# False Ritual

**False Ritual** is a first-person psychological horror game built with Godot 4. In the playable Carter House prologue, you explore a quiet family home, piece together what happened there, and survive the thing that wakes when the evidence begins to make sense.

This is an in-development demo focused on exploration, environmental storytelling, interactive rooms, and a short pursuit-and-ritual sequence. The Carter House and playable prologue were created with GPT-6 Astra in Codex.

## Screenshots

![Carter House at dusk](art/reference/qa/carter/dusk_exterior_front.png)

### Inside Carter House

| Dining room | Living room |
|---|---|
| ![The Carter family dining room](art/reference/qa/carter/dusk_dining.png) | ![The Carter family living room](art/reference/qa/carter/dusk_living.png) |

| Kitchen | Study |
|---|---|
| ![The Carter kitchen](art/reference/qa/carter/dusk_kitchen.png) | ![The Carter House study](art/reference/qa/carter/dusk_study.png) |

| Emma's bedroom | Daniel's workroom |
|---|---|
| ![Emma's bedroom](art/reference/qa/carter/dusk_emma.png) | ![Daniel's workroom](art/reference/qa/carter/dusk_daniel.png) |

## Play the demo

Download the latest macOS or Windows ZIP from [Releases](https://github.com/lucas-wyd/False-Ritual/releases/latest), extract it completely, and launch **False Ritual**.

- **Windows:** run `False Ritual.exe` and keep `False Ritual.pck` beside it.
- **macOS:** open `False Ritual.app`. The build is ad-hoc signed rather than notarized, so macOS may ask you to approve it in Privacy & Security.

### Controls

| Input | Action |
|---|---|
| Mouse / WASD | Look / move |
| Shift | Sprint |
| Ctrl | Toggle crouch |
| E | Interact / read / close |
| F | Flashlight |
| Hold Q | Focus |
| Escape | Pause |
| R | Restart |
| F11 | Toggle fullscreen |

## Development

The project uses Godot 4.3 with the Forward+ renderer. Open `project.godot` and run the main scene to play from source. Development notes, validation results, asset credits, and source licensing are in [`docs/`](docs/).

The macOS build has been tested on Apple silicon. The Windows build is exported for x86-64 but has not yet been playtested on Windows.