Survival Horror on a Cruise Ship

[Mike Fang]

Not a bad idea, although I'm unclear on one point; when Yahtzee say's "first person controls from a third person perspective," does that mean you'd be moving around while looking at yourself from security cameras, thus making the fixed camera angles in various rooms a plot point rather than just an irritating game mechanic? or would you have to stop at a terminal to hook up, look around you, then unhook yourself and go into a first person perspective where you have to feel your way blindly, using your memory of what you just saw and the sounds you hear?

 

[lacktheknack]

Not a bad idea, although I'm unclear on one point; when Yahtzee say's "first person controls from a third person perspective," does that mean you'd be moving around while looking at yourself from security cameras, thus making the fixed camera angles in various rooms a plot point rather than just an irritating game mechanic? or would you have to stop at a terminal to hook up, look around you, then unhook yourself and go into a first person perspective where you have to feel your way blindly, using your memory of what you just saw and the sounds you hear?

The first one.

It wouldn't be that annoying if you used "tank controls", which ignore camera changes.

 

[esperandote]

"SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!"

I became a gamer with, resident evil, parasite eve, alone in the dark, galerians and the like so this would dreamed for me (if the ambience and other factors are right)

 

[esperandote]

The first one.

It wouldn't be that annoying if you used "tank controls", which ignore camera changes.

I thought thats what he meant.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

I dunno. First-person controls mixed with fixed cameras are the one thing I absolutely hated about Grim Fandango. I suspect if this weren't your idea and you were reviewing the finished product you'd be saying something like "Who the FUCK thought this could ever work?"

I agree that the world needs more survival-horror games set on "abandoned" cruise ships though. I've seen photos of old decommissioned ships before; they're both beautiful and haunting in ways buildings could never be.

 

[Random berk]

Not sure I'd buy it, even if it was a triple-a game. It sounds amazing, but I doubt I'd be able to get over the control issues that would doubtlessly be a part of it. And no matter how good the concept for a game is, bad controls don't add to the suspense or thrill of a game- they just make it frustrating. If the controls were done in such a way as to make the transition from generic over the shoulder perspective to cctv seamless however, then I'd be throwing my wallet at whatever game company developed it. Its all academic though, because my pessimist senses tell me this game will never be made.

 

[Ukanef]

Someone should clone Yahtzee and have Yahtzee01 review games and Yahtzee02 make games. In their spare time they could write articles such as this.

 

[-Dragmire-]

If I recall correctly, the first Onimusha had fps-like controls where up was always forward based on where the character was facing(left and right rotated the character). I worked decently well but it took some getting used to.

 

[Insanityblues]

The game you describe came eerily close to an obscure french adventure game I played a few years back. "Experience 112" (or just "The Experiment" in America according to wikipedia.)
In that game, a young female scientist wakes up in an abandonned ship stranded on the beach of a mysterious island. The ship is completly overgrown with vines and other plants. Thing is, you don't play as that young scientist. You play as someone(you don't really know who) with access to all of the ships security cameras and remote control over all electronic equipments. Throughout the game you have to guide the scientist, by flicking lights, opening doors, going through emails to find passwords or remote controlling various robots and machinery.

 

[lacktheknack]

The game you describe came eerily close to an obscure french adventure game I played a few years back. "Experience 112" (or just "The Experiment" in America according to wikipedia.)
In that game, a young female scientist wakes up in an abandonned ship stranded on the beach of a mysterious island. The ship is completly overgrown with vines and other plants. Thing is, you don't play as that young scientist. You play as someone(you don't really know who) with access to all of the ships security cameras and remote control over all electronic equipments. Throughout the game you have to guide the scientist, by flicking lights, opening doors, going through emails to find passwords or remote controlling various robots and machinery.

Beat you to it, man.

But yeah, a lot of "original ideas" have already happened, and were disliked. Such as "The Experiment".

 

[Zen Toombs]

It's an interesting concept, but the idea of first person controls from a fixed camera third person sounds kind of iffy; not from a concept perspective but more from a gameplay perspective. It might work if you go from an Amnesia or Shattered Memories direction of making it more about stealth, traps, and running away as fast as possible, but working any kind of combat in there would be clunky and frustrating at best, and using firearms would be particularly nightmarish. Not saying that it couldn't work, but it would probably fall on the Silent Hill and original Resident Evil problems of the gameplay being kind of shit.

