I want to write a design document of a Survival Horror, mostly for the experience and because I have a tendency to think in 2D - the game I will mention below is one of my first thoughts in 3D. Please note I have no intention of making this game - it's merely a concept. The Game This game would be a third-person survival horror game in the vein of the Resident Evil series. The player plays as a journalist reporting on a supposed market heist by the owner of the mansion where the game takes place (so far, so cliche). They unwillingly take up the owner's offer to stay the night, and this is where the adventure begins. The player will have to beat many challenges to survive and escape. Unlike many other survival horror games, the character is not brave - in fact, a more cowardly person would be hard to find. This is represented by the Fear Gauge, which sits below the more traditional health gauge. The higher this gauge is, the more damaged the player is by attacks from enemies - but it goes far deeper than that. Noises will start to emerge; shrieks, creaks, and howls; the screen will blur, and, at the highest levels of fear, hallucinations will start to appear. The character will also be more susceptible to possessions, creatures with acute senses will find him more easily through the scent of his sweat or the sound of his heart. The fear bar will increase in appropriate circumstances, such as sinister sounds from unknown sources, blood, or horrifying sights. The player will also need to gather photographic and video evidence of these occurences with their camera if the exposure is to be complete. Certain pieces of evidence must be obtained for the game to progress, while others are optional for the better of the multiple endings. Some puzzles will focus on recording enemies or delicate conversations. (Whew, that went on a lot longer than I meant it to) My Questions 1) Do you think this would appeal to a game-playing audience and why? 2) Would you play this yourself and why? 3) One of the concepts I have considered is a fluid damage system, in which certain weapons would deal more damage against some foes than others. (For example, the handgun, one of the starting weapons, works well against wolves, but poorly against one of the bosses [a vampire - please ignore the seeming cliches]. Conversely, holy water will deal heavy damage to this boss, but is unlikely to do any more than annoy the wolves.) Do you think this would be an interesting gameplay mechanic or not and why? 4) Overall, is this a good idea? [Edited by - Delphinus on April 5, 2008 10:15:00 AM]

1) Perhaps - I'm not an expert, though, so I have no idea.
2) I generally don't like horror at all, so no. However, I like your idea and think it would be a unique one.
3) Fluid damage depends on the ease of switching between weapons, and how often that needs to be done. If you are fighting wolves and vampires alternately, that will get annoying. And if you need to keep dropping and picking up weapons, that will be really annoying.
4) Yes. I think you could even go further with it and do purely a fear-based system, like CoD has a damage system. When your character gets too scared, he just collapses and dies. However, if you rest, he calms down.

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Original post by Delphinus 1) Do you think this would appeal to a game-playing audience and why?

Horror-survival games appeal mostly to teenage boys with a need to reaffirm their manliness... I think that's how most of them are marketed anyway -- i.e. "are you ballsy enough to play this?"

The games that exploited this successfully were mostly games that brought in a new dimension to what players and reviewers like to call "immersion" -- Alone in the Dark pretty much started it all, then you have Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and Doom 3. There were many scary games released in the same time frame, but these are really the games that have fear as their core gameplay element and were actually successful.

If you look at games that were less popular, like D, it's not that they were bad games, just that you really have to go out there and get that target demographic interested.

So to answer the question, yes, but it might not be successful unless it is something exceptionally new -or- exceptionally well marketed, and that implies having a large advertising budget and a taste for risk.

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2) Would you play this yourself and why?

Probably not. I don't like scary games or horror movies. I might not be a good person to ask this because I have very particular tastes in games... But the resident evil series (and its imitators) bored me... Doom 3 was too scary, too stressful, became more logical to quit than to try and finish the game... Couldn't play oblivion without the night vision spell in caves...

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3) One of the concepts I have considered is a fluid damage system, in which certain weapons would deal more damage against some foes than others. (For example, the handgun, one of the starting weapons, works well against wolves, but poorly against one of the bosses [a vampire - please ignore the seeming cliches]. Conversely, holy water will deal heavy damage to this boss, but is unlikely to do any more than annoy the wolves.) Do you think this would be an interesting gameplay mechanic or not and why?

Perhaps you'll want to exploit this to put the player in situations where he has no weapon that is effective against the enemies he's facing, forcing him to retreat and find alternate means of defeating his foes.. Other than that, it seems like a pretty standard feature in most games that involve supernatural monsters.

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4) Overall, is this a good idea?

