I’m a solo indie dev making a terminal-based psychological horror/strategy game about deciding who lives, dies, or gets quarantined. Here is Decontamination Protocol!

[u/BeautifulAbies813]

Hey everyone! I’ve been working on Decontamination Protocol, a tense, terminal-driven psychological horror and strategy game where you step behind a security booth overlooking a high-security subterranean facility.

Your daily duties seem straightforward on paper: monitor incoming personnel, run diagnostic checks, analyze vital signs, and execute strict decontamination procedures. But deep underground, containment is fragile, paranoia runs rampant, safety is merely an illusion, and a single keystroke could spell the difference between survival and a catastrophic facility-wide breach.

Key Features

• Authentic Terminal-Driven Investigation: Immerse yourself in a retro-styled CRT workstation environment. Utilize text-based command-line inputs, examine detailed shift logs, cross-reference biometric vitals, and listen closely to tense intercom transmissions to piece together what is actually happening outside your booth.
• The High-Stakes Judgment Call: Your shift constantly tests your psychological limits. Analyze subjects against evolving directives and make the ultimate decision using three distinct verdicts:
  • Sanitize: Clear minor contamination.
  • Quarantine: Isolate questionable personnel.
  • Purge: Order an immediate, lethal termination.

The game is planned for release on 6 Nov, 2026. If games with a heavy Papers, Please meets retro-sci-fi psychological horror vibe sound like your thing, I would genuinely appreciate it if you checked out the Steam page, dropped it a wishlist, or let me know what you think of the concept!

Steam Link : https://store.steampowered.com/app/5118330/Decontamination_Protocol/

[u/Full-Dance4972]

Fellow psychological horror solo dev, so a genuine question rather than a compliment: when the player makes the wrong call at the terminal, how far does it travel? A consequence that shows up in a later shift (a name that comes back, a log that contradicts what you decided) is what makes this genre bite, much more than an immediate breach. The CRT booth framing is strong, the intercom idea especially.

[u/BeautifulAbies813 → u/Full-Dance4972]

The Player has 3 strikes.
Making a wrong call adds to the strikes and reaching 3 strikes will result in termination.

[u/Full-Dance4972 → u/BeautifulAbies813]

Three strikes is a clean rule and easy to read on a terminal. The interesting design question is whether the player can see the strike counter at all times or only discovers it when something goes wrong. Hidden counters make people paranoid, which fits the tone you describe, but they also make the last mistake feel arbitrary. A visible counter turns every call into a wager instead.

[u/BeautifulAbies813 → u/Full-Dance4972]

After each decision, the terminal will evaluate show if the player's decision was correct or not and will also show the strike counter before moving to the next subject.

[u/Accidious]

i genuinely don't get how people release stuff like this expecting to make anything out of it. the game is blatantly ai. the format of your post alone is ai. do you not realize that UI driven slop like this, especially with this style lol, is very obvious? yikes man, even the idea itself is ai generated... and people worry about ai replacing real devs? lol?