Game Idea Research

Nightmare Creature 

Last weekend we were asked to begin our research on game ideas, possible games we could code within unity and showcase to our class. We were asked to come up with 4 unique ideas, here is mine:

1. Horror Puzzle Game
2. 3D Sphere Game
3. Tower Defence Game
4. FPS Shooter Game

Horror Puzzle Game

This week we were asked to pick one of the four ideas that we would focus on for the rest of the semester, I decided to go with my first the idea and possibly my favourite, a Horror Puzzle Game. My love for horror games is massive and I hope I can translate that love into making a good functioning horror game myself that I’m proud of, I have tones of knowledge on the subject of horror games like what mechanic and game functions should be in place, and how lighting/game design should look. This game idea interests me the most and I think ill be able to focus in on it for the rest of the semester with ease thanks to the crazy amount of unity tutorials about horror games. 

Player Movement/Creature Movement 

For the player movement will not be restricting it much, I want to allow the player to feel like the one thing they have control of in this game is where they go/how they get there. After focusing on the key movements such as walking forward, back, left, and right ill then add in the mechanics to crawl, jump, and possible lean side to side, it gives the player even more options to approach situations. I’ve found plenty of tutorials for basic player movement and found some helpful ones like a tutorial for crawling found here or this helpful tutorial for making the player lean side to side here. When it comes to the creature/horror element that follows the player, I plan on making it so the creature can only follow/attack when it has a line of sight of the player, the player will have to hide or run away in time to lose the creature again. Tutorials for this can be found here.

Audio synced with the Atmosphere/interactions

Personally, this game machinic is what scares me the most when it comes to horror games, those cheeky jump scares that make you shit yourself, doors slamming closed or windows breaking, anything works no matter if the player expects it to happen it will scare them especially if it’s done right, and it's not a forced scare. One audio-related mechanic, I would really like to implement would be when the creature is nearing the player or is chasing the player the player's heartbeat/breathing becomes load and heavy it acts as a warning for the player but also makes the whole ordeal a lot more dramatic and scary. Interact actions with certain objects/game features should allow for music to build or die down such as if the players being chased music should build-up or if the player just hid from the creature then music should die down allowing the player to know they succeed in getting away. I’ve researched some ways to achieve jump scares in audio or visuals with the help of trigger or timer in unity here.

Puzzles and challenges

Puzzles are of course going to be a big feature within the game and I need to make sure they are both enjoyable while being challenging for players, they cant take up too much of the players time or at least the player shouldn’t even notice he did a puzzle. I have two ideas for the long term puzzles which some people might not even consider being a puzzle, the first the idea involves a flashlight that the player will start with in the level, during the level the player will have to track down and find batteries for their flashlight, now personally id rather there be no HUD within the game which means nothing showing the player the battery life of stuff, I thought instead of that, I could have the battery lose power over a set length of time meaning the player will be able to visually see the battery getting weaker. My second long term puzzle/challenge would be related to a camera that has night vision on it, the player would once again have to go around finding batteries for the camera, now the camera will have a longer life span than the flashlight and also better the distance while having a HUD when equipped. The camera might not be used by most players as let’s be honest it's terrifying so maybe I could implement it more into the game with solving a puzzle such as you need to take a photo of the creature or a recording.

I have more puzzles that the player has to solve which aren’t as long, I don’t want to continuously annoy the player with puzzles as the objective to just survive alone is hard so these puzzles are as complicated but being solved is a must. The first puzzle I want to implement is a decrypting a code for a door which the player needs to open if they wish to continue progressing, now I wouldn’t make the decryption anything crazy I could do it so the player finds a piece of paper which at first is just a bunch of random letters such as E.H.D.R.F but later on in another room, you find a piece of paper which show the alphabet but each letter has a number corresponding to it so therefore you take the letters and replace them with numbers it would turn from E.H.D.R.F to 5.8.4.18.6. The numbers are a keycode needed for opening a door. I could do other puzzles instead of this such as if I just placed the numbers on random pieces of paper and placed them in rooms the player could collect them and enter them that way. The finale puzzle id place in my game would be the way the player ends the game, they will need to track down certain items within the level that are needed for killing off the creature that’s trying to kill them. I figured I could make use of the camera here by making it so when the player looks through it those items that they need to find can be seen and ill allow the player to take a picture or record those items as to capture them. Once the items or photos depending on which Idea, I got with are placed down on the ritual design the game will finish with the creature being defeated. I found a lot of tutorials on how to make a keypad for a door or safe in unity here. Also found two useful tutorials for night vision and plenty for flashlights here and here.

I have so many more mechanics that I can think of adding into my game but I don’t want to overload the player and even myself, I have to remember that this is my first ever time making my own game and all I have to help me is the internet, I’m no coding genius so I need to be realistic with my game and what I can actually achieve within the time I have.