Game concept

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DaveW
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Game concept

Post by DaveW »

So, I've been thinking about a game concept.

The concept has been in my head for a while and it's not that original in and of itself, but I think that the implementation could be interesting. The game would be roughly half an hour long, depending on the player of course, and would take place on a deserted island. The gameplay is inspired by games such as Penumbra, in that you aren't powerful against your enemies and running is (more often than not) the safer option. You have a flashlight and eventually a rifle with limited ammunition.

If you've ever played Dedd Sector for Half Life (and you should), that gives you an idea of the atmosphere I want to create. Except this would have a stronger horror element.


You wake up in the cargo area of a capsizing ship - when you escape, you go through a system of caves which take you up to the mainland of a small island at night.

Here is where the game branches - you don't have a set "path" through the tasks you have to complete in order to esape. The island is mostly vegetation, with the occasional structure such as derelict houses, a lighthouse, and possibly a system of WW2 bunkers. There is a freight depot on the far side of the island with a boat, but previous inhabitants of the island have stripped vital parts from it and hidden them around the island. Or something. Basically, you have to get off the island with it.

All the while you are being stalked by someone. For the first few minutes they are just distant noises, and then they get closer until you begin to see flashes of them in the distance. Most of the game is set in woodland so these are just silhouettes in the distance. As the game goes on they'll get closer until they start to attack you.

Your only choice at this point is to run - unless you've found the flashlight or rifle. These would be located in different areas each time you play. The flashlight will scare away the enemy temporarily, drawing him away from the light. The rifle will eventually 'kill' him. The conundrum is that trying to view him under the flashlight to shoot him will lead to him runing out of the way, making it more difficult.

Eventually the game would come down to the choice of leaving the island or staying. Leaving would risk the person stalking you escaping, and it's hinted that he has crashed many people before in the hopes of escaping the island. If you attempt to leave, there would be key actions you may or may not have done that would dictate whether you are successful. If you stay, you sabotage the boat to stop anyone leaving the island again and commit suicide (I realise this is the go-to for bleak video game endings - sue me).


There are a few elements I'd like to mix in with this. First, there would a lot of incidental detail like diary pages of old island inhabitants and those who were marooned by 'it'. I'm tempted to add in flashbacks à la System Shock 2, Thief, Bioshock. In fact I think a cool one could be in a lighthouse, where you reach the top to find someone who has locked himself inside and is threatening to jump. You have to find something to break the door down but when you enter the room, all you can see is a boarded up window. I worry that could be a bit too forced, though - and I think what could make the game so atmospheric and frightening is everything that's implied. Nothing is forced at you and I think that feeling of unknown could work in the game's favour. Hell, it's what made the start of the Cradle so scary, because I wasn't quite sure if I was going to turn a corner and be attacked by something.

Speaking of the cradle - that is how I see the enemy.



I don't know. It's just an idea, I guess I'm posting it because I think writing it up and hearing peoples comments may help me improve the basic concept before I actually try and make anything. Plus any questions may help me realise major stuff I've missed. If I were to try and make it I'd use the UDK.

Comments welcome (and encouraged!)
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gamer0004
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Re: Game concept

Post by gamer0004 »

Sounds cool - but I would give players the option to destroy the boat without committing suicide, that is: giving them the option to hunt down the stalker safely.
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Re: Game concept

Post by bobby 55 »

This might have possibilities. I don't know how you'd build up atmosphere in half an hour, but I can't write for shit. :)

The feeling of defenceless-ness would certainly add to my unease as it's the stuff of my childhood nightmares. The thing which helped the atmosphere of 'The Cradle' for me was a pervading feeling of "wrongness" about it. A bad place, where bad things happened to the defenceless. I got that by reading the diaries and journals there, so your idea of having that sort of element sounds cool.
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DaveW
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Re: Game concept

Post by DaveW »

gamer:

The suicide bit would probably be in a cinematic - and I guess it's my cinematic side that wants to do it as a cool cut-scene at the end :P I don't see destroying the boat as a way to kill the stalker, just that it's the only means at your disposal to stop it.

In truth I don't know how it would play out - as in, how to present that choice to the player. I don't really want to go down the route of narration but at the same time, the player has got to understand how I've contrived the game situation.


