This is going to be a quick post just to advertise something. A small group of friends and I are working on a game with XNA Studios, and we plan to release it on the XBox360's Indie Game marketplace sometime after winter break, depending on what roadblocks we hit along the way. This post is going to serve two purposes: One, to kind of explain what we're going to be going for with the game, and Two: to look for some extra helping hands.
First of all, the game. It doesn't even have a title yet--which is why this post is going to be short, but there will be longer updates once we make progress--but the general consensus between myself, Alex (the programmer), and Jess (the potential designer) is to make a game that satirizes the survival horror genre. Your character wakes up inside of a large house--possibly a mansion--with no recollection as to how he got there. He must use his sharp wits, ingenuity, and survival skills to unravel the mystery of how he got there and how he's going to get out alive. He will also need to be good at finding really obscure puzzle solutions.
An idea we've been throwing around is to make each "level" randomized, to make the game a somewhat different experience each time you play it and to make keys and such appear in different places. If we can figure a way to make a coding work, we'll do it. Otherwise, it'll probably be linear, and you'll have to defend yourself against hordes of monsters. We're looking at a 2-D platformer game, but that's uncertain as well. We don't plan to start production until mid-December.
Secondly, the call for help. I'm mostly going to be handling level design and story-writing. Jess will design the characters and the actual graphics. Alex will be writing the code, and I will attempt to help him with that with my somewhat slim coding knowledge. We are basically looking for anyone who can help with design and drawing sprite-sheets, etc. We are also looking for someone to do music. You should be able to make ambient tunes, preferably. Finally, the more coders the better. Any other help would be greatly appreciated, and hey--there's even potential profit! The more people we have working on the game, the less chance of that, but XBox Indie Games sell for at least 1 dollar (which is all I plan to charge for it). With any luck, we could pull in some chump change at least, and if we even only make $1 profit each, it would serve as inspiration to try harder next time.
So, yeah, that's all I've got for now. Again, any of you out there willing to lend a hand, we'll gladly accept. Expect a legit post sometime in the near future, readers! (all two of you)
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
On Difficulty in Games, or How I Fought an Old Man and Lost
Amongst the crowd that consider themselves to be "hardcore gamers," a complaint with games is that some of them aren't hard enough. There are others who cater to the "games should totally be easy because I am functionally four-years-old and hate my life" crowd and beg for easy games. As a result, developers have struggled to build games that use the good old fashioned "difficulty curve": a video game that starts out easy to show you the ropes, then progressively gets harder as you go along. This is a good system. The best system, in fact.
See, many developers think that the best solution to this problem is to simply create difficulty levels. The problem with this is that I still don't know how hard your game is going to be. I have my XBox 360 set to default on "hard mode" in menus like this, because I typically enjoy a challenge, but some games translate "hard mode" as "horribly mangle your body and then throw the remains into a wood-chipper filled with fire and grenades," so I never know for sure what difficulty to pick.
I will say this, though: I hate games that simply boost the attack power of enemies, add the total number of enemies, throw late-game enemies into the beginning and call it a day. To those of you who have beaten every God of War game on God mode, I salute you; you are a better man than me (though I did beat the first DMC on Dante Must Die because I was a masochistic child), because to sit there and have the time to dodge roll after every single light attack and defeat bosses that require something like 50,000 hits to kill is something only someone with a very limited social life can do.
Okay, that's a little harsh, and I apologize. I know what it's like to strive for an extreme challenge, so that you can feel superior to the names on the credits as they scroll along the screen. But this isn't what difficulty used to be about. Difficulty used to mean challenging puzzles, different level designs, etc. I understand that, in this day and age, it takes a lot of time to change a level around, but at least changing the game up a little bit so that replaying on the harder difficulties feels a bit less like homework would do a lot of good.
Let me give an example. One of the very first games I ever played was the original Legend of Zelda on the NES. It was quite a huge step for me, as I had only ever played games that involved teaching me math before, and here was a game that had a story (albeit a horribly translated one, but I was five, what did I care?) and the ability to fight things. Cool! In this game, you are completely left on your own. There's no obnoxious fairy telling you where to go at all times. There's no ocarina that lets you contact your random Peter Pan best friend to give you advice. It's just you, your sword (that you actually have to find on your own), and an entire world to explore. It was incredible, and it truly felt like an 8-bit, top-down-view adventure.
Anyway, you all know what Zelda is so I won't go too deeply into this. I will say that I never beat the game until sometime last year. Like I said, the game is quite difficult, and finding the dungeons is about 70% of said difficulty. To clarify, this is the order I beat the dungeons in (they are numbered to tell you): 1, 4, 3, 5, 2, 6, 7, 8. Beating dungeon 4 with 4 hearts was NOT fun, in case you're wondering.
But here's why I brought this game up: once you beat the game, it restarts--like most NES games did--and puts you right back at the beginning with nothing. I was proud of myself for finally defeating the game, so I figured I'd dick around a little. I grabbed my sword, killed some of the local wildlife and ventured into the first temple. Now, what the game ever-so-gingerly neglects to inform you is that you are now playing on 2nd Quest Mode. In this mode, not only are the enemies tougher to kill and hit harder, but the dungeons are completely different. Ocarina of Time's Master Quest was a sort of nod to this mode: a version of the game with more difficult puzzles and enemies that hurt so bad you cry when they so much as look at you.
