Project: (Untitled yet)
| Project Started: |
6th March, 2011 |
Last Update: |
29th June, 2011 |
| Project Owner: |
 Muz |
Project Members: |
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| Project Type: |
Turn based strategy horror |
Project Progress: |
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Damage and fear
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Posted 7th May 11, by Muz
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Sorry for not saying anything on this earlier, have college stuff all the way up to July. But my co-designer's been a bit persistent in making me keep it up, so I'll try to have something to show 
There's a lot of stuff that's going to be kept secret because it ruins the mystery behind the game. And some other game mechanic stuff that would be normal after the first 2 levels, but I'd like to come off as a surprise. But here's something for some of you casual followers and horror game designers.
One major aspect of horror games is bringing the fear to the player rather than the character.
Most games try to accomplish this with squick. They make blood, gore, poop, nudity, whatever, just to make you squeal and not want to look. The problem here is that it doesn't work all that well. People rarely get scared from gore horror movies, just excited.
A turn-based game is different from a real-time game, with the latter, you often have to be up and keep your reflexes ready. With TB, the fear is in what lies after the end turn. Anyway, that's not really the main point today, but I'll cover it later.
The horror comes from making the player fear the consequences of his decision. The player has to empathize with the character's feelings. You, the player, will never be able to feel the intense pain of your character's arm getting ripped off.
I first considered having a teddy bear that can rip off your legs, but that would pull the attention to the gore rather than the fear of getting your legs pulled off.
So, the hit point system is an indicator of mental damage, not physical. Think of a Japanese horror than an American one.
If Fera encounters something that she's scared of, it causes her mental damage. What's there to fear? Lots of things. Loud noises, the dark, blood, needles, shadows, creepy looking dolls. If you were put in a room, ankle deep in blood, with a puppet throwing knives at you, how would you act? I'm trying to get the game mechanics to work that same way too.
Physical damage will still be there, and they'll cloud her capability to act with the world. She'll move slower, do less damage. Damage will be lowered as to not cause any broken bones. The worst would probably be a giant needle punctured right through the body, and a few deep cuts. The dolls' intentions would not be to kill or cripple, but to control and play with her. Dead playthings are no fun.
It brings up one problem as it is. If you're in a dark room, are you scared? Of course not.
But what if a small doll crawled up your leg trying to hug you? What if it bit you instead? What if you're suddenly stabbed from behind in the dark? What if that stab misses?
I want to translate all this into game mechanics. That's why the game has a hidden phobia rating. Fera starts with everything near 0 for phobia, except maybe blood, gore, weapons, clowns.
Fera starts developing phobias once something starts to harm her or if she anticipates harm. If she has a bad experience in the dark, she develops a phobia of the dark. If she gets injured by a blood covered doll, then she'll fear blood more. If she's badly wounded, she'll fear pain a lot more. Too much fear causes mental scarring and hopelessness, which is only healed by bits of hope, like defeating a boss or finding a reason to go on.
Fear levels are like the following, not as discrete (grouped), but symbolizes how they are in different levels:
- Shaken, where she gets nervous. Physical improves. There's no long term effect.
- Scared, physical drops to around normal.
- Frozen in fear, unable to respond until she loses her fear levels.
- Insane. Game over, get dragged away and become an eternal toy.
Injuries will just be simplified into 'pain'. Pain levels will probably go down with fear (as the adrenaline goes up), but they amplify all kinds of fear levels.
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