Survival Horror Game In Creation

[Harry Brockley]

Hello everyone,

My colleague and I have been producing a Survival Horror game from around April this year. The concept is almost complete and modelling is well on its way. The game is based around Frictional Games series called "Penumbra" which I recommend you check out. There are no weapons featured. The game is all puzzle solving and atmosphere with evasion of enemies at times. We are very excited about our project and cant wait to get it flying off the ground. It will be at least a couple of years until release as we are just a meer 2 man team. However we would love your support and a website will be set up soon.

Thanks for your interest

P.S

If you would like to tell us what scares you anything to do with atmosphere, insects, water you name it, whatever just list it and we will see if it ties in with our ideas and hopefully bring your nightmares to life.

Thanks again

 

[NeedAUserName]

Sounds cool, it would be good to hear about what you've got already though, like setting, characters etc.

 

[suhlEap]

this almost sounds like advertising but i suppose it's not. i'm not hugely into the no weapons idea, mainly because it'll make me shit myself a lot. though i guess that's the idea.
enemies need to have a grounding in real life fears - darkness, common phobias and the fear of the unknown are all important. silent hill 1 and 2 succeeded in this, but that's not to say you should just rip that off haha.

i'll be interested to play it when it's finished, just because i love survival horror in general, i'm all for independent games, a lot of things can be done that large companies overlook. anyway i'll stop talking now.

Good Luck!

 

[ParadiseOnceLost]

What platform is this going to be on??? I ask cuz my PC is so shitty it can only run games that came out 5 years ago.

 

[andrewfox]

I just had this idea after watching some videos on Silent Hill 2.

- No escort missions
- See if you can talk to a psychologist about fear, being afraid.
- No fetch quest missions. Don't lead us to a point, and then have us backtrack all the way to the beginning room. Have us solve puzzles with materials around us.
- Have a similar open area like Silent Hill did. But when we enter rooms, houses buildings, make it feel cramped. Claustrophobia is a great way to induce fear.
- Penumbra seems to have the right idea.
- Character-player relationship. Make us care about staying alive. Save points few and far. Maybe add an item that makes it so you can only save if you have that item. (Typewrites and ink cartridges come to mind from Resident Evil)
- Play through games like the Silent Hill series (1-3), Bioshock (first one), Condemned, System Shock (1-2) etc. See what made these games scary and see where they went wrong. You can never have to many references!
- DO NOT, DO NOT, follow games like Doom 3 and Dead Space. Those games are prime examples of what survival horror SHOULD NOT be. (Even if they are good games)
- Watch Zero Punctuation review on the horror games. Yahtzee really grasps the definition and feel of the survival horror genre. See if you could possibly gain his input.

I would really like to help in any way possible. I know lots of friendly pysch professors, have played through a majority of survival horror and wannabe survival horror games, and have a pretty dark imagination when it comes to creating.

Send me a message!

 

[andrewfox]

I've been braingstorming on my ideal Silent Hill game for some time now, so I should have a lot of ideas for you.

One of the most effective scare tactics is to introduce an anomaly so gradually that the audience/player won't notice at first- ideally until it's too late. For instance, my game would begin at a concert. Gradually, all the fans are less banging their heads to the music and more bobble-head-at-super-speed in true Jacob's Latter fasion.
Silent Hill 2 is famous in part for having a leading villain that you can never kill. I'd like to see a variation on this where it's obvious you're dealing damage, but you'll never survive long enough to finish the enemy because its too powerful. As I recall, Tanks are like this in Left 4 Dead: You'll never be able to kill one without sacrificing somebody from your own team, right?
You know what melee weapons need? their own version of ammo, so that you can't even resort to those when you get too wasteful. This idea is born from the fact that I am obsessed with being resourceful, which means the idea of limited resources is pretty much the definition of "scary fun" for me.
Dead Space has been berated for its use of jump-out scares. This is probably because the way the monsters hide resembles the random encounters of all the worst JRPGs out there. I say jump-out scares should give an indication (such as familarity) that it's going to happen, but it's also made obvious at that point that you NEED to go that way. In my dream-game, you need to find key items by searching through cars as they drive themselves off the nearest cliff!
Another hallmark of Silent Hill the the cryptic perversion that goes into every monster design. Of course, adhering to the idea too much would be plagurism. Perhaps the designs could reflect on the monster's own behavior instead of your own psyche.
Yet another of Silent Hill's finer details is the moral ambiguity of your own protagonist. Not only has he done something very controversial, but every ending (except the good one) depicts a different kind of insanity. I long for a story where the protagonist reluctantly defends his completely deplorable actions.
Here's an idea for a damage system: Every injury is permanent, including sensory disabilities and loss of body parts. And take note from a flight simulator I heard of once, and have every death DELETE THE SAVE FILE! It's much like the Eternal Darkness scare tactics, but without the bluffing.
There should also be a T-rex...just walking around whatever area is big enough for him to hide.

Agreed. Silent Hill was great because it combined so much of what we all fear with serious perversion of daily things. Baby's are turned into walking, bleeding demons, dogs are decaying. The sounds they make are terrifying and make your skin crawl.

The save file bit would be nightmarish. But it would also help the "I need to stay alive feeling".

Also, don't add modes of difficultly. This makes the game feel as if there is no easy way to begin and no easy way to end.

