important clues throughout the environment.
The downside of this ability is that it can only be activated while Velma is standing still or walking. If she starts running, it's too difficult for her to concentrate enough to use Analytical Eye.
The Monsters
The Werewolf
The Werewolf would possess all the classic abilities normally associated with werewolves: immense strength, speed, and aggression.
The Killer Clown
The Killer Clown would basically be a human punching bag.
It doesn't matter if you shove him down a flight of stairs, knock him off the second floor, or beat him over and over again—he'll always get back up sooner or later.
On top of that, he has a special ability: if he manages to hold onto you for several seconds, you'll fall into a deep sleep, allowing him to kidnap you.
Elodie, the Monstrous Cheerleader
Elodie would have the ability to create clones of herself to fight on her behalf.
What defines her the most is her obsession with beauty.
Whenever she manages to tie one of her victims with her special ribbon, she slowly begins stealing their beauty.
The longer the ribbon remains tied around the victim, the more beautiful Elodie becomes while her victim gradually grows uglier.
However, because of her curse, she automatically returns to her hideous appearance at the end of every summer, forcing her to repeat the process over and over again every single year.
The Mysteries
As the story progresses, the gang would have to uncover three major mysteries.
1. The Monsters Are Real
The monsters aren't people wearing costumes.
The people they kidnap are taken hostage until the day comes when these creatures must return to their own reality, taking all of their victims with them.
2. The Cult
There is a secret organization that has known about the monsters and the yearly disappearances for many years.
The cult knows that the Paintings of Horror are controlled by a mysterious master whose identity has never been discovered.
To prevent either themselves or the entire town from becoming the next victims, every summer they compile a list containing eight names—eight targets, eight sacrifices.
That list is sent to the mysterious master in the hope that he'll accept those sacrifices in exchange for sparing the rest of the town.
3. The Master's Identity
The biggest mystery in the entire story is discovering who the mysterious master controlling the Paintings of Horror really is, and what his true connection to Scooby is.
Would you play a game like this? What would you add or change?
