Development Log: Horror Game Part 1

Well, I spent the week making design notes more than anything, in an attempt to flesh out and experiment with how the game world will work.

Not all of what I wrote matters; probably most of it will be trashed, but that's part of what the experimentation is all about.  I'm trying to find a way to make a solid horror experience where the player gets sucked in to the text and forgets they're playing the game.

But the notes don't cover everything, and they assume you know what's going on in my head, because, of course, I wrote these notes for myself.

So, in essence, what I had in mind before writing my notes was this:

A horror text adventure that would be online, where the player may meet other players in specific areas.  Where players meet would be "safe zones" so they can chat, discuss what they've seen, etc.  I might offer a few "Channels", such as one for Newbies and Mentors, and one for Roleplayers who like to keep in character.

But beyond safe zones, the world would be randomly generated for each player, so players could not meet outside of safe zones.  In the world, it is creepy, dangerous, and you are very, very alone.

The goal of the game is escaping the nightmare world.  The player is trying to find a somewhat-legendary exit, and must explore endless rooms to do so. ("Rooms", of course, being text adventure vocab, and not necessarily literal.)

What follows are my actual notes, which meander and babble, and just have random idea after random idea, expounding on each for a bit before getting off-track.

Scraps and Notes and Ideas for Horror Adventure

5/1-5/3

Player ideas:

Player is a child ages 8-18 -- Scares metaphorical of puberty, growing up, sex, schooling, abusive parents/authority, responsibility.

RESPONSIBILITY -- As you get older, you are given more mechanics, have to do things more on your own/take care of younger players.  You start off with little to be able to do, but as you go you have fewer people above you and more below, and you must guide and defend others/show them the ropes.  But as a result the world gets more dangerous for you, making the game much tougher as you gain more responsibility.

You win if you survive long enough--Once you hit a certain age, perhaps, the possibility of escape is made.  Age, however, is constant, so the game is essentially timed.  You make it to age 18 and the door opens, hit age 19 and the door closes.

So you have 1 year to get to the end, once the end has become available.  However you start at age 8, so you have 10 years to survive before the door even opens.

YOU CANNOT TAKE ANYONE WITH YOU.

Once you have survived all the way, your character gets "hall of famed" whether personally or globally.

Is age in realtime?  #Turns? Fraction of realtime?  Don't want to use anything like exp or leveling because some players may figure out tricks and beat the game fast. # Rooms discovered?

3650 Rooms for 1 room a "day"!  As long as you don't discover anything new, you stay same age? :(  But I guess it does have advantages. It allows for "sprints" where the player is trying to go from safe room to safe room.

So safe rooms are not quite random, but you only discover safe rooms at intervals, and everyone discovers the same safe rooms?  So like Players who find the first safe room, that is the same safe room for everyone?  Or have multiple saferooms in each "year" that might randomize, for instance. -> * problem here is I like the idea of older players helping younger ones, and cutting off between years doesn't work.

Lock off each year with a "boss" be it monster or puzzle (or monstrous puzzle?), which in turn also changes the theme of the year.  (One might be a puberty theme, next might be authority theme?)  Or interweave minor themes together.  Make corresponding locations as themes, e.g. school/church = authority, woods = puberty, etc. (But think them all through very well).  You get a mix of each every year, but some years get more of one than another?  Perhaps research that kind of stuff, as well as diffs. between male and female!  Perhaps use statistical chances?

In the last year, you are slowly stripped of your friends (i.e. your path becomes more solitary).

Each time you log on, the description of yourself may change slightly as you age.

Player has opportunity to gain skills through:

Practice - Player could take up an instrument and practice, getting better at it

Exercise - Player could run around a safe zone to increase speed

Hmm... I wonder though, should "stats" ever come into play?  Should things be quantified in that way?  Of course, PLAYER should never see them anyway. But should there be stats hidden to the player that effect the game?  Little things that the player wouldn't necessarily know to do?  Like running from a monster for long periods as it chases you would increase some kind of endurance stat-- but what if we did some Cthulhu type stuff where prolonged exposure to monsters drives you crazy?

And the crazier you go, the more monsters you see? That might translate poor, especially if the player doesn't know.

What would sanity do? Insanity?  If a player's sanity went down "all the way" what would happen?  We wouldn't want to have them see other players as monsters because they would try to kill them.  That would be a bad experience to innocent players in safe zones.  Perhaps if insanity went down all the way, the layout the player has been discovering the whole time is erased, and replaced by more fixed rooms that always lead to death?  Or perhaps there is one safe room, and if the player goes there and stays there long enough, they gain their sanity back?

But what would such a room be like?  The ultimate comfort of a real-world bedroom, perhaps?

And what would a breakdown like that REPRESENT?  If this is a metaphorical game of growing up, what does it mean?  Does it mean an emotional breakdown, or something else?

For that matter, what do the monsters mean?  If monsters that represent the confusions of puberty go away after a time, they get replaced with monsters that represent later teenage fears -- graduating, going to college/getting a job, the pressure of parents.

I guess confusion is taken care of in a sense because the player, as s/he goes, memorizes the layout of the gameworld, perhaps finding a hub that they are comfortable with.

But how do you represent picking a college with a monster?  Perhaps that is something for more intricate details.

In fact, maybe special life choices like that are "bosses" while general stresses, like high school classes and grades, are more normal monsters.  However, they must ALWAYS be carefully described, so they represent these but are NOT obvious.  They CANNOT be obvious.  They should be scary and original, and a player would have to seriously read between the lines to get it.