What followed was one of the most horrible things I have ever put myself through. I found myself attempting to trudge through every dungeon again. Why not?, I figured, I beat the fourth temple with four hearts, I can handle god damn anything. This also brings up another thing I miss in games: middle fingers dug deeply into your skull from the developers. Case in point, the room that caused me to quit 2nd Quest Mode and never look back:
This is something I need to get out, so let me just say: SCREW NINTENDO AND EVERYTHING THEY STAND FOR FOR THIS. The first time you encounter this prick is in the fourth temple. See, every temple has one of these nice little old men that give you hints on how to find and defeat the boss of the temple. Now, a few times I had encountered one and they forced me to do horrible things, but nothing like this. Let me explain a little: in the original Zelda, acquiring 50 rupees was actually somewhat difficult, and dying caused you to lose all of your riches. And you died a lot (yes you did, don't try to tell me you're some kind of Zelda master, the game was HARD and everyone will laugh at you for doing so). Note, also, that that is not simply "lose one hit point or gimme your money lol." What he has on display there is a Heart Container, a beautiful, wonderful device that permanently increases your max health. When I entered this room I had 20 rupees, and was forced to leave behind one of my precious, hard-earned heart containers.
Later, in the 5th temple--a temple that I was having trouble with and truly wishing I had an extra heart of health--I ran into him again. I calmly put down the Wii's Classic Controller, shut the machine off, and cried softly for three hours. This is something that Dante Must Die mode simply cannot make a player do: it breaks you. It makes you question your belief in God. It makes you wish you could punch developers in the face. And I seriously miss the feeling.
This is what difficulty should be: throwing horrible tricks at you and making you regret ever daring to trust the game developers for a second. After all, they have the power to do anything. If they so desire, they can kill you simply for looking at a wall the wrong way. You should fear every level the developer designs. I also miss tougher puzzles. The Silent Hill series used to ask for two difficulty settings: Action (monsters hit harder, etc) and Riddle, which determined how hard the puzzles were to solve in case you were terrible at the badly-designed combat but wanted to be able to tell people you beat hard mode. Puzzles in survival horror games are difficult enough, but conquering Riddle Level Extreme was something that boosted my pride to the extent that I felt like I could run around outside naked and get praised for my awesomeness. Not that I did that, or encourage it. In fact, never ever do anything like that.Even Especially if you are drunk.
See, many developers think that the best solution to this problem is to simply create difficulty levels. The problem with this is that I still don't know how hard your game is going to be. I have my XBox 360 set to default on "hard mode" in menus like this, because I typically enjoy a challenge, but some games translate "hard mode" as "horribly mangle your body and then throw the remains into a wood-chipper filled with fire and grenades," so I never know for sure what difficulty to pick.
I will say this, though: I hate games that simply boost the attack power of enemies, add the total number of enemies, throw late-game enemies into the beginning and call it a day. To those of you who have beaten every God of War game on God mode, I salute you; you are a better man than me (though I did beat the first DMC on Dante Must Die because I was a masochistic child), because to sit there and have the time to dodge roll after every single light attack and defeat bosses that require something like 50,000 hits to kill is something only someone with a very limited social life can do.
Okay, that's a little harsh, and I apologize. I know what it's like to strive for an extreme challenge, so that you can feel superior to the names on the credits as they scroll along the screen. But this isn't what difficulty used to be about. Difficulty used to mean challenging puzzles, different level designs, etc. I understand that, in this day and age, it takes a lot of time to change a level around, but at least changing the game up a little bit so that replaying on the harder difficulties feels a bit less like homework would do a lot of good.
Let me give an example. One of the very first games I ever played was the original Legend of Zelda on the NES. It was quite a huge step for me, as I had only ever played games that involved teaching me math before, and here was a game that had a story (albeit a horribly translated one, but I was five, what did I care?) and the ability to fight things. Cool! In this game, you are completely left on your own. There's no obnoxious fairy telling you where to go at all times. There's no ocarina that lets you contact your random Peter Pan best friend to give you advice. It's just you, your sword (that you actually have to find on your own), and an entire world to explore. It was incredible, and it truly felt like an 8-bit, top-down-view adventure.
Anyway, you all know what Zelda is so I won't go too deeply into this. I will say that I never beat the game until sometime last year. Like I said, the game is quite difficult, and finding the dungeons is about 70% of said difficulty. To clarify, this is the order I beat the dungeons in (they are numbered to tell you): 1, 4, 3, 5, 2, 6, 7, 8. Beating dungeon 4 with 4 hearts was NOT fun, in case you're wondering.
But here's why I brought this game up: once you beat the game, it restarts--like most NES games did--and puts you right back at the beginning with nothing. I was proud of myself for finally defeating the game, so I figured I'd dick around a little. I grabbed my sword, killed some of the local wildlife and ventured into the first temple. Now, what the game ever-so-gingerly neglects to inform you is that you are now playing on 2nd Quest Mode. In this mode, not only are the enemies tougher to kill and hit harder, but the dungeons are completely different. Ocarina of Time's Master Quest was a sort of nod to this mode: a version of the game with more difficult puzzles and enemies that hurt so bad you cry when they so much as look at you.