 

[andrewfox]

- Play through games like the Silent Hill series (1-3), Bioshock (first one), Condemned, System Shock (1-2) etc. See what made these games scary and see where they went wrong.

To know where it goes wrong, wouldn't he need to also play all the games you didn't list of these series: Silent Hill 4/0/5, Condemned 2, and Bioshock 2?

Agreed. However, I was merely suggesting playing through the BEST horror games and improving on the flaws they have.

This, is a great review: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/284-Silent-Hill-Homecoming

 

[scnj]

I hate to rain on this, but isn't this kind of illegal?

 

[andrewfox]

I hate to rain on this, but isn't this kind of illegal?

I'm creating an horror essay, and need help fleshing out ideas from fans who enjoy horror stories. I'm thinking of ideas like Silent Hill or Condemned. I'd love to eventually turn this into a book, but right now, it's still in development.

Any help would be appreciated!

Essentially the same thing. Just substitute essay, and book, with video game.

 

[TPiddy]

Omnipresence seems to work well... think of the Big Daddies in Bioshock. They weren't necessarily out to get you... they were just.... there. The game teased you with scenes of what these things could do to you should you piss them off, but you could actually make it through the whole game without taking one on.

Being weaponless is just a dumb idea considering the increasing fear factor that comes from hearing the click of an empty magazine or the splintering of your last baseball bat. Putting weapons in places you would expect them to be found would also make the player think. Hmm, police station? I'll bet there's guns there.

Early Silent Hill titles did well to give you that feeling of truly scrounging for weapons and not exactly being a master of it. Your protagonist can't be a weapons expert, law enforcement officer or martial artist, because as the skill of your protagonist increases, you then have to ramp up the difficulty of the monsters, which isn't the point. Then you're just becoming a shooter / fighter.

 

[monkey_man]

have enemies which are only visible while 2-5 feet away from you, yet make scary noises
have a lot of deathtraps, like random spikes almost(!) invisible
have a flickering flashlight, only being able to be lit for a minute, before having to swith to a lighter. have shadow-enemies, when too dark, will come out and attempt to kill you

 

[imnot]

You need a spider shaped like a skull, don't ask me why just do.

 

[Phoenix09215]

Don't think that by making the game dark it becomes scary. Create a setting which makes you feel isolated (like Silent hill; daylight but shrouded with fog and QUIET). Don't have music playing in the background when you want it to be scary. Music is comfort, without the music its so much more tense! And if you do decide not to use music then emphasise the smaller sounds. Things like hearing an object fall off a table or hearing a bang can really freak the player out. Like in resident evil 1 remake; only the sound of your footsteps and the sound of the zombies.

Thats all I want to suggest. I hope all goes well because I would LOVE for an actualy survival horror game was released. I haven't been scared by a game for so long Please change that!?

 

[shootthebandit]

you need ostriches and emus, nothing more terrifying than an ostrich or emu. im not being silly im genuinly scared of them

 

[Shydun Afaya]

Hello everyone,

My colleague and I have been producing a Survival Horror game from around April this year. The concept is almost complete and modeling is well on its way. The game is based around Frictional Games series called "Penumbra" which I recommend you check out. There are no weapons featured. The game is all puzzle solving and atmosphere with evasion of enemies at times. We are very excited about our project and cant wait to get it flying off the ground. It will be at least a couple of years until release as we are just a mere 2 man team. However we would love your support and a website will be set up soon.

Thanks for your interest

P.S

If you would like to tell us what scares you anything to do with atmosphere, insects, water you name it, whatever just list it and we will see if it ties in with our ideas and hopefully bring your nightmares to life.

Thanks again

Sounds quite interesting. I shall be sure to keep an ear open. I just hope you guys can pull it off better than they did with Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth.

That was one where they went for a "less guns, more evading the enemies" approach. only the enemies were super marksmen (i got sniped by a shotgun from a half mile distance) and they almost instantly re-spawned if you somehow managed to take one down.

Still, I'll be waiting with anticipation. =)

 

[Cheery Lunatic]

Oooh, this sounds good. Any trailers or anything?

Well, I for one, am excited about this. I love survival horror, and really wish there'd be more games in the genre.

 

[shootthebandit]

Hello everyone,

My colleague and I have been producing a Survival Horror game from around April this year. The concept is almost complete and modeling is well on its way. The game is based around Frictional Games series called "Penumbra" which I recommend you check out. There are no weapons featured. The game is all puzzle solving and atmosphere with evasion of enemies at times. We are very excited about our project and cant wait to get it flying off the ground. It will be at least a couple of years until release as we are just a mere 2 man team. However we would love your support and a website will be set up soon.

Thanks for your interest

P.S

If you would like to tell us what scares you anything to do with atmosphere, insects, water you name it, whatever just list it and we will see if it ties in with our ideas and hopefully bring your nightmares to life.

Thanks again

Sounds quite interesting. I shall be sure to keep an ear open. I just hope you guys can pull it off better than they did with Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth.

That was one where they went for a "less guns, more evading the enemies" approach. only the enemies were super marksmen (i got sniped by a shotgun from a half mile distance) and they almost instantly re-spawned if you somehow managed to take one down.

Still, I'll be waiting with anticipation. =)

i think the problem with that game is that its called "CALL OF cthulhu" anything with CALL OF is bound to be frustrating