I think that the idea would be that the best idea is to avoid combat or fight others indirectly. You COULD do physical combat/gunplay, but it would be awkward and hard. Just like it would be if you couldn't see through your eyes, and had to use a third person camera to orient yourself.

 

[beleester]

Yahtzee, you complain about fixed cameras in almost every game that has them. You should know better than this. This will feel like "fake difficulty" through and through, because even if you bring the cameras into the game world, the controls are always outside of it, so any difficulty that relies on awkward controls and camera will make your players angry for little gain. And really, what sort of future has cybernetic brain uplinks but not portable cameras? Does your player not carry a cell phone or something?

Still, I like the idea of a cyberpunk hero barely holding himself together using his augments, and I think the idea of getting viruses by plugging into strange computer networks has potential (really, it's the obvious question to ask about any cyberpunk setting). What if you could jack in to hardware around the ship to gain an advantage in combat? Hack the locks to trap your opponents. Overload stuff and make it explode, or maybe even break into your opponents' augments to disable them. But of course, doing so will expose you to the virus, and here the game can screw with you. Maybe it will announce that you have no health and ammo, or just make your HUD fill with static until you reboot. If you want to be more subtle, maybe it will occasionally display an enemy right behind you on your radar. Or maybe it will add insane ramblings to your quest log. Basically, integrate the madness into gameplay in a way that will screw with the player but not get in the way of the core business of zombie-bashing.

 

[octafish]

So when you read Survival Horror on a Cruise Ship did anyone else immediately think of the Terror From The Deep terror missions?

 

[Scorekeeper]

So, why aren't you starting an indie studio already?

 

[squishycube]

Yahtzee, you complain about fixed cameras in almost every game that has them. You should know better than this. This will feel like "fake difficulty" through and through, because even if you bring the cameras into the game world, the controls are always outside of it, so any difficulty that relies on awkward controls and camera will make your players angry for little gain. ...snip...

I think Yahtzee complains about those things if they make no sense within context. That said, I think these controls really wouldn't be that bad. It'd be like using a remote control car while you walk around as well. Push forward, car keeps going to its forward. Push left, car goes to its left. Come to think of it, GTA1 and GTA2 controls were a lot like this as well.

Additionally, the ship setting solves a fundamental problem of the horror genre: for the fear to work, you need to be locked up, isolated. If you look at horror films and games, you see a lot of different solutions to this problem: Being snowed in is a long-time favourite (The Shining). A ship at sea is a very nice way of doing this. It is simple, everyone gets that you can't jump of the ship because then you die. The more contrived the way you are locked in, the more suspension of disbelief is required from the player/viewer.

 

[Labcoat Samurai]

The idea deserves points for originality, but I'm not sure how well it would work without some serious modifications. Others have addressed the gameplay, but I also think it would be harder to create a sense of dread when you get at will eagle eye and can tap into any room. Much of what makes a game scary is knowing there are monsters out there but not knowing exactly where they are or when they'll strike. The eagle eye thing is far more terrifying when you *aren't* in control of whoever it is you're watching, because then the director can capitalize on your sense of powerlessness, giving you all the knowledge of what is about to happen and no power to stop it.

The twist is nice, and I think that would be really neat to incorporate into a game that retained its first person perspective. Reminds me a bit of the opening of Dead Space: Extraction where you find out you were the one going crazy and hallucinating and that you killed your whole team before they had to put you down. It was effective.

The problem with this affecting only one sense, however, is that a real person relies on all senses. Even if the monsters look terrifying, how are they going to sound? Are your ears hacked too? What will happen if the player inevitably fails to notice one of them before it gets close or refuses to attack one? Will it ignore him? Perception has to be messed with pretty significantly and more than just visually in order for the idea to be credible.

Still, significant potential.

 

[Doomcat]

Personally, i like the idea, though i can see (as he said) frustration with the first-person third-person controls. But i could also see myself being scared shitless if there was a monster and i was trying to find the nearest closet to hide in, only to find i was facing the wrong direction and began running TOWARDS the monster. The panic situations created by the control scheme would be quite fun and difficult to get through without dieing (hopefully in a good way)

Honestly, It's something I'd LOVE to try, it sounds like a fun idea...my only worry with it is that theres always that problem of sort of separation of self. One thing that makes Amnesia so good (in my opinion) Is that your always seeing things through the eyes of the guy running around, unable to defend himself, hiding inside a cupboard or taking shelter in that pitch-black room isn't nearly as scary if your not seeing it from your own eyes.