I was just reading the most recent issue of Edge (fine magazine, by the by; highly recommend it if you get a chance) and among its contents is an editorial talking about scares in games and the necessity of differences in the kind of fright you generate in movies (where the viewer has no control of the characters or where the camera is "looking") and games (where the opposite is true, and the player will usually have cause to be irked it it isn't.)
One small segment stood out in Mr. James Leach's editorial, which I will quote here in very brief with full attribution and hope I won't draw trouble for it:
What I envision is a game that a session of can be fully played in, say, three to five hours. But it's procedurally generated, to a degree. One time the lurking menace is a clever serial killer, another time its the kid who the prospective victims' parents burned alive one summer, another its a faceless demon come to protect the ruin of a dead cult's worship site. The pieces the player will encounter wandering the location will gradually clue them in to the truth and a possible means of victory over the darkness or at least escape. And there will, as mentioned, be six or so disparate personalities, possibly with different abilities, different perspectives on what clues mean, different strengths and weaknesses. Much like many an American horror film.
That's the basic setup; here's where it gets interesting.
1. Any of these people can die, at any time. I'm a little up-in-the-air as to whether the player can switch between them at will or if they're "forced" into a different body only when their active character dies. And while there's a strong checkpoint save system, there's no "go back to a save ten minutes ago to save Ricky from that trap with the scythes". Dead is dead, and absolute failure is a real possibility. Ultimate failure means never fully understanding just what was going on. You want to save the other characters, because they're effectively your "extra lives". However:
2. Every character that dies makes the other characters slightly stronger. This is also somewhat thematic to American horror films, but I don't think I've seen a game touch on the idea. When the cast is whittled down to one or two in such a movie, the audience can be almost certain that those who remain will, to some degree, prevail. It even makes a certain amount of sense- the more aware the characters are of the lethality of their situation, the more they can prepare for it and the more determined they may become not end up like their friends, to make it out so "someone can tell everyone what happened here, what happened to poor Ricky." This helps offset the frustration of having a character die and decreases the likelihood the player will just give up and throw the dice at a new, different procedurally driven plot.
3. An inspiration from the board game "Betrayal at the House on the Hill": there is a possibility, in some of these procedurally-created plots, that the menace killing off your friends actually is one of those characters. So it could be that if the cast is whittled down to only that character, you discover the sad truth as the screen fades to black with a mocking, sinister laughter- or it could be that, when there are only two characters left, you're suddenly cast as the killer.
So, that's my pitch for a horror game that re-establishes a movie-style sense of dread and vulnerability/mortality. Any thoughts? Has this all been done before in some title I've never heard of?
One small segment stood out in Mr. James Leach's editorial, which I will quote here in very brief with full attribution and hope I won't draw trouble for it:
Leach goes on to express that ideas- and images which provoke ideas- tend to be a more successful means of creating horror in players, an idea I generally agree with. But I got to thinking about ways to create the "here's six disparate personalities in a bad situation, who's going to survive" experience.
What I envision is a game that a session of can be fully played in, say, three to five hours. But it's procedurally generated, to a degree. One time the lurking menace is a clever serial killer, another time its the kid who the prospective victims' parents burned alive one summer, another its a faceless demon come to protect the ruin of a dead cult's worship site. The pieces the player will encounter wandering the location will gradually clue them in to the truth and a possible means of victory over the darkness or at least escape. And there will, as mentioned, be six or so disparate personalities, possibly with different abilities, different perspectives on what clues mean, different strengths and weaknesses. Much like many an American horror film.
That's the basic setup; here's where it gets interesting.
1. Any of these people can die, at any time. I'm a little up-in-the-air as to whether the player can switch between them at will or if they're "forced" into a different body only when their active character dies. And while there's a strong checkpoint save system, there's no "go back to a save ten minutes ago to save Ricky from that trap with the scythes". Dead is dead, and absolute failure is a real possibility. Ultimate failure means never fully understanding just what was going on. You want to save the other characters, because they're effectively your "extra lives". However:
2. Every character that dies makes the other characters slightly stronger. This is also somewhat thematic to American horror films, but I don't think I've seen a game touch on the idea. When the cast is whittled down to one or two in such a movie, the audience can be almost certain that those who remain will, to some degree, prevail. It even makes a certain amount of sense- the more aware the characters are of the lethality of their situation, the more they can prepare for it and the more determined they may become not end up like their friends, to make it out so "someone can tell everyone what happened here, what happened to poor Ricky." This helps offset the frustration of having a character die and decreases the likelihood the player will just give up and throw the dice at a new, different procedurally driven plot.
3. An inspiration from the board game "Betrayal at the House on the Hill": there is a possibility, in some of these procedurally-created plots, that the menace killing off your friends actually is one of those characters. So it could be that if the cast is whittled down to only that character, you discover the sad truth as the screen fades to black with a mocking, sinister laughter- or it could be that, when there are only two characters left, you're suddenly cast as the killer.
So, that's my pitch for a horror game that re-establishes a movie-style sense of dread and vulnerability/mortality. Any thoughts? Has this all been done before in some title I've never heard of?