What followed was one of the most horrible things I have ever put myself through. I found myself attempting to trudge through every dungeon again. Why not?, I figured, I beat the fourth temple with four hearts, I can handle god damn anything. This also brings up another thing I miss in games: middle fingers dug deeply into your skull from the developers. Case in point, the room that caused me to quit 2nd Quest Mode and never look back:
Later, in the 5th temple--a temple that I was having trouble with and truly wishing I had an extra heart of health--I ran into him again. I calmly put down the Wii's Classic Controller, shut the machine off, and cried softly for three hours. This is something that Dante Must Die mode simply cannot make a player do: it breaks you. It makes you question your belief in God. It makes you wish you could punch developers in the face. And I seriously miss the feeling.
This is what difficulty should be: throwing horrible tricks at you and making you regret ever daring to trust the game developers for a second. After all, they have the power to do anything. If they so desire, they can kill you simply for looking at a wall the wrong way. You should fear every level the developer designs. I also miss tougher puzzles. The Silent Hill series used to ask for two difficulty settings: Action (monsters hit harder, etc) and Riddle, which determined how hard the puzzles were to solve in case you were terrible at the badly-designed combat but wanted to be able to tell people you beat hard mode. Puzzles in survival horror games are difficult enough, but conquering Riddle Level Extreme was something that boosted my pride to the extent that I felt like I could run around outside naked and get praised for my awesomeness. Not that I did that, or encourage it. In fact, never ever do anything like that.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Zombies: Creepy Adversaries, or Roadblocks in Video Games?
One of the most common enemies you face in video games are zombies. In the recent years, zombies have risen in popularity quite a bit (that was a pun, by the way. Hurrr). And why not? They are the ultimate enemy. They lack emotion. They have no purpose, no will. They exist only to eat your brains and move on to the next living thing. This, apart from the fact that they can look like normal people, is what makes them so scary: their seemingly relentless desire to feed, no matter what the cost. If you chop off a zombie's legs, he'll just use his hands to get to you.
Left 4 Dead, a video game released by Valve a few years ago, was one of the first--and only--video games to truly capture the zombie "feel." While games like Resident Evil had you fight countless hordes of the undead, they felt more like obstacles than enemies, especially considering the large, mutated beasts you faced as bosses. Left 4 Dead took a concept and, playing it as a B-list horror movie that absolutely refuses to take itself seriously, somehow makes it work. While the game can be taken very lightly, there is a small level of tension as you plow your way through the levels in an attempt to get to rescue. The zombies can appear at any time, and sometimes they bring nasty, extra-mutated friends that require a team effort to bring down. This is how a zombie game should play out: a brutal fight for survival.
Apart from cheesy movies and video games, people play live action zombie-based games. At Kutztown University, PA, students engage in a semester-long game called Humans vs. Zombies, where the humans carry around Nerf guns to protect themselves from the "undead." If you get "bitten," you become a zombie yourself and must feed off of humans to survive. The game ends when every player becomes a zombie, or when the semester ends.
But why have zombies become so popular? What exactly is it about them that makes them so appealing? If you look at recent media, zombies have become less terrifying and more of a sort of in-joke in movies. In games, they serve as simple enemies. What better way to "scare" the player than throw a rotting corpse at them? But it rarely seems to work in games, and some developers seem to throw zombies in games just because they can. After all, nerds love them, right? Liking zombies is fine, but the problem with this is that developers will just throw a zombie on the cover of their game and expect it to sell. And sometimes, it does.
After Left 4 Dead came out, a lot of companies tried to get their hands on the Undead Cash Cow, and thus, games like Plants vs. Zombies, I MAED A GAM3 W/ ZOMBI3S IN IT!!1 (this is actually how it's spelled) and other games have surfaced on XBox Live and Steam. Konami has released a game for download called Zombie Apocalypse that is essentially a top-down Left 4 Dead, only... well, boring. Call of Duty: World at War featured a game mode where you had to fight zombies, and now games like Halo: Reach have followed suit with this. Zombie games are fun, and they bring in the money.
It seems that zombies are second only to vampires in terms of mythological horror creatures that can be used for profit. This is not necessarily a bad thing though. As I mentioned before, zombies have become a sort of in-joke in media. Video games seem to have created the notion that there is a level of fun to hunting them down, and there are movies that parody this. It has become increasingly rare that a zombie movie, or game, comes out that even tries to be scary or realistic, because it's so hard to take them seriously anymore. It's not impossible, though. Don't get me wrong, Zombieland was a terrific movie, but I'd like to see some more movies in the vein of 28 Days Later. You know what I mean?
