Those ideas sound interesting indeed, but sometimes I wonder if some people have become a bit desensitized from playing too much Amnesia and especially from playing around with the level editor and custom stories.
I have noticed, that every time we discuss scary monster/AI/whatever ideas, most people try to think of a way to make the game more
difficult. Monsters that are harder to get away from, that can find and kill you easier, ways to trick the player into getting insta-killed... I can of course see, why that would be more interesting to someone who can get away from a grunt in his sleep and knows the entire AI behaviour so perfectly by now, that he's looking for a greater challenge.
But would it really be more atmospheric and most importantly - in the spirit of the original? Just some food for thought, not really a critique or anything
(Btw, same thing goes for stuff like randomization imo - it only factors in for people who've already beaten the game. So it doesn't really make it scarier on the initial playthrough, it just helps to keep your interest for a bit longer.)
(01-08-2013, 01:27 PM)Hirnwirbel Wrote: [ -> ]Those ideas sound interesting indeed, but sometimes I wonder if some people have become a bit desensitized from playing too much Amnesia and especially from playing around with the level editor and custom stories.
I have noticed, that every time we discuss scary monster/AI/whatever ideas, most people try to think of a way to make the game more difficult. Monsters that are harder to get away from, that can find and kill you easier, ways to trick the player into getting insta-killed... I can of course see, why that would be more interesting to someone who can get away from a grunt in his sleep and knows the entire AI behaviour so perfectly by now, that he's looking for a greater challenge.
But would it really be more atmospheric and most importantly - in the spirit of the original? Just some food for thought, not really a critique or anything
(Btw, same thing goes for stuff like randomization imo - it only factors in for people who've already beaten the game. So it doesn't really make it scarier on the initial playthrough, it just helps to keep your interest for a bit longer.)
Contrary to popular (and annoying) belief, difficulty only adds to scariness (in my humble opinion of course). If you are hurting for imagination so much that a death screen immediately and irrevocable takes you out of the game, you shouldn't even be playing video games. I'm not saying games should be unfairly hard, because after a while that stuff starts to annoy you more than make you afraid, but games should not be easy in the interest of "immersion". That kind of design is completely transparent. Just to be clear, I consider both Penumbra and Amnesia to be difficult games. I think they struck a very nice balance in both cases and managed to create an oppressive, hostile and unhelpful game. Stray too far though and the game will just be boring, and I think what Thomas has said about difficulty and trial & error in games is a little too extreme. I agree with it on the surface, but it can easily lead to stagnation. Just my two cents.
the only thing i'd suggest is to remove the music when monster appears. when i was halfway through the game it was like this:
*the usual, passive music* Ok, the music is normal there are no monsters i can do whatever the fuck i want.
*monster music* Ok, monster time i'll just wait till the music stops
When i didn't know that there's a certain soundtrack playing when there's a monster nearby i was a lot more scared. I was like " They could be anywhere at anytime" and i was paying attention to all the ambient sounds in the background thinking that it could be the monster.
But once you realise that a music warns you when the monster spawns, those ambient sounds mean nothing.
What if alexander or brute was accualy dolan.
(01-08-2013, 01:36 AM)The Rock Worm Wrote: [ -> ]How about a new Gatherer called a 'Searcher' that carries a lantern. With the Lantern, very good eyesight and has great hearing, but low attack strength. Once it sees you, it summons (spawns) a Grunt or Brute to chase you!
That's an interesting idea, but I was thinking more in terms of what is already present in Amnesia (the grunts and brutes). My concern was that the monsters in Amnesia were too much like conventional enemies and that adding some interesting and unusual variations could take away from that image, at least a little.
The monsters are explained once in the beginning of Amnesia, but for the rest of the game they just act like normal enemies that you have to avoid and get scared by. Boring! No wonder people tend to complain about becoming desensitized by the time they're at chapter 3. Frictional played it smart though (it really surprises me sometimes how goddamn smart they are about the things they do) and made the chapter very story-focused so players still had something to think about.
Now place a lantern-carrying monster event somewhere in there and it could bring back some of that atmosphere.
Of course, this is all subjective, yadda yadda, etc.
(01-08-2013, 01:27 PM)Hirnwirbel Wrote: [ -> ]Those ideas sound interesting indeed, but sometimes I wonder if some people have become a bit desensitized from playing too much Amnesia and especially from playing around with the level editor and custom stories.
Definitely. For example, right now I can see how the grunt can be considered funny/cute looking, but when I first saw it I was so scared by its face that I would avoid looking at it. Maybe that's because I played Amnesia being a horror virgin, I don't know.
(01-08-2013, 05:23 PM)Bridge Wrote: [ -> ]Contrary to popular (and annoying) belief, difficulty only adds to scariness (in my humble opinion of course).
You're absolutely right, the more difficult the player perceives the situation to be, the more terrified and helpless they feel.
The key word here is "perception". I think that, instead of increasing actual difficulty to increase fear, FG will work towards making the perceived difficulty as high as possible (or appropriate). After all, nobody ever doubts that they will physically be able to finish a level in a game, right? Unless they're playing an old-school platformer, of course.
Quote: I'm not saying games should be unfairly hard, because after a while thatstuff starts to annoy you more than make you afraid, but games should not be easy in the interest of "immersion". That kind of design is completely transparent. Just to be clear, I consider both Penumbra and Amnesia to be difficult games. I think they struck a very nice balance in both cases and managed to create an oppressive, hostile and unhelpful game.
Yeah, that's pretty much what I meant. I think Amnesia had perfect difficulty, there's no need to give the monsters an even bigger advantage over the player. Making them more varied and giving the player different challenges to overcome would be great, but many ideas aim to create an unfairly hard challenge by including insta-kills or unescapable situations which I don't believe will help much except for an initial scare effect that gets quickly replaced by annoyance.
Quote: The key word here is "perception". I think that, instead of increasing actual difficulty to increase fear, FG will work towards making the perceived difficulty as high as possible (or appropriate).
Couldn't have said it better
Amnesia already does this quite well - when playing for the first time you often think you could die any second, but in the end you realize you only died maybe once or twice, because the game secretly always stayed fair in its challenges. That's very elegant design!
It would be good that, in some levels, when you knew there were monsters, they spawned randomly: I will explain myself now:
In Left 4 Dead, zombies aren't programmed. It's a zombie generator that makes random zombies (random face, random blood in some parameters). What I mean is that, since a moment that the player knew there were monsters, that in the 1-15 levels they spawned randomly. For a "Player 1" monsters would spawn at 2, 4, 5, 8, 13, 15. For another player "Player 2", they would spawn at 1, 3, 5, 8, 13, 14.
That would add randomness and naturality to the game.
(01-10-2013, 02:30 PM)The chaser Wrote: [ -> ]It would be good that, in some levels, when you knew there were monsters, they spawned randomly: I will explain myself now:
In Left 4 Dead, zombies aren't programmed. It's a zombie generator that makes random zombies (random face, random blood in some parameters). What I mean is that, since a moment that the player knew there were monsters, that in the 1-15 levels they spawned randomly. For a "Player 1" monsters would spawn at 2, 4, 5, 8, 13, 15. For another player "Player 2", they would spawn at 1, 3, 5, 8, 13, 14.
That would add randomness and naturality to the game.
I love that! Randomness is the best!!!
![[Image: DOKHs.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/DOKHs.jpg)