What do you think? Maybe we can develop this further;

A fighter jet flying over the sea has taken damage. The pilot opens his parachute and lands on an island, but the plane crashes right into the middle of a primitive native tribe. This tribe, though living in modern times, seems as if they have been transported from thousands of years ago. They use primitive weapons and perform voodoo magic.

One of the native warriors sees the plane crash into the village and also spots the parachuting pilot. He swears revenge, and the game begins.

The map is 8x8 km, maybe larger, with you and AI. That’s it!

This is generally where people around me react immediately. However, I like to think about this:

What truly triggers fear and tension is the sense of uncertainty—feeling like you’re in a vast, isolated area. At the same time, someone has sworn to kill you, and you must watch your back.

Native Warrior Features:

1. The footprints you leave will be visible to the native warrior for 10 minutes because he is a skilled tracker.
2. If he finds a place where you have set up camp and left various items, he will perform a voodoo spell. These spells will make you sick but will not kill you directly. For example, you might experience unbearable leg pain or muscle cramps.
3. There are wild animals around you, and sometimes you may need to avoid them as well. If you die, the game ends. If you are affected by a voodoo spell, you might even become prey to an animal. It doesn’t matter who kills you; the entire island is against you.
4. A helicopter will arrive every half hour, but you won’t know from which direction it will come or where it will fly in circles. If you get close to the helicopter and send an SOS signal, it will see you and approach, but this will take some time, and the primitive warrior will also see this. Sometimes, even if you see the helicopter, you might not want to go.
5. You can build a house, but you might get trapped inside it if the primitive warrior finds your house. He might be lying in wait nearby, and when the helicopter arrives, leaving the house will be a significant risk. Being human, he can’t wait for you forever and might have set up camp around the area, possibly sleeping, eating, or doing something else.
6. You have no chance in melee combat.
7. The primitive warrior can use voodoo magic to see through a bird’s eyes, but doing so will make him immobile and weak for a while.
8. Even if you see him from a ridge, you might think he hasn’t seen you. However, if he has seen you, he will appear to go in another direction but is actually heading towards you. His goal is always to catch you off guard.

Many other mechanics like these can be added. My aim is to deepen this 1v1 encounter as much as possible and make the player feel the tension and the cold breath of death on their neck.

We could also consider this for a 1v1 player mode. Do you have any suggestions?

If it’s a 1vs1 PvP game, the game ends when one player dies or the survivor escapes. However, during this time, if the survivor hides well, they can exit the game. When they log out, their character will be asleep in the game, meaning the primitive warrior can still find them.

This could lead to a prolonged confrontation, where players might choose to be online at unexpected times, either during the day or night.

By the way, I haven’t written the abilities for the survivor player yet, but I’m really curious about the appeal of this idea. There’s a lot more I could write. I could also add a small note: this could actually be a duel. If so, there needs to be a referee to ensure fairness.

First, we could meet with the village shaman (or they could be forced to meet us), and they could give us certain items to choose from, which could be our available spells. However, to use these spells, we must meet certain requirements.

For example, let me describe one of the spells: “Shaman’s Vision.”

Since the game is highly challenging and there are some unpredictable traps, we could make a Dark Souls reference here. If you use Shaman’s Vision, you would actually be looking at a parallel version of yourself (which would be the other player), and you could read notes carved into trees by that player.

However, if you exit Shaman’s Vision, you would see that those notes don’t exist on the trees in your world.

This means that if you carve something on a tree in your world with a magical bone, reflections of your notes in other worlds could also see them.

This is another spell, meaning you would need to find magical bones to write with, perhaps by killing a certain animal, etc.

We could also learn these spells from a wizard in an abandoned cave on the island. But the point is, we have no chance to fix things. This is at best a duel, and to somewhat level the playing field, we might have been taught various spells. But we are not welcome there, that’s a fact.

One of the native warriors sees the plane crash into the village and also spots the parachuting pilot. He swears revenge, and the game begins.

An initial confrontation between Revenge Man and the player character seems necessary, otherwise the player would have no in-game justification for being stealthy (and no reason to seek help from the village shaman and other natives).

Even after the player doesn't start with the wrong foot (look! A hunter! He's going to help me!) why would Revenge Man eschew the help of other natives, who are presumably equally damaged by the plane crash and/or his friends? And why would other natives be helpful?

Another plausibility problem: communication. A jet pilot is unlikely to share the same tongue as an isolated island tribe, seriously limiting interactions with natives (including the necessary initial explanation).

Furthermore, why would an high-tech jet pilot use magic with any degree of competence and seek out magical power?

• A helicopter will arrive every half hour
• You can build a house,

These two activities have incompatible time scales: quite fast (just beyond the limits of FPS-type action) and very slow (requiring some kind of time skip or fast forward).

I suggest nixing shelters (stopping in a place, either to work or to sleep, seems to mean certain death, unless good protective magic is available) and on the other hand making the player “earn” a rescue helicopter endgame, for example by writing a call for aid with driftwood and stones on the beach or by finding and activating a radio.

Accumulating magic should be a further reason to aim for a longer game with more complex plans than scrambling for the helicopter.