There are developers out there, though, that are doing more than just slapping zombie skins on games and calling it a day. Undead Labs, a new studio created by Jeff Strain (an ex-programmer for Blizzard that worked on StarCraft and formed the development team for World of Warcraft) and other big names, is devoted to creating the ultimate zombie gaming experience with a zombie-based MMO. The game will have a big emphasis on those decisions you think about while watching zombie movies. Do you run into the gas station and search for weapons, or head to the grocery store for food and possible shelter? The game will focus on the survival instinct. Yes, you'll need bullets, but you'll also need food and water. Maybe you can go north in hopes of freezing the horde in it's tracks? The game has no release date yet--indeed, it doesn't even have a name--but it will be a console exclusive MMO, and takes place after the zombie apocalypse has ravaged the country.
Ever since Night of the Living Dead came out, zombies have been a huge hit with movies and games. There are even books out there dedicated to teaching you how to survive once the zombie apocalypse starts (which is so inevitably will). They're creepy, they're fun to kill, and they're hungry. So yes, like it or not, zombies are here to stay. They have been a staple of the gaming world since the NES days, and gamers will always get a kick out of killing them. Whether it be with a shotgun, a lawnmower, or a chainsaw. Or even, in some bizarre cases, with ravenous plant life.
Left 4 Dead, a video game released by Valve a few years ago, was one of the first--and only--video games to truly capture the zombie "feel." While games like Resident Evil had you fight countless hordes of the undead, they felt more like obstacles than enemies, especially considering the large, mutated beasts you faced as bosses. Left 4 Dead took a concept and, playing it as a B-list horror movie that absolutely refuses to take itself seriously, somehow makes it work. While the game can be taken very lightly, there is a small level of tension as you plow your way through the levels in an attempt to get to rescue. The zombies can appear at any time, and sometimes they bring nasty, extra-mutated friends that require a team effort to bring down. This is how a zombie game should play out: a brutal fight for survival.
Apart from cheesy movies and video games, people play live action zombie-based games. At Kutztown University, PA, students engage in a semester-long game called Humans vs. Zombies, where the humans carry around Nerf guns to protect themselves from the "undead." If you get "bitten," you become a zombie yourself and must feed off of humans to survive. The game ends when every player becomes a zombie, or when the semester ends.
But why have zombies become so popular? What exactly is it about them that makes them so appealing? If you look at recent media, zombies have become less terrifying and more of a sort of in-joke in movies. In games, they serve as simple enemies. What better way to "scare" the player than throw a rotting corpse at them? But it rarely seems to work in games, and some developers seem to throw zombies in games just because they can. After all, nerds love them, right? Liking zombies is fine, but the problem with this is that developers will just throw a zombie on the cover of their game and expect it to sell. And sometimes, it does.
After Left 4 Dead came out, a lot of companies tried to get their hands on the Undead Cash Cow, and thus, games like Plants vs. Zombies, I MAED A GAM3 W/ ZOMBI3S IN IT!!1 (this is actually how it's spelled) and other games have surfaced on XBox Live and Steam. Konami has released a game for download called Zombie Apocalypse that is essentially a top-down Left 4 Dead, only... well, boring. Call of Duty: World at War featured a game mode where you had to fight zombies, and now games like Halo: Reach have followed suit with this. Zombie games are fun, and they bring in the money.
It seems that zombies are second only to vampires in terms of mythological horror creatures that can be used for profit. This is not necessarily a bad thing though. As I mentioned before, zombies have become a sort of in-joke in media. Video games seem to have created the notion that there is a level of fun to hunting them down, and there are movies that parody this. It has become increasingly rare that a zombie movie, or game, comes out that even tries to be scary or realistic, because it's so hard to take them seriously anymore. It's not impossible, though. Don't get me wrong, Zombieland was a terrific movie, but I'd like to see some more movies in the vein of 28 Days Later. You know what I mean?
There are developers out there, though, that are doing more than just slapping zombie skins on games and calling it a day. Undead Labs, a new studio created by Jeff Strain (an ex-programmer for Blizzard that worked on StarCraft and formed the development team for World of Warcraft) and other big names, is devoted to creating the ultimate zombie gaming experience with a zombie-based MMO. The game will have a big emphasis on those decisions you think about while watching zombie movies. Do you run into the gas station and search for weapons, or head to the grocery store for food and possible shelter? The game will focus on the survival instinct. Yes, you'll need bullets, but you'll also need food and water. Maybe you can go north in hopes of freezing the horde in it's tracks? The game has no release date yet--indeed, it doesn't even have a name--but it will be a console exclusive MMO, and takes place after the zombie apocalypse has ravaged the country.
Ever since Night of the Living Dead came out, zombies have been a huge hit with movies and games. There are even books out there dedicated to teaching you how to survive once the zombie apocalypse starts (which is so inevitably will). They're creepy, they're fun to kill, and they're hungry. So yes, like it or not, zombies are here to stay. They have been a staple of the gaming world since the NES days, and gamers will always get a kick out of killing them. Whether it be with a shotgun, a lawnmower, or a chainsaw. Or even, in some bizarre cases, with ravenous plant life.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Forgetting Your Boomstick at Home: Horror Games Without Weapons
A popular trend that has been rising in popularity lately is horror games without weapons. The concept is simple: a lot of horror games have too much of a focus on shooting and killing, so why not remove that entirely? It’s effective—certainly in games like Amnesia—but unnecessary. Yes, you run from monsters in your nightmares, but don’t you sometimes at least pick something up to try to beat them away?