I don't know about this fear gauge... If it's independent from the player's actual fear reactions, it might become an annoyance. If I had to implement this, I'd make sure to create a "stethoscope" accessory that monitors the player's heartbeat or something (and games with gimmicky accessories are great because nobody pirates them and they get way more media coverage).

Other than that, I don't think there's enough information to tell if it's a good idea... It could end up depending mostly on whether you can get the budget to make it successful...

Sounds good!

Some ideas:

Remove the hud! No Fear Gauge/health gauge! Show them through visual and audio effects: blood, animations, heart beating, ...

How much combat do you really want?

After you killed your 10th vampire/zombie/..., they aren't scary any more.

Didn't "Eternal Darkness" has some concept of a sanity/fear meter, and it affecting the character's perception? I think it did things like hallucinations and stuff too. See the page on Wikipedia for more information - although it mentions on there that the concept of a sanity meter was patented by Nintendo which, if true, saddens me greatly.

Anyway, ignoring that and going on to answer the questions. It's hard to determine whether this would make a good game or not, whether I'd buy it or whether it would appeal to people. There's just not enough information to make that decision, but there's no reason why it couldn't be made into something that people would want to play. As for the fluid damage system, that sort of thing has worked in games previously and there's no reason why it couldn't work here.

Thanks for the responses!

@Orchaldir

That's an excellent idea. I don't like HUDs in games, either. Also, combat was planned to be kept to a minimum - the game focuses more on the collection of evidence (much like Beyond Good and Evil) - as the character is a coward, he's unlikely to wish to engage actively in combat. The player could conceivably choose to battle a lot, but the character takes damage quickly and becomes scared (with the associated negative effects) quicker, so it would only be good for short bursts of combat - going in 'all guns blazing' is going to harm the player more than help them. As for the health gauge, the main problem I have with games that attempt gaugeless combat is that it's hard to determine accurately how much damage is being dealt to them. Immersion isn't really worth the frustration to the player. Incorporating what (@) kiwibonga said, the fear gauge could be replaced with sound effects like heartbeat or breathing rate. The only problem I have with this is if the player decides to play the game on mute or at a low volume - it could easily become frustrating.

Coincidentally, the vampire is only one boss. Holy water has other uses too, though...

@kiwibonga

I had no idea that fluid damage was so commmon in horror games, thanks for clarifying that for me. (Most of the other issues you brought up were addressed above)

@WaterMonkey

I was planning on having a certain number of each size of items carryable at once, where space for larger weapons can be utilised for smaller ones, but not the other way around (the main character is somewhat of a nerd, and has the default anorak and backback combination to go with it.) Pure fear? Definately worth consideration.

I'd follow the advice of others that have advocated the removal of a fear 'gauge', since it's quite immersion breaking.

additionally, I'd take a look at "Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth", since it implemented a very similar system.

I quite like the idea of hallucanations etc, but how would the fear meter go up or down? Also, I think there should be some benifit for not being scared, like doing extra damage or something. I am not a big fan of fluid damage stuff I must admit, unless it is done really well.

@thk123

I'm sure I mentioned the dynamics of the fear meter... Oh well, here I go.

The fear gauge (Heartbeat? Breathing rate? I'm still considering other possibilities - what, for example, would others think of the option to switch between a HUD display of it and a fully sound-based system?) would increase in situations the main character found scary, such as a creature chasing them, loud noises, or noises that were unclear as to their origin and disturbing. Other possibilities include noticing unusual or supernatural elements to rooms.

The fear meter could be decreased with certain items (or kept to a lower maximum level for a brief time), but it could also decrease through simply staying out of trouble - even though the character is a coward, he can still attack at least the weaker supernatural creatures without fear if he remains unnoticed. One of the weapons that can be kept infinitely once obtained is the rapier (it is stored at the hip, unlike most weapons), and this weapon can be exploited with backstabbing attacks.

In regards to positive effects gained from being fearless, the main benefit is the absolute lack of distorting effects. However, the more fearful the player becomes, the more damage they recieve and the less they deal. Being without fear could therefore be considered to cause higher offensive and defensive skills.

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Ah, and finally, to paraphrase countless movie directors through the ages - this game is Resident Evil meets Beyond Good and Evil meets Eternal Darkness.

Or at least, it is on the surface.

I like the idea of the Fear Gauge. If it was possible a cool thing the game could include would be a device that you put onto your body that actually measures your heart rate. The more it increases the more damage you take, like in the game.

Just and idea.