Bobby:

Half an hour is probably a an under-estimation - I mean, the island wouldn't be huge but you'd move slow since running (especially with the rifle) would take up a lot of energy. I guess it would be half an hour of set-up gameplay (i.e. going through buildings and experiencing scripted events) with maybe an hour of exploring the island through the woodland.



I forgot to mention (and I think it's important, because I < 3 firearms) that the rifle would be a British L1A1 found in a crazy man's shack. The suggestion would be that you're off the coast of Britain, but it wouldn't be said explicitly.
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Re: Game concept

Post by gamer0004 »

I forgot to mention that the description of the island sounds very much like Dear Esther. You are probably familiar with that?
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DaveW
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Re: Game concept

Post by DaveW »

gamer0004 wrote:I forgot to mention that the description of the island sounds very much like Dear Esther. You are probably familiar with that?
Yeah I'd say I'm drawing from Dear Esther a bit - not as much as you might expect though. Most of the concept behind the deserted island and the cargo/freight facility is from the Dead Sector mod. I'd love to match the visuals of Dear Esther, though, but I'm no Robert Briscoe. What he made the source engine do with Dear Esther is nothing short of a miracle.
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Re: Game concept

Post by gamer0004 »

I was referring to the visuals indeed, though the atmosphere would be somewhat similar as well, probably.
Your idea has a lot more "game" to it than Dear Esther. Which is a good thing.
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Re: Game concept

Post by nerdenstein »

I'm sorry Dave but I probably wouldn't play this... simply because just reading it fills me with fear. Maybe I'm just a wimp. :lol:
But the idea sounds really interesting. :P
Even if it does sound like the entire Tomb Raider 2012 plot. ;)
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Re: Game concept

Post by DaveW »

I will force you to play it, you wuss. All I've heard about Tomb Raider 2012 is something about Lara Croft being raped?


I actually have a good idea (I think) for stopping people doing what I sometimes do in a horror game - turning the volume off.

When you're about to get attacked you'll get audio cues like bushes rustling, footsteps, that kind of thing. Except sometimes it will be a false alarm, and other times it means you're about to get jumped. So hearing the audio cues will give you a warning that something is about to happen, and prevent you getting killed.

If you turn the sound down, you won't hear it at all, and you'll probably die. If you turn the volume down, you'll still miss most of them. You'll have to turn it up fully to survive - which then means you're fully susceptible to mischievous audio tricks. I think that once every play-through you could hear increasingly loud breathing and when you turn around, he's right behind you.

I'm generally not a fan of shock tactics though.
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Re: Game concept

Post by AEmer »

The tomb raider thing is so far as I know an attempted rape, and while games treat the subject pretty badly, it appears to me that the reaction to it was ridiculous.

Anyway, so what you want to do is to put the player in a situation where he thinks he's alone, and then slowly allow him to realize that he isn't alone.

And you want to make the enemy look like...the slenderman, basically?

There's also a little bit of 'The Thing' going on, in that the player has to consider whether he risks letting the slenderman loose.

Ok, so first of all...a deserted island is not a neutral location. It is specifically home to metaphorical stories or allegorical ones. In other words, whatever you do with such a setting becomes existential.

Here's my one issue: By having the player be at risk of dying, or by having him die to the supernatural other, you show your hand. So long as the player doesn't know of the other in any specific way and isn't able to interact with him, the identity and purpose of the other is unknown, not just to the character, but to the player as well.

If the character can die to the other, then the player recognizes what the other is in game terms - an adversary to be beaten - and he no longer exists in existencial terms...that is, the player knows that the other is bad even though the character has no specific reason to. When this is the case, the player no longer has any reason to have the character do things to ferret out the intentions and demeanor of the other, and the players choice ultimately diminishes because things become more clear.

It's the difference between being stalked by someone with unknown motives and being chased by a killer who wants you dead...both uncomfortable in their own right, both pretty scary, but only one makes you contemplate, only one is confusing, only one makes you speculate.
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Re: Game concept

Post by DaveW »

Yes, the start of the game would be ambigious - I'd hope people wouldn't ruin what happens so that you're not quite sure what to expect. So that when you start seeing glimpses of him, you're not entirely sure what's going on.

I've heard of the slenderman but I'm not sure what it's meant to look like. The staff in The Cradle is what I was thinking, for two reasons: first of all, having a real enemy like a zombie or such grounds it in reality which means you expect him to be bound by the constraints of the real world. Second of all, I hate doing organic work so it means I don't have to do a proper character model.