I feel that running from my enemies is a bit unrealistic when there are so many objects around me that I could use to defend myself. Hell, in Silent Hill: Shattered Memories you even get a knife as a collectible item. You mean to tell me that Harry Mason is so much of a pansy that he never thought to, you know, swing that knife at the abominations chasing him down? He could at least stab at their faces when they latch on to him.
Clock Tower was one of the first games to use this method. Back in the day, action games without weapons were unheard of. You played games to fight things. Clock Tower changed all of that. They said, “No, you can’t fight these ghosts. They’re going to kill you if you try. So you’d better get moving, chief.” It was a pleasant surprise. One of the newer games to do this is Shattered Memories. Hey, Silent Hill had horrible combat anyway, so why not get rid of it? Genius.
If you read my Silent Hill: Shattered Memories review, you know that I felt the game fell flat on a lot of things. See, one thing that Shattered Memories does wrong is that the enemies do virtually no damage to you. It takes more than 10-15 hits to actually be killed, whereas most games will have you dead the instant you’re caught. It adds an extra level of fear knowing that the monsters chasing you will off you in seconds.
But the removal of weapons isn’t necessary to make a game scary. The weapons themselves don’t take the fear out of the monsters; it’s how you design the game. The absolute best kind of horror game is the kind that gives you all the weapons you can ask for—everything from pistols to rocket launchers to lasers that make things explode the instant they hit—and yet still has monsters clever enough to get to you, still scares the hell out of you and makes you dread every encounter. Even with all of that firepower in your hands you’re hopeless, and that’s a truly incredible feeling, isn’t it? I understand that creating AI for video games is incredibly taxing, but if you can do it, you should. It’s been done before.
When Climax was working on Shattered Memories, they claimed that Survival Horror has lost all of its flair because the games now center on action. This is why they removed the weapons—you were used to using them, so without them you felt naked. But then the monsters were still of the stupid, weak, and pitiful variety that makes those other games so boring in the first place. So yes, that’s the point I’m laboriously trying to get to: the problem isn’t with the weapons, it’s with the monsters.
I know I pick on Dead Space a lot, but I couldn’t help but laugh to myself when I read an article in Game Informer promoting Dead Space 2. In it, the creator of the game stated that he wanted to tone down the scariness in the second game because people said the first game was too scary, and that it detracted from the story of the game. So now Dead Space 2 is going to be even less “scary” than its predecessor. How much more sluggish can those monsters really be? Are the well-lit rooms now going to be constant instead of the occasional, actually freaky dark rooms? I’m sure you’ll get to keep all of those shiny, one-shot weapons too. The worst part of it is the fact that I’ll still give them my money to play the game.
But! I will say this: at least the monsters in Dead Space weren’t stupid. Sure, they often spawned across the room and left you with plenty of time to shoot at them until they were dead, but they also came out of the floors and did a hefty amount of damage to you. While playing the game, if you got too close to a monster you knew you were going to get hurt. There was no, “Oh, ow, you slashed me with a claw the size of a small car, that kinda hurt, man.” Dead Space failed on a lot of levels, but it got the monsters right in that regard.
I already talked about Amnesia, so let’s talk a bit about Frictional’s other game: Penumbra. Penumbra had a very… uhm… different weapon system. It uses the same physics engine as Amnesia, with the added bonus that you could pick up sharp things and swing them around like a weapon. Doing this involved moving the mouse almost like a Wii remote to make the swinging action. It was incredibly clumsy, but it did the job. If you wanted something dead, that is. This, to me, is the most realistic setting, because you get a slew of melee weapons that you just pick up off the ground.
The most frantic combat in horror games is the kind that forces you to get up close and personal with the enemy. Doing so can—and should—often result in damage or even death, so it’s a risk you need to calculate before moving in to engage. Fight or flight is the most basic form of defense, and in games where melee weapons run supreme, it is a constant feeling. You see a door down the hallway, and you know that something very important is in that door. Unfortunately, something appears to be standing between you and it. It is moving, though—maybe it’ll turn around and walk past the door and you can try to run for it? Or maybe you should just run and take it out from behind? Better hope it doesn’t hear you.
These are the decisions that make a good horror game, I think. As opposed to weapon-less horror games, where the decision is obvious: you sit there and wait, or you run at the door and see what happens. I mean, is it really so much to ask to at least have a sort of shove move? Or a dodge move of some kind? I don’t expect to be able to roll out of the way, but are these characters really incapable of doing a side step or something? Or at least a juke to try to fake out the monsters? If it were more realistic I’d be kinder to games like this, but for now I find the fight or flight response to be a more effective horror experience.
Of course, horror games are still in an experimental stage. It’s fun to try and think of new ways to scare the hell out of players. As long as the ideas stay fresh, I’ll always keep playing. In fact, even if they don’t stay fresh I’ll keep playing. Why change something that already works, right? I just hope that the horror games that aren’t so good are something that can be used as an example of where things go wrong. Dead Space 2 should work to improve on where the first game lacked, not produce more of the same and tone it down even more. And please, developers, if you’re going to make a game that focuses on being able to kill hundreds of zombies with a single shotgun blast, market it as Action instead of Horror, okay? Thanks.
