An idea for a horror game

[thedragon232]

In most action horror games the player start of with basic weaponry and eventually overpower many enemies in the game. Has there every been a game where the player starts off fully capable but losers power through the course of the game?
I have had an idea for a game where the the player begins with several tool, weapons, ect that are eventual lost or replaced with inferior item. An example being the player starts with a powerful assault rifle with a flashlight rail attachment that is replaced with a handgun and flashlight where the player must decide to hold the handgun with both hands or have one in each for an accuracy penalty.

 

[Rose and Thorn]

I like your flashlight idea. Starting the game strong and well equipped and instead of the monsters or whatever getting more difficult, the player gets weaker and ill equipped.

I liked the whole torch mechanic in Doom 3. I know some didn't, but the idea that you could either use your torch to see in darkness or a weapon to shoot demons made it more scary for me. I get why some might just find it annoying. They could have gone with the whole battery idea with a button to switch the light on and off so you don't run out and make finding the batteries rare.

I also really liked the saving idea in Resident Evil with the ink ribbons. Might not have been an actual scary mechanic, but it added a bit of tension, if only they made the ink ribbons just a little more rare to come by.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

That's actually a good idea... I feel like I must have played some sort of game that does that but the only thing that comes to my (Sleep deprived) mind right now that is kind of similar is 'Tower of Heaven'.

 

[Dandark]

That sounds like a pretty good idea. I wouldn't want it to be too long as it may start to get annoying but I could easily see that working out.

I would still go with finding newer stronger enemies but with a smaller power spike than other games since you are getting weaker. You could start with several flashlights and weapons as well as some tough leather or something for armour, as the game progresses you would lose flashlights and guns and your clothes would get more shredded leaving you with lesser protection.

Perhaps you could also add some more mechanics later on to help out. For example you no longer have a flashlight but you can start messing around with fire to make torches which are less effective.


Another idea just came to me, it could be a game with random occurrences(Like FTL for example) and you lose your stuff depending on how much you use them, if you overuse your flashlight then it runs out of batteries and you never find anymore. You would then have to downgrade your weapons as it went on, going from guns to sharpened stakes and flashlights to flaming torchs.

 

[Bad Jim]

The flaw with this idea is that the monsters must become less powerful or they will be too difficult to fight. I think that might detract from the experience. Especially if the player hordes the ammo for his good weapons and spends the latter part of the game picking off weak enemies with a minigun.

 

[Maximum Bert]

I would like something that expanded on what Eternal Darkness had where you lose your sanity and shit starts to happen. Maybe you are put into a world like ours but things arent quite right and you have to figure out who or what to trust and what not to as well as figure out why you are there and what you are even supposed to do. Combat would be near non existant as if something caught you that would be it.

I dont like Kinnect but I believe it could help for a horror game maybe providing jump scares when your heart is not pumping enough or have little snippets where say a character looks into a mirror and instead its the image of you playing the game and then behind you (the real you) something pops up and you have to look away or you die.

I would like a horror game that got into your head and broke the 4th wall more and made you think that you yourself were in danger rather than just your character obviously physically it would be impossible (and who wants to be put in real danger anyway?) but psychologically if it could be pulled off I think it would be great. Sorta like what the Ring did back when it was on VHS but I think games could do even better thanks to their interactive medium.

 

[SlaveNumber23]

The flaw with this idea is that the monsters must become less powerful or they will be too difficult to fight.

This problem could be solved by giving the player the option to deal with enemies by hiding or avoiding them.

I really like this idea, you might be able to achieve it by making ammunition extremely scarce so it is impossible for the player to kill all of the enemies in the game even if they find every piece of ammunition. That way the player will have to deal with many of the enemies by hiding from them and save bullets for emergencies. Or maybe make the players weapon degrade beyond use or repair after a certain amount of uses and have no replacements available.

Also on a slightly unrelated note, what about enemies who are invisible in the light but glow in the dark? So to see enemies the player will have to turn light switches or their torch off but then they won't be able to see where they are going very well, could be very scary.

 

[unindexedsearchengine]

The flaw with this idea is that the monsters must become less powerful or they will be too difficult to fight.

Wouldn't that be the basis of the difficulty curve? Fighting equally strong enemies with worse and worse weapons as the game progresses? Take the OP's idea, you start out with an assault rifle, so you mow down enemies like nobody's business, then you get the handgun where you need to reload more often, not so much damage etc. so you actually need to think and plan what you're doing, and when you're down to melee weapons then more thinking and strategy is required, and possibly stealth comes into play?

Countering weakening weapons with weakening enemies makes the whole proposed situation pointless,no?

 

[Forobryt]

one thing id always though would be good for a horror would be you start with a 6 shooter pistol, and you are in a place where there is no reason for ammo to be lying around.

You have 6 shots for the whole game so you must always weigh up if its worth the shot to remove an enemy or to just hide.

Get annoyed when you are in a horror that gives you a gun and then has ammunition in places where it shouldnt be.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Bad idea for the reasons outlined above, though it might work if you used more skill-based weapons than just guns, eventually stuck with the ones that have to hit the head or someone other body part to be effective.

Survivor horror used to emulate pretty much that idea without arbitrarily taking your weapons away without warning- ammo for the powerful weapons would be either non-existent or extremely rare and often guarded by dangerous beasts you might have to use up more ammo than you gain to defeat if you miss a lot. Problem was, it was too easy for overeager players to make things almost impossible to finish by using up all their good weapons early, saving none for the final challenges.