Back to insanity, because that's a mechanic--

Let's see, being with players, as in peers, raises sanity and calms you--or only if you're an extrovert?  Let's suppose you can pick whether to be an introvert or extrovert--to be an introvert means non-multiplayer safe zones restore your sanity.

Not sure there :/  Wouldn't want a player to go insane because they're in a multiplayer safe zone and an introvert.

Unless safe zones are complexes, with beds and lots more; they are more like fortresses than single rooms, so you can go to a bedroom and sleep or you can chat with friends by the fire.

So even if you're introverted or extroverted, being in a safe zone is universally a good thing.

Maybe if you're one or the other, should you get a warning saying "you need rest, find a safe empty room" or "you feel the need to talk to someone"?

Maybe not that, in fact, you no longer need an introvert/extrovert character, because if safe zones cater to all possibilities, the player will do what is natural to them.

So safe zones are definitely complexes.  Perhaps even tell the player they are in a safe zone?  Not in those words, but would something like "You feel safe here" still be too gamey?

Should I let the player know they are safe--only if so then through NPCs, or descriptions that speak to safety (the building is clean and warm and friendly-looking, brightly lit and unshadowed, so nothing can hide).

Back to insanity--losing and rearranging the world isn't something with too much real-world reference, except basic disorientation at having a breakdown and not knowing who to trust.  So perhaps instead of a world-rearrangement, the world creates a bee-line for the closest known safe zone, and everything else is cut off.  You make a headlong rush to get there, evading monsters that have previously been the ones who have knocked the most sanity out of you, since those are the monsters you fear most (maybe, but what if you are unafraid of a monster and know you can kill it, so you do not run, and you laugh in its face, and let it try playing cat-and-mouse with you.  The player does not really fear it, so sanity should not go down.  So how can that possibly be represented in game?)  Maybe don't use time facing it, use harm caused or an equation of harm caused/time, or something.

Maybe no matter what you do, you slowly lose sanity if not in a safe zone, you just lose MORE when monsters are around, you discover a new place, a new theme, etc.

Perhaps you gain sanity back when you defeat a monster, solve a puzzle, etc?

Perhaps if you go insane, yet survive and restore your sanity, your sanity meter is changed, either you are quicker to go insane later, or perhaps you build up endurance so it takes more for you to go insane.  Perhaps the latter if you don't go insane, but get close to it and get back just in time?  Hidden vars, of course.

New idea -- how to make puzzle solving something randomly generated like rooms?  Perhaps come up with a few types of puzzles that can vary in their details but basically play the same.  Like if the puzzle were a rube goldberg machine (for instance) then there would always be ten pieces, and piece number 3 could be randomly generated as one of four different pieces, but they all ultimate do the same thing (connect piece 2 to piece 4 properly).  I would just have to be careful to make that kind of stuff work with all variants.

Alternately, puzzles could be less "in the world physical" and more like brainteasers (Silent Hill 2's riddles, or Sudoku-type puzzles).  Could also have puzzles be of the adventure game "find the inventory item and put it where it needs to go" style.  If there is variation but logic to them, there could be something there.  Like think of Raiders golden statue scene where he uses a bag of sand as a weight.  You could have six different objects to put there of the same weight.  In your game, one of them is randomly picked as the item that appears in your world.

There is always debate on those kinds of puzzles about whether you should have the item first or find the slot first, but a randomly generated layout leaves it up for grabs.

Think about a way to do what tabletop RPGs do: make the player feel as though this is THEIR story, and not just a blank slate.  Try to figure out how to make what happens feel like it happens only to them.  But think about how that works if players in game safe zones were to talk about their adventures.  They can't sound all the same.  One player talking to another might say "You'll never believe what I ran into!" and another player will NOT have encountered the monster, or is very unlikely to, because the details of the monsters are changed enough so that even if they play the same, you think it's YOUR demon.

Find ways to ask questions at character creation?  Or at some other point, maybe all during first year, you pick your traits and hobbies and likes and personality which gets displayed later.  I'm kind of annoyed by pre-creation, so what things MUST player choose?

Gender might be required, and some kind of basic description of character (for the growth part), although maybe the player can fill that in whenever.

Find a way to integrate things so perhaps first year is semi-random, but as the player goes on s/he develops a play style, needs, etc., and these are saved to help make further year stuff.

Completely randomized is easiest, but player-based MAY feel more customized.  But would player notice?  Would completely randomized be better because there is LESS chance of two players having similar experience?

Consider having some X number of monsters/puzzles/etc. per year.  Not predictable.  Perhaps player does not necessarily run into every monster/puzzle per year?  Maybe the number of each switches depending on first year experiences? Or ongoing experiences?

Is there a way to encourage friendships and even relationships between players?  Or player-character's complicated relationships are represented by puzzles and monsters?

IS THIS GAME ABOUT: Discovery? Survival?

You CANNOT solve the mystery, or at least the point of the game is NOT to figure out where you are.  For all you know, you live in this world, and there is escape, at the end, but you do not necessarily try to figure out WHY you are there.  Perhaps fill the world with lore of escape to make the player keep exploring to escape, so they don't sit in the same place forever?

As for the older player-characters telling younger ones and guiding them... does that really MAKE SENSE???  How often would that be?  Think of your peers, perhaps unless you have a sibling, you'll stick to kids your own age, so unless one player "adopts" a younger one as a younger sibling, that's not likely to happen.  And I don't know how that's possible technically, so Perhaps the yearly bottlenecks will work best.

Of course, players who are faster than others would get older faster, and would leave their friends behind.  But in an abstract way, that happens in life, not that people get older faster, but some certainly do mature faster, or move on and find new groups of friends.  Your friends at age 8 are not usually your friends at age 18.