You’ll be able to play as one of the four people that got trapped inside this haunted hotel. As a survivor your main objective will be finding your way out, as well as helping your fellows get out too. You’ll often find yourself on the edge, hearing and seeing ghostly things, trying to find keys and items to help in your escape. And sometimes you’ll find yourself running desperately from a monster, who’s there only to hunt down and kill you and your friends. You’ll also be able to play as the monster. You’ll assume an ethereal form, which you’ll use to haunt the survivors, triggering eerie noises and events. You’ll also assume a physical form, which will allow you to hunt and kill the survivors trapped in the hotel. It’ll be your killing spree. Minimum Requirements: - Processor: 2.0+ GHz (dual core recommended); - Memory: 2 GB RAM; - Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 2000+, nVidia GeForce FX 6 series

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Great game, but monsters need an overhaul~ (Games : Damned : Forum : Feedback and Suggestions : Great game, but monsters need an overhaul~) Locked
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Oct 22 2013 Anchor

Hey devs and members! I stumbled across Damned a couple days ago, and my friends and I have been enjoying it a ton! I have serious hopes for the game, and it's has crazy potential. We've encountered lots of bugs, some game breaking, but that's to be expected from an alpha and we understand completely.
Anywho, I'm here to talk about the necessity of a better monster system. Right now, though it can be kind of fun, playing as the monster is rather restricting, tedious and occasionally boring as all hell. The lurkers spawn time is painful, and it stops a monster player from using his physical form to spook survivors. I'm not here to talk about the lurker right now though, I'd rather get into the phantom

The phantom is a great idea, though lacks good gameplay. (as well as lacks a "scare" factor)

Reacting to sound is a great way to force the monster player into a hunter mentality. However as of now, the system is unreliable and can lead to boring, "walk around the hall ways for a half hour until the players escape." matches.

His senses need to be redone, so I've made some mockups to try and get the ideas across.

First, Traps. Traps are an interesting part of the game, but since they can usually be avoided, it isn't reasonable to force a monster to rely on them. (this also relates to the lurker)
However, we could fix up how activated traps are displayed to the monster.
(All of this on traps could also apply to other monsters, and isn't phantom exclusive.)

This image shows how a monster would see a trap displayed. An activated trap would glow red for a few seconds, visible through walls. A small white marker would appear on the monsters screen and point to the trap, hovering above it.

If the trap were to be out of view, the marker would point off screen, telling the monster what direction the trap was in.

Now, back to phantom exclusive systems

When players run, a trail of red glowing foot prints will appear for the phantom.

When actions are performed, such as using a key, prying wood off a poor or turning on a flash light, a red pulse will emit from the source of the sound for a few seconds.

When the phantom is in a fair distance of a player, the phantom will hear a heartbeat. It'll go from slow (when far away) to fast when within attack range. Within a fair distance, the player will pulse red for a brief moment with the heartbeat. The silhouette won't move, and won't perfectly depict what direction the player is currently walking. It'll be a simple red pulse that merely gives away the players position for a short (SHORT) time.

I also feel as though the phantom should be able to see the position of doors, cupboards and the like, and be a tad faster. However he shouldn't be an instant kill. Maybe 3 hits to successfully slaughter a survivor.

Oct 24 2013 Anchor

Thanks for the suggestions!

Nov 30 2013 Anchor

I really like the heartbeat suggestion I think you might have something there. Also the traps I couldn't agree more on, but i think instead of an arrow pointing at the location if the phantom is not looking at it, small wave's would ripple in the direction to the sound until the Phantom sees it on his or her screen. Why? I feel like the games UI adds to the games scare factor and mood. This works both ways such things like arrows and such UI pop up display things could take a character playing as a monster 'out of the zone' but I do like the core thought, displaying the trap through the wall.

God i really love that heart beat idea.

Jan 3 2014 Anchor

Some good suggestions here for sure. The phantom definitely needs some work. I posted an idea for the phantom in another thread that would change the gameplay completely. The problem I have with the phantom is it's not really scary to see him. you almost always see him first, and the loud music makes it obvious when he sees you. The other issue I have with him is he can just wait by a door for someone to walk through, making it very boring for everyone.

Here's a copy/paste of my idea from the other thread:
Personally I think that the phantom would be more fun if he could only see you while you are looking in his direction. After you look at him, the phantom will get some kind of noise(not the loud continuous music please)to let him know that someone looked at him and he has a few seconds to look directly at the target to gain extended visibility of that target until he(the phantom) breaks site with he target.

So the strategy would be to look away from the phantom as much as possible, and if you are seen, try to run somewhere you can break his line of site on you.

Jan 9 2014 Anchor

These are really good suggestions and would be interested to see them in an update, I love the footprint and heartbeat ideas. Good art design, too.

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