I feel that running from my enemies is a bit unrealistic when there are so many objects around me that I could use to defend myself. Hell, in Silent Hill: Shattered Memories you even get a knife as a collectible item. You mean to tell me that Harry Mason is so much of a pansy that he never thought to, you know, swing that knife at the abominations chasing him down? He could at least stab at their faces when they latch on to him.
Clock Tower was one of the first games to use this method. Back in the day, action games without weapons were unheard of. You played games to fight things. Clock Tower changed all of that. They said, “No, you can’t fight these ghosts. They’re going to kill you if you try. So you’d better get moving, chief.” It was a pleasant surprise. One of the newer games to do this is Shattered Memories. Hey, Silent Hill had horrible combat anyway, so why not get rid of it? Genius.
If you read my Silent Hill: Shattered Memories review, you know that I felt the game fell flat on a lot of things. See, one thing that Shattered Memories does wrong is that the enemies do virtually no damage to you. It takes more than 10-15 hits to actually be killed, whereas most games will have you dead the instant you’re caught. It adds an extra level of fear knowing that the monsters chasing you will off you in seconds.
But the removal of weapons isn’t necessary to make a game scary. The weapons themselves don’t take the fear out of the monsters; it’s how you design the game. The absolute best kind of horror game is the kind that gives you all the weapons you can ask for—everything from pistols to rocket launchers to lasers that make things explode the instant they hit—and yet still has monsters clever enough to get to you, still scares the hell out of you and makes you dread every encounter. Even with all of that firepower in your hands you’re hopeless, and that’s a truly incredible feeling, isn’t it? I understand that creating AI for video games is incredibly taxing, but if you can do it, you should. It’s been done before.
When Climax was working on Shattered Memories, they claimed that Survival Horror has lost all of its flair because the games now center on action. This is why they removed the weapons—you were used to using them, so without them you felt naked. But then the monsters were still of the stupid, weak, and pitiful variety that makes those other games so boring in the first place. So yes, that’s the point I’m laboriously trying to get to: the problem isn’t with the weapons, it’s with the monsters.
I know I pick on Dead Space a lot, but I couldn’t help but laugh to myself when I read an article in Game Informer promoting Dead Space 2. In it, the creator of the game stated that he wanted to tone down the scariness in the second game because people said the first game was too scary, and that it detracted from the story of the game. So now Dead Space 2 is going to be even less “scary” than its predecessor. How much more sluggish can those monsters really be? Are the well-lit rooms now going to be constant instead of the occasional, actually freaky dark rooms? I’m sure you’ll get to keep all of those shiny, one-shot weapons too. The worst part of it is the fact that I’ll still give them my money to play the game.
But! I will say this: at least the monsters in Dead Space weren’t stupid. Sure, they often spawned across the room and left you with plenty of time to shoot at them until they were dead, but they also came out of the floors and did a hefty amount of damage to you. While playing the game, if you got too close to a monster you knew you were going to get hurt. There was no, “Oh, ow, you slashed me with a claw the size of a small car, that kinda hurt, man.” Dead Space failed on a lot of levels, but it got the monsters right in that regard.
I already talked about Amnesia, so let’s talk a bit about Frictional’s other game: Penumbra. Penumbra had a very… uhm… different weapon system. It uses the same physics engine as Amnesia, with the added bonus that you could pick up sharp things and swing them around like a weapon. Doing this involved moving the mouse almost like a Wii remote to make the swinging action. It was incredibly clumsy, but it did the job. If you wanted something dead, that is. This, to me, is the most realistic setting, because you get a slew of melee weapons that you just pick up off the ground.
The most frantic combat in horror games is the kind that forces you to get up close and personal with the enemy. Doing so can—and should—often result in damage or even death, so it’s a risk you need to calculate before moving in to engage. Fight or flight is the most basic form of defense, and in games where melee weapons run supreme, it is a constant feeling. You see a door down the hallway, and you know that something very important is in that door. Unfortunately, something appears to be standing between you and it. It is moving, though—maybe it’ll turn around and walk past the door and you can try to run for it? Or maybe you should just run and take it out from behind? Better hope it doesn’t hear you.
These are the decisions that make a good horror game, I think. As opposed to weapon-less horror games, where the decision is obvious: you sit there and wait, or you run at the door and see what happens. I mean, is it really so much to ask to at least have a sort of shove move? Or a dodge move of some kind? I don’t expect to be able to roll out of the way, but are these characters really incapable of doing a side step or something? Or at least a juke to try to fake out the monsters? If it were more realistic I’d be kinder to games like this, but for now I find the fight or flight response to be a more effective horror experience.