Maybe if you had only a handful of weapons and no ammo to be found anywhere, and the game warned you about that. Only three or four weapons, one of which only has like 4 shots but instant-kills anything that isn't the final boss, while the others have more ammo but take longer and require drawn-out battles, letting you skip 4 battles you're not skilled at. And a flashlight, which you will either never or almost never be able to find a new battery for, forcing you to conserve. The game would have to be short, or people would get frustrated when they realize they've used up all their good stuff and can't proceed any further- maybe allow various 'exits' as early as a quarter of the way through that will give you endings that aren't as good as the real one, like in Clock Tower. Instead of stopping the demon invasion, your character gives up and gets the hell out of there... but it will come back to bite them in the ending.

 

[MeisterKleister]

I think one major aspect of action horror games is looking forward to getting new, stronger weapons to fight new, stronger enemies.
Making it so that your equipment gets increasingly worse seems to me like making the game less fun over time.
I agree with Sgt. Sykes: there needs to be more; some kind of compensating factor that makes you want to keep playing.

 

[LAGG]

Problem was, it was too easy for overeager players to make things almost impossible to finish by using up all their good weapons early, saving none for the final challenges.

It's the player's fault for playing the game wrong.

The flaw with this idea is that the monsters must become less powerful or they will be too difficult to fight.

It's a horror game, fight or flight, not only fight fight fight. You're not supposed to kill everything in the game if you would it'd be a power fantasy not a survival horror.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

I think what might help the the problems some people are having is to have it so as you slowly lose the ability to fight, you gain more of an ability to be stealthy.

Like... maybe at some point you find a book of dark magic about 1/4 of the way through the game when you still have the ability to take on enemies outright. This book would maybe have a note about what one of the spells is to use it like maybe something that makes it so enemies can't hear you for a certain amount of time. And then over time you will find more and more notes that explain how to cast other spells in the book. Maybe have it so your ability to cast spells takes a while to recharge, so you have to rely on hiding at time too.

This might help maintain the effect of getting weaker as the game goes on, but you're also being given more options for other ways to deal with situations but these options require a lot of thought when using them.

Is there a place nearby where I can hide if I get spotted? If there isn't then I should plan for using one of my spells. If there's an enemy between me and a place where I know I can hide then use my ten second invisibility spell to get by them and hide while my magic recharges.

If there's a place that's too big and too full of enemies for me to get through with the invisibility spell then use the spell that lets you blend with shadows and make your way through it before the spell runs out. But then there could be a scene where something unavoidable happens that makes all those enemies you got past start chasing you and because you're still recharging your magic, you HAVE to run.

Stuff like that.

 

[Bad Jim]

The flaw with this idea is that the monsters must become less powerful or they will be too difficult to fight.

Wouldn't that be the basis of the difficulty curve?

A difficulty curve needs to match player skill though. These days, most gamers will have been playing for quite some time and won't get much better over the course of one game.

Many older games had genuine difficulty curves because they had a lot of new concepts. Most difficulty curves these days are not actually difficulty curves but power progressions, with bigger weapons that make the bigger monsters about as easy to kill as the early monsters. They might be easy at the start and hard at the end, but real difficulty is usually flat for the 80% in between.

Of course, if you can throw in some unusual mechanics, such as portal guns, that players will not have much previous experience of, then you can justify a real difficulty curve.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

It's the player's fault for playing the game wrong.

Yes, but do you really want to tell them that they were in the wrong when they're frustrated and stuck because of it, can't progress, and can't backtrack to pick up more ammo? Enjoy the backlash. Having to delete your save file and starting over from the beginning because of a long-term mistake is something most players will no longer tolerate- even back in the days of the PS1 doing it was considered a major flaw. Another reason not to arbitrarily yank the more powerful weapons away as the game progresses. Let them run out naturally, rewarding those who conserve and use weaker weapons on the early fights.

It also occurred to me that you could have magical weapons instead of modern ones that become progressively weaker the more you use them, thus avoiding the complaint in any modern setting as to why you can't loot the bodies of the fallen to replenish.

 

[Cabisco]

It's certainly a fun and interesting idea and while there are potential draw backs I think they would be manageable and indeed make the game much more tactical.

I imagine it in a more modern setting where you start off as a highly equiped swat team (l4d 4 player style) and as you continue you're forced to use whatever tools are around you as ammo, tools etc become scarce. It would mean you'd have lovely dynamics where you have to consider when to sneak/run away, whether you share supplies or horde, the anger and resentment as someone takes up your medical supplies but knowing keeping them alive keeps you alive. Add into that the horror mechanics and you've got a great recipe to screw with peoples heads.

All very interesting.

 

[LAGG]

It's the player's fault for playing the game wrong.

Yes, but do you really want to tell them that they were in the wrong when they're frustrated and stuck because of it, can't progress, and can't backtrack to pick up more ammo? Enjoy the backlash. Having to delete your save file and starting over from the beginning because of a long-term mistake is something most players will no longer tolerate- even back in the days of the PS1 doing it was considered a major flaw. Another reason not to arbitrarily yank the more powerful weapons away as the game progresses. Let them run out naturally, rewarding those who conserve and use weaker weapons on the early fights.

It also occurred to me that you could have magical weapons instead of modern ones that become progressively weaker the more you use them, thus avoiding the complaint in any modern setting as to why you can't loot the bodies of the fallen to replenish.

Letting resources run away is exactly what I meant. Having stuff unexplainably become weaker makes no sense, and so doesn't "loot" fallen enemies that didn't even carry stuff in the first place.