Discussing the horror elements of the game, Salvato explained that he was inspired by "things that are scary because they make you uncomfortable, not because they shove scary-looking things in your face."[1] To achieve this, Salvato developed the façade of a cute setting, which would break down over time along with the behavior of the characters, and eventually the role of one evil character who had seized control of the game from the player would be revealed. In creating the game's horror elements, Salvato drew inspiration from Yume Nikki and Eversion, and emphasized to his team that he wanted the market for visual novels to become much more daring and less reliant on the same plot concepts.[17] The game's characters were based around standard anime archetypes and were given Japanese names to emphasize a pseudo-Japanese atmosphere characteristic of Western-produced visual novels.