Of course, horror games are still in an experimental stage. It’s fun to try and think of new ways to scare the hell out of players. As long as the ideas stay fresh, I’ll always keep playing. In fact, even if they don’t stay fresh I’ll keep playing. Why change something that already works, right? I just hope that the horror games that aren’t so good are something that can be used as an example of where things go wrong. Dead Space 2 should work to improve on where the first game lacked, not produce more of the same and tone it down even more. And please, developers, if you’re going to make a game that focuses on being able to kill hundreds of zombies with a single shotgun blast, market it as Action instead of Horror, okay? Thanks.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Some Ways to Make a Good Horror Game
I've been playing through Amnesia: The Dark Descent, the newest psychological horror first-person adventure game by Frictional Games (Penumbra), and it got me thinking about how a good horror game is made. I've not finished the game yet, but I can tell you without a doubt that it is the scariest game I have played in almost five years. So what exactly is it about Amnesia that games like Dead Space or Silent Hill: Homecoming don't have? What does it do that works so well?
Frictional also did a decent job with their previous title, Penumbra, which plays similarly to Amnesia with one exception: they give you weapons in that game. Without weapons, Amnesia feels like a nightmare. All you can do to survive is run and hide like a five-year-old who thought he saw the boogeyman in his closet. And even hiding won't save you--the monsters are smart, and they'll hunt you down relentlessly.
The game utilizes a physics engine that I think works really well. You look around with the mouse, but you can also interact with virtually anything. You can pick up objects and throw them; indeed, sometimes you HAVE to throw them out of your way so you can keep running. You can also push objects in front of doors to try to bar enemies from coming (not that it will stop them for long, but a little breathing room is always good, right?), and you also use this engine to open and close doors, peek around corners, etc. Oh, and if you think you're going to be clever and throw a chair at an enemy in an attempt to hurt it or slow it down... don't. Just trust me on this.
But one thing that really sets Amnesia apart from most modern horror games is this: subtlety. For the first half hour to an hour or so of the game I didn't see a single monster. In fact, I was actually pretty bored. I was walking around a dark house, throwing chairs about because hey why not, and watching as windows closed on their own or doors blew open and closed in the wind. It was so riddled with cliche and I was shocked, because I really liked Penumbra and couldn't believe this was made by the same people. I expected the monsters to be dull or unoriginal when I got to them. How wrong I was.
The first time I saw a monster--I don't know if this is scripted or if I was just unlucky--I saw it at the corner of my character's eye, running off down a hallway. I literally gasped out loud and looked down the hall, only to find nothing there. I stood there for a moment, debating what to do next. Curiosity killed the cat, as they say. So onward I went, chasing after it, following it into the room it had fled into. It was gone. "Okay," I thought, "Whatever. Maybe I didn't actually see anything after all. Touche, Frictional. Touche." I turned around to leave the room, thinking I might go back downstairs and throw some more furniture around, and there it was, this dark monstrosity. I didn't get a very good look at it because it immediately scrambled after me. I panicked, turned around, ran toward the wall, cornered myself, and was killed in seconds. SECONDS. The monsters in this game do not screw around. If you get caught, you're done. If you try to get a good look at them, you're done. If you stop for too long to try to decide where to run, you're done. Plain and simple; they hurt like hell. You need to MOVE.
See, this kind of horror is effective because it obeys one of the biggest rules of horror: leave it up to the mind. A monster stays scary as long as you can't see what it looks like. The best way to mess with somebody is to let their heads to the talking. In Dead Space, you can see monsters coming at you from across the room and can calmly lift your one-hit-kill-machine and blow it away. This makes them less scary the more you see them.
Monsters don't need to be horrible, monstrous sins against nature to scare you; they need to be concealed, clever, dark. They need to hide in wait in the shadows, constantly making you question your surroundings. Is there something behind me? I don't know, but I don't want to find out. I'm just going to keep on walking. I didn't hear any sounds. There's nothing there. Just walk. Go.
This is the best way to make a horror game because it really tries to force the player to do things they don't want to do. Doom 3 follows the darkness rule pretty well (too well, in fact--I just refuse to believe that future space marines don't have the technology to tape a flashlight to their guns or something), but you can easily down any creature that comes your way. It scares you, but it doesn't dig into your mind and truly terrify you the way games like Amnesia or Silent Hill 2 do. In Doom, if the monster is there, you know it. In Amnesia, you think the monster could possibly be there, you heard a noise, but you'll go check it out, see nothing, and immediately become paranoid about every little movement you see. It's brilliant, it keeps you on your toes, but most of all it scares you.
Another topic: the music. Games like Dead Space or Doom 3 often use musical cues when monsters are near, with the ever popular violin strum as they appear or jump at you. This is an effective tactic in movies. It helps build up the suspense and put you on the edge of your seat. In games, this means that a monster is nearby, so ready your weapon and get ready to kill something. Or get ready to run if you're out of ammo. You know it's coming, and that puts you at ease. In games like Amnesia, you'll walk into a room, and a monster follows you. If you're careless you wouldn't even know it until your body is ripped to shreds by some Lovecraftian abomination. The music is there, but it's only meant to build the atmosphere and set the mood. This is effective because it's music that moves you, tells you that danger is constant. It doesn't just take a break because you need to run to the bathroom--the danger is constant, so be ready or else.
