I had a weird dream last night, vaguely based on Half-life. It had one memorable scene in it, which i have thought about and turned it into a good scene idea. Anyone who is interested, read on: You play a level designed to leave you badly wounded in need of medical help. You walk around and find a hospital. "Good for me," the player thinks. They walk in and see a horrible scene: [warning - the following is gory] a patient is suspended from their feet upside down. Their head is inside a vise-grip type thing. The doctor says, "All ready." The assistant presses a button and the vise squeezes together. The patients head is wrenched off. In the backround you see a pile of bodies. I would like an opinion on whether or not it is a good idea and if i should make a game using it.

It''s a good idea as a scene (shudder) but whether it''d be a good idea as a game is impossible to tell unless you tell us something about what the game is like. (a idea for a single scene != an idea for a whole game)

John B

Yup. That''s disturbing.
This sounds sorta like stuff for the writing forum though.
So, if we were to build from this, what needs to happen before this scene?
What would the options for resolution be?
Is this scene relevant to the rest of the events, or is it just for atmosphere?

Any of those help?

Ok - here''s what I (kind-of) think the game will be:

It will be a hi-tech horror fps set in the future.

The scene will reflect the many insane or deranged people in the game. The insanity was brought on by some technological advancement(haven''t decided what yet) and has created a new race of people. They all act and behave differently, not always evily.

Subject to change.

Ive thought about making a horror game like none that are out now. One that is extremely gory I mean piles of dead bodies, peoples intestines strung all over the place, dead bodies on walls, people just butchuring bodies. A game like the older horror moves, where you dont always have a gun, you use a steel pipe, a gun with not much ammo, stuff like that.

Ive thought a little about the story something like you are trapped inside the mind of a phycotic (not sure how to spell it) killer, kind of like the movie "The Cell" yet different, and you must make your way out. I havent thought about it to much because I havent actually started to develop it, its just an idea.

How about using nano-technology as the culprit. The little buggers were supposed to repairing tissue damage and instead they started mnessing with the brain. The doctor and his assistant have really lost it and the only cure according to them is ripping the head off. Of course since they have truly gone insane they are ripping the heads off anyone and everyone. (Note: They should not be the main characters. I''m simply elaborating for this one scene in the game. This should be somewhere in the middle of the game when the player/s are already cringing in their seats)

On other thing, this may be just me but the scene seems more suited for a survival/horror game like Resident Evil Series or Silent Hill Series.

Yeah - definitely survival horror, just need develop a great plot to fit this scene - if the game has many scenes like this, the player will really be freaked out and disturbed.

Yeah, sounds like a good mood-setting scene for a horror game of some kind. I assume the subject would still be alive at the time - increases the impact considerably. Or perhaps have the player at first think the subject is a corpse, and then have some kind of dramatic zoom to show an eye blink or a twitch of some kind. If you don''t have camera control (FPS in-game scene or some such), maybe have the subject start to moan/scream (depending on the prevailing mood). This kind of thing should have a nice shock effect - bad enough that the hostiles are mutilating corpses, but at the last moment it turns out the unfortunates are alive. Hopefully you''ll catch the player right in the middle of thinking "At least the poor b*****d''s dead....".

On the practical side, it might be a little tricky to do this in a game engine - collision detection could be a little awkward - don''t want the head sticking out through the vice or some such.
Ideally you''d have camera control at this point - a cutscene, 3rd person or something. This way you can maximise the impact with nicely coregraphed camera moves and lighting.

I''d certainly like to see more survival horror/action type games - apparently this is the direction DOOM 3 is taking.