Janet DeMornay Is A Slumlord (and a witch)

About This Game

It’s true. Janet DeMornay is a slumlord, and unfortunately, she’s also a witch. But this news comes too late to some of her tenants, a gaggle of queers who have just signed a new lease – the black mould is now blinking with eyes, the old pipes are groaning even louder, and the kitchen cupboards suddenly open to dark hallways.

Using a third-person, set camera perspective inspired by the survival-horror classics, but with an escape-room focus, JDM is a story-based, horror-comedy set in an inner-Sydney terrace house. You follow the members of a queer share-house as they try to not only escape the house, but escape Janet’s increasingly physical hauntings.

Here’s a moodboard —
Tone – 80s classics Beetlejuice and Poltergeist via The Real Housewives of Sydney.
Look – stop-motion horror of Henry Selick (Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline) and a little bit of Junji Ito if he got into paper mache. Content warning – body horror.
Queer – There’s gay on gay relationship content. With no homophobia or coming out stories.
JSYK, we don’t write sad endings for our queers. Let 👏 our 👏 queers 👏 be 👏 happy 👏, being haunted and cursed and doomed is fine.

JDM is about being a renter. It’s about landlord overreach. It’s about a legal system built by landlords for landlords. It’s about being a queer and having a found family. It’s also about a witch. And that witch is very interested in what you’re doing. What you’re doing right now. In fact she wants to see you. Please answer the door, Andrew. I have a right to see what you’re doing in my house Andrew this is just a little tenant pop-in why won’t you answer the door answer the door answer the door answer the

I see you, Andrew.