Doom 3's flashlight wasn't implemented very well, just about every area was pitch black, which when you think about it made absolutly no sense, do these people work in the dark or something? Who the hell designed the lighting of that place? It would have been even less annoying if the flashlight wasn't so tiny that i got eye-strain after an hour squinting to see where stuff was. It being dark all the time can be just as bad as it being to bright all the time.

Yes, the health issue is serious. We need to think of alternative solutions to create tense scenarios without blinding gamers. WoW had a very nice blue tone that dosent strain the players eye, but conveys that it is night time. Another solution is too use less contrast. It seems like some areas are pitch black while others are very bright. Turning up the monitors brightness wont work. Instead, I guess the best solution is to make light fill the room more.

It appears Alan Wake will have this feature

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/alanwake/preview_6125494.html

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According to the developers, darkness and light will be key aspects of gameplay. As Wake descends into madness--or into a world gone mad--the nights will seem to grow longer as the days grow shorter. And the nighttime is what will bring Wake's enemies upon him. We did get to see Wake running around with a flashlight and a gun, though we were led to believe that the light may end up doing most of the damage. Light will weaken or hurt Wake's enemies, and creatively taking advantage of any and all light sources within Alan Wake's grim world ought to be one of the interesting aspects of play.

sometime ago I thought up a survival horror type game were players only weapon inside a haunted house was a flashlight...some ghosts would "materialise" if light hits them, allowing them to harm the player...other ghosts only harm the player when no light strikes them...so players will have to listen carefully to the sound cues telling them how to deal with a particular ghost...you hear one come in the room, and it sounds like a "night stalker" shine the light on it and it takes off screaming...but as it does so another ghost enters the room...this one lashes out if the flash light strikes it, so players will have to turn the light off until it passes :P

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Original post by MSW sometime ago I thought up a survival horror type game were players only weapon inside a haunted house was a flashlight.

Anyone else remember Haunted House on the Atari 2600?

I had a fairly vivid dream not so long ago which was based on a similar premise. In the dream, I had a limited light source. (battery powered flashlight)

Ghosts made up the majority of the really dangerous enemies, but they could not exist in bright light. Shining it on them would cause them to dematerialize and vanish, becoming harmless - but only so long as it was shining on them. As soon as it went off, they would rematerialize and become dangerous again.

Some rooms would have windows, and would have some basic lighting from moonlight and/or lightning flashes. The latter would give you a fleeting glimpse of the layout of the room, including any monsters that might be lurking right next to you, but would not affect the ghosts in any way (they'd still be dangerous)

Ghosts were not the only enemies though, there were others. Some were relatively minor, mere annoyances, like bats which would do little more than surprise you and make a lot of noise. Others were much more powerful, and unaffected by light, or in fact any weapon. Some would even be drawn to the light, and the only way to get past them would be to try and sneak past in the darkness, and hope they don't hear you...

Hmmm, makes me think. Torches that attract / repel ghosts. Combined with Fatal Frame's photograph the ghosts to damage them.

So what if the more dangerous ghosts are attracted to light, and the camera needs more light (ie. a torch because it doesn't have a flash) to photograph them.

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Original post by Wavinator I don't think I've ever seen a game where enemies react to the presence of your light, like police might if they saw light in a store after dark (assuming you needed to be stealthy). Then the spread of light and direction would matter ("not on the windows!!!") I played a game with a friend once where he thought this was the case, and enjoyed it much more so until I spoiled things by explaining coordinate tracking and pathfinding.

That was one thing I disliked about all the Thief games. One tiny footstep could send the guards running after you, but if they saw your shadow cast in their vision somewhere they didn't flinch (not that I ever noticed anyway). Might be a pain to implement though.

Suppose everything is very dark, when you use the light it attracts the monsters. You can move around in the dark, it is unlikely to that you will meet any monsters, the problem is your heroes mood starts to waver, you begin to see things that are not really there. Maybe some weird effects where you become less to lose control but more powerful. You are turning into a monster yourself) at one point you will gain night vision. If you stay too long in this state you become a full fledged monster, and get a gameover.

Sidenote: make sure Nintendo doesn't read this thread and makes Boktai Revolution out of it!

jk [wink]

I recently played a fairly new game called Obscure. One of the bigger gameplay features was the use of light. I thought it was a pretty good game, good enough for a few run-throughs, turns out that on it's most difficult setting, I could still beat the entire game in about 2 hours. Great storyline and execution though, and top-notch voice acting, I would recommend the game just for kicks.

Anyway, apparently the monsters in the game are actually based on a very rare strain of plant life, that instead of using light for photosynthesis, was nocturnal and would be damaged by the light. Thus, one of the first weapons you found was a flashlight, which you could use some sticky tape to attach it to any of the weapons.

With the flashlight equipped, or attached to another weapon, you could then target the enemies, and the light would cause them to recoil or stun them. The lights also had an "overbright" mode that would do damage to them (but it over-heated fast requiring a long cool-down period).

Some of the light-based features I liked about the game:
In the first part of the game, it is still day time, so when you enter a classroom with a bunch of monsters, rather than engaging them at all, it was sometimes a better strategy to run to the windows and smash them, letting sunlight spill in and kill everything. Likewise, if you couldn't get all the windows smashed enough to flood the room, you could at least stay in the one little pool of light, knowing that most creatures wouldn't dare come close enough to attack. At which point you could pick them off with a gun.

In another scenario, after night has fallen, you enter a mess hall area and all of the lights are out. You are then required to fight your way through, find some fuses, and play a little mini-game/puzzle involving repairing the circuit breaker with new fuses, at which point the lights came back on and vanquished all of the creatures in the building.

Things I didn't like:
They kind of neglected other types of light-based weaponry. Sure there is a hand-held scientific laser, but it's use was very limited, and you couldn't "reload" it, once it was gone it was gone. Also there is a big pistol you get (only in the "special" mode) that is equipped, in the same fashion as attaching flashlights, with a laser sight, that worked basically like the other laser, except cooled-off like a flashlight (never-ending ammo for laser). This was cool, but it was horribly unbalanced.

Another: There is no distinction as to what types of lights damage monsters... I.E. the sun hurts them badly, so maybe it's UV light, right? But, no, the flashlight wouldn't emit UV light, so it's just normal visible light, right? Well this doesnt even hold up... Some places in the game, have overhead flood lights/etc, that didn't even faze the creatures, when your flashlight would! (and the lights im talking about were several magnitudes brighter).

Sorry for such a long post.. I think the main point to this is that, light-based gameplay would be cool, and could make for some fun and interesting gameplay, but if you are going to do it, you must think it all the way through.