Haven't seen The Thing either - but I'll give it a watch if that concept is similar.


In regards to the risk of death, I can see your point and agree to an extent. At the start of the game I'd want the stalker's intentions to be unknown, because like you say that's scarier than knowing he's out to attack you (not out to kill you, though). But I think that what ultimately makes that scary is that you're not sure if he's going to attack you..and if he doesn't, then there's no element of danger. There's no threat to the players life which makes them complacent.

Him attacking you wouldn't be what drives the game, though. It would be the occasional attack to keep you on your toes - most of the time, he will just intimidate you and the threat of attack is what would move the game forward. I have lots of ideas on how to creep the player out - like having him appear for brief moments at windows and in the distance and then dissapearing again.
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Re: Game concept

Post by AEmer »

The thing is a gore film that happens to take place on antarctica.

Essentially, the crew at the station discover a lifeform that they deem so dangerous that it could wipe out all of humanity within years if it were allowed to escape...and they are alone with it, and it can look like any one of them at will. It also has a penchant for eating them.

I suggest you try out slender game, or just watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKlPToFEmtk

Anyway, the concept otherwise sounds fine, just remember that the visuals aren't whats going to make or break the game...it's all about whats communicated to the player.

Honestly, I think the player would need to eventually start confronting his adversary. Set a trap in a building, try to figure out what he's up against. I think that would be a very clever way to learn that he's up against something supernatural that, more than anything, wants the player to release it....
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Re: Game concept

Post by DaveW »

That's quite similar to what I'd like to achieve in the forest sections - I'll have to give the game a try over the weekend.

My only problem with it is the game seems to be set up to be a 'scary' game, and everything is made to fit that concept. Above all I'd want this game to be about exploration.
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Re: Game concept

Post by DDL »

There's always the tried and tested SHODAN approach: helpful voice (maybe even introduced via the tutorial as your guide or something) that gives you a bit of direction and that seems to be helping, but that subsequently turns out to be totally using you for its own aims.

Though that is getting a little trite.

Still if you could actually make convincing transitions from
"helpful but mysterious entity" to
"slightly questionable but helpful mysterious entity" to
"I'm really not sure I trust this entity" to
"I'm really not sure I trust this entity, and now the entity KNOWS this" to
"The entity knows I don't trust it AND IS ANGRY" to
"O HOLY SHIT SHIT SHIT IM GONNA DIEEE"

it would be aces.
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Re: Game concept

Post by AEmer »

Right, the basic concept behind what DDL is describing is, something appears to be helping you, but in reality it's using you, and it will throw you under the bus eventually. Now what would be exceedingly clever is if you somehow designed it such that a careful player will be able to use the entity to his own ends.

I don't think I've seen a game able to do this through non-vocal means yet...what's more interesting is, so long as a hostile entity thinks you aren't aware that it's hostile, it'll be willing to help you simply to keep the pretense going that it isn't hostile. Upon realizing that, it would of course go berserk. Weird hostile entities don't like to be played for fools, in general.

Will it be trite? It would be if the help is vocal or spoken or something, like systemshock2, or in bioshock. But if it isn't - if the entity helping you is never seen, you just know that _something_ or _someone_ is helping you - that's really interesting. It lets you realize that something is there - something intelligent.

Now that might not really be what you're going for, but since the core motivation for the exploration you talk about is the entity on the island...the reason why the exploration is interesting...developing it and making it work well becomes paramount. It might only take up a relatively small amount of time in the game, but if it does its job, everything in the game will be affected.

Consider LOST, if you've watched that show, the smoke monster is a very, very scary entity, but throughout the 5 seasons, you very rarely see it. Sometimes, its just there out of nowhere, but most often, it isn't there at all.

The basic idea is, it has a pressence even when it isn't on screen. It's a purely psychological phenomenon, affecting the otherwise beautiful and docile environment. Nearly every single hostile entity introduced on the show serves the same purposes for a long time, and they make what is essentially pretty much every-day drama into something exciting and compelling.

In that fashion, it's similar to zombie movies; the zombies being on screen is usually the least interesting thing that could be going on, but they motivate everything. I mean, they do make for some really fun chase and horror sequences, but in general, they're there as a stress factor to make everything else worthwhile. They make the drama between the survivors much more gripping.
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