And finally, my favorite subject: the mindscrews. These are optional, of course, but are effective and a must for psychological games. See, you can mess with the characters all you want. But if you really want to creep people out, start messing with the player. The best example of this is in Eternal Darkness. The game employed a "Sanity Meter" (as does Amnesia) that effects how the game plays. The more your character sees monsters or stands around in the dark, the higher it gets. The higher it gets, the more the game messes with you. You'll walk into a room filled with monsters, you have no health, and oh God you're gonna die, but then they all disappear with a flash. In Silent Hill 2, you'll walk into a room and end up on the other side of the building somehow. Eternal Darkness also makes you think you've just erased your save file, or that your TV shut off. Things like this are designed to disorient the player, and if not overdone they can be really effective in blowing your mind.
Let me just close by saying that I don't hate Dead Space or Homecoming or any other game that I talked about. They're all decent games in their own right, they're just not very good horror games, based on my opinions described above. Everyone has their own tastes, though. If nothing else, I just really hope developers stop making action-oriented horror games. They almost never scare me, and if a game is marketed as a horror game then that's a big problem. I'm looking at you, Resident Evil 5...
Frictional also did a decent job with their previous title, Penumbra, which plays similarly to Amnesia with one exception: they give you weapons in that game. Without weapons, Amnesia feels like a nightmare. All you can do to survive is run and hide like a five-year-old who thought he saw the boogeyman in his closet. And even hiding won't save you--the monsters are smart, and they'll hunt you down relentlessly.
The game utilizes a physics engine that I think works really well. You look around with the mouse, but you can also interact with virtually anything. You can pick up objects and throw them; indeed, sometimes you HAVE to throw them out of your way so you can keep running. You can also push objects in front of doors to try to bar enemies from coming (not that it will stop them for long, but a little breathing room is always good, right?), and you also use this engine to open and close doors, peek around corners, etc. Oh, and if you think you're going to be clever and throw a chair at an enemy in an attempt to hurt it or slow it down... don't. Just trust me on this.
But one thing that really sets Amnesia apart from most modern horror games is this: subtlety. For the first half hour to an hour or so of the game I didn't see a single monster. In fact, I was actually pretty bored. I was walking around a dark house, throwing chairs about because hey why not, and watching as windows closed on their own or doors blew open and closed in the wind. It was so riddled with cliche and I was shocked, because I really liked Penumbra and couldn't believe this was made by the same people. I expected the monsters to be dull or unoriginal when I got to them. How wrong I was.
The first time I saw a monster--I don't know if this is scripted or if I was just unlucky--I saw it at the corner of my character's eye, running off down a hallway. I literally gasped out loud and looked down the hall, only to find nothing there. I stood there for a moment, debating what to do next. Curiosity killed the cat, as they say. So onward I went, chasing after it, following it into the room it had fled into. It was gone. "Okay," I thought, "Whatever. Maybe I didn't actually see anything after all. Touche, Frictional. Touche." I turned around to leave the room, thinking I might go back downstairs and throw some more furniture around, and there it was, this dark monstrosity. I didn't get a very good look at it because it immediately scrambled after me. I panicked, turned around, ran toward the wall, cornered myself, and was killed in seconds. SECONDS. The monsters in this game do not screw around. If you get caught, you're done. If you try to get a good look at them, you're done. If you stop for too long to try to decide where to run, you're done. Plain and simple; they hurt like hell. You need to MOVE.
See, this kind of horror is effective because it obeys one of the biggest rules of horror: leave it up to the mind. A monster stays scary as long as you can't see what it looks like. The best way to mess with somebody is to let their heads to the talking. In Dead Space, you can see monsters coming at you from across the room and can calmly lift your one-hit-kill-machine and blow it away. This makes them less scary the more you see them.
Monsters don't need to be horrible, monstrous sins against nature to scare you; they need to be concealed, clever, dark. They need to hide in wait in the shadows, constantly making you question your surroundings. Is there something behind me? I don't know, but I don't want to find out. I'm just going to keep on walking. I didn't hear any sounds. There's nothing there. Just walk. Go.
This is the best way to make a horror game because it really tries to force the player to do things they don't want to do. Doom 3 follows the darkness rule pretty well (too well, in fact--I just refuse to believe that future space marines don't have the technology to tape a flashlight to their guns or something), but you can easily down any creature that comes your way. It scares you, but it doesn't dig into your mind and truly terrify you the way games like Amnesia or Silent Hill 2 do. In Doom, if the monster is there, you know it. In Amnesia, you think the monster could possibly be there, you heard a noise, but you'll go check it out, see nothing, and immediately become paranoid about every little movement you see. It's brilliant, it keeps you on your toes, but most of all it scares you.
Another topic: the music. Games like Dead Space or Doom 3 often use musical cues when monsters are near, with the ever popular violin strum as they appear or jump at you. This is an effective tactic in movies. It helps build up the suspense and put you on the edge of your seat. In games, this means that a monster is nearby, so ready your weapon and get ready to kill something. Or get ready to run if you're out of ammo. You know it's coming, and that puts you at ease. In games like Amnesia, you'll walk into a room, and a monster follows you. If you're careless you wouldn't even know it until your body is ripped to shreds by some Lovecraftian abomination. The music is there, but it's only meant to build the atmosphere and set the mood. This is effective because it's music that moves you, tells you that danger is constant. It doesn't just take a break because you need to run to the bathroom--the danger is constant, so be ