Hi! First off let me start by giving a quick introduction of my self. I'm a 19 year old college freshman. I don't know any programming, but i'm trying to learn. Games have been my passion since I was a little kid. I really feel like I can learn a lot from the members of this site and appreciate all types of feedback. Now, with that being said I'd like to talk about my idea for a game.

In essence it's a survival game with heavy story driven gameplay. The game begins with the player watching an opening cut scene. It depicts a husband and wife enjoying a picnic in a park. Suddenly, the husband blacks out. He wakes up to find that his wife has been murdered. I wont really go into the whole story as that would take a reallly long time to go thru , so here's an overview. The husband is actually crazy and killed his wife, but throughout the game he believes it was someone or something else. It would span across a southern setting with different environments such as a small town, a forest, and end in a final show down with the police. It would also have what i believe to be some interesting gameplay mechanics. The first one would be an insanity meter. This replaces the health system, being that he is crazy and the things chasing him are not real they cant actually hurt him. But, prolonged exposure to these imaginary people and creatures will cause him to lose his mind. Next we have a choice orientated progression system. You can choose to go to the police or you can choose to run, you can go into the forest to get to the next town, or you can take a bus. Each will change the story significantly and may even end the game earlier then another choice would allow you to play.

This is my first game idea. Any advice iis appreciated. Hell, if it sounds flat out horrible tell me. Trust me, im not going to be offended . Thanks so much!

Welcome to the Gamedev forums. Hope you stay awhile and learn more from our fellow game designers.

Will your main character figure out why he murdered his wife? The concept was interesting up to the point you told us that the husband was crazy and actually killed his wife for no reason? If I were you, just as a suggestion. Don't tell the players in your game that he is crazy until some where mid point of the story line. Telling the players up front tells the players that your game design isn't worth playing. There is no room for a thinking process to be made and its just a run and gun game for no apparent reason. Even the main character ends up in jail what then. What about going to the next town? Is there a reason why he is crazy?

When I read the part where the husband blacks out and he wakes up and finds his wife dead seemed like he was poisoned by his meal or drink and was framed for his actions. What if you made it were the wife knocks him out because she knew something was going to happen. So the killer as it were wanted to kill the husband with the wife's help but she well okay didn't poison him just used a knock out drug to slow his heart beat and pulse down to save him to have him wake up later to find his wife's killer.

Then you can go in turn with your main character becoming crazed with his wife's suicide to protect him and crazed to figure out who the killer is.

That can be your cat and mouse game with suspense and thriller, add some action adventure being chased by the police chasing the monsters in his mind and then some how switch the fact that the police are the monsters and the monsters are the police. Basically getting rid of everyone. But who can he trust?

Hm. tape recorder being played back for clues. Could this tape be of him, the killer or his wife? Or how about all three. Clues of the town or two towns if you must. Like a small villa that inter connect with each other in the city sewers? Clues in the homes, buildings, where he used to work at, friends home's, so many ideas.

Not sure if this is what you had in mind but its something to think about. Hope this helps you out in some way.

I second not letting the player know that the main character is crazy until midway or later in the game. Particularly as an extremely popular game [spoiler]Silent Hill 2[/spoiler] has already used this twist (along with lots of movies), a reasonably astute player might very early on predict that the husband is the killer, and evaporate most of the tension in your game.

That will make it hard to use a visible sanity meter in place of a health meter though. If you make an adventure game (as opposed to an FPS or RPG or the like) this wouldn't be too tough to get around. I love adventure games, and this does sound like one that would be fun to play through. The player's sanity would also make for some nice variations on game situations and puzzles, and once the main character's insanity is revealed, it would make for an interesting situation that the player would need to get out of. Perhaps instead of losing sanity by being attacked, the main character would lose sanity as he indulges figments of his imagination-- a tempting clue to follow might be a red herring, leading the player down a path which will make it more difficult to ferret out the truth later on (or even bring him into conflict with non-imaginary characters).

Have you played Call of Cthulhu (either the tabletop game or the PC game based on it, Dark Corners of the Earth)? They employ a sanity system, although it's not exactly like what you're describing.

Sorry for the confusion, but no the player is directly told he killed his wife. there would be things hidden around the game world for him to figure it out such as notes, recordings, and dialogue to hint it. As for dialogue i want the character to talk to family members and friends, but they know hes crazy and treat him as such. Pretty much your in a heavy state of denial. When you hear someone talking about the murder you hear what you want to hear. And, if you dont like it then in his mind they must be associated with the killers. He killed her because he felt she was cheating and pretty much invented his own world where she was evil As far as the genre I would say its a first person action game. There would be some shooting elements, but your more concerned with running away then trying to fight off what ever it is. . Another issue would be that if i called it a sanity bar people would automatically know hes crazy, which would defeat the whole purpose. Ghostknight I really like the idea of the wife knocking him out. She could do it in self defense maybe? And, as far as the village i want it too all be connected, not just with sewers and back allys tho. In reality your not going to take all these alternate routes. I mean of course hes crazy, but he still has a small grip on reality.

[color="#1C2837"]The player's sanity would also make for some nice variations on game situations and puzzles, and once the main character's insanity is revealed, it would make for an interesting situation that the player would need to get out of. Perhaps instead of losing sanity by being attacked, the main character would lose sanity as he indulges figments of his imagination-- a tempting clue to follow might be a red herring, leading the player down a path which will make it more difficult to ferret out the truth later on (or even bring him into conflict with non-imaginary characters).[/quote] Khaiy, that actually sounds great. The concept of a red herring would add to the whole "i dont know who did what" atmosphere. Also, i haven't played any of the games you mentioned, but i'm going to pick them up now.

Thanks for all the feedback guys. It really helped


(edit: If you guys know any good books on game design please share!)

Some buildings may or will have secret passage ways long before he moved in or he was an architect that helped through the planning earlier on before he became crazy or was that way during the architect phases of the village or something like that.

To your questions about game design books.

Sorry I wouldn't know much about that. There are more qualified people on the forums who can help you on that topic.

Do you have any village layouts?

Oh and what era will this story take place in? I was thinking in the time of 1940's - 1960's when the insane asylums were big topics back then.

And the village setup would be that of Swedish or French era or maybe even Victorian style.

With Gardens, Parks, River beds and large forests, cobble stone streets and walk ways. But that is what I see or can imagine in your storyline. Maybe a modern piece of game design.


Oh wait you wanted a southern setting. Duh. lol My bad. Hm. How southern US Southern states? Or in a different location?

hmm this sounds like a very interesting story. Makes me want to read the book if there is one.

But yes, this would do nicely for an adventure game. Could be a point and click. I can image a more darkly world when his insanity meter goes off. Would be pretty insane to see.

(edit: If you guys know any good books on game design please share!)

Already shared, at http://www.sloperama.com/advice/lesson8.htm

It would span across a southern setting with different environments such as a small town, a forest, and end in a final show down with the police....
....Next we have a choice orientated progression system. You can choose to go to the police or you can choose to run, you can go into the forest to get to the next town, or you can take a bus. Each will change the story significantly and may even end the game earlier then another choice would allow you to play.

Just noticed you pointed out the end and then said it's choice-orientated.
I think it sounds interesting and graphic quality sounds like it would effect the game quality more than anything else, since you will be playing as an insane character.
Unless you're having everything normal regardless of his sanity and he's just imagining normal(ish) people, in which case I take that back. But if he's being chased by wolfboars and his vision gets redder and redder as his insanity meter goes down, then yeah, it would be great with high graphic quality.