You are playing as a man who has accepted a contract to find someone missing. This custom story is quite short, but it will at least kill time. This is part 1 of a 3 part series which i've been working on. This custom story contains custom music and some custom sounds. Also one entity that i did not create, but someone else did and i simply used it, all thanks goes to him regarding the entity, not me. Hope you'll like it! This custom story is only part 1 of a 3 part series. Because of this, it may be a little short, but i only want people to enjoy this (and the other chapters). This chapter contains some custom music and sounds and one entity that i did not create (credits to Litronom for the entity). The reason i made this custom story and the other chapters is because i simply want people to play and have fun. The artwork for this custom story is made by "The art of Luxifer", all credits for the artwork goes to him, not me. Locate him on facebook! :D

Post news Report RSS To add or not to add mechanics

The problem with designing a horror experience: letting the player create their own monsters.

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Yesterday we kind of hit a wall while designing a section of catacombs that the player has to get through. I got frustrated because it felt, in my mind, boring and empty of things for the player to do or interact with.
When we get into discussions about things like this Amnesia: The Dark Decent always turns up as example. In Amnesia the physical monsters do not show their ugly faces until about 40-60 minutes into the game. We all agree that this is a great design choice: it makes that monster a lot more frightening because you have been waiting for it, expecting it at every turn.
Implementing that lesson is not as easy though, it goes against almost everything else you are though as a designer: walking is not a mechanic, players want to interact with the game as much as possible, give the player tools and let them use them in diverse ways etc.
As we move forward testing will of course serve as a measurement tool for situations like this: The players will likely tell us a lot more about how much interaction is enough than in-team discussions ever could. As soon as I left "the office" (we work at the university, so it's not really our office) new ideas sprung forth and today we made a few subtle changes to the area. Instead of adding a combat element we decided to focus on exploration and forcing the player to really study their environment in order to progress.
It's not a huge overhaul, but it might make all the difference. In the end I believe that it is the small things: the sounds, the shadows and the whispers from the corners that enables the player to create their own horror, and seeing monsters even when there are none.

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DiabolicalWaffle
DiabolicalWaffle

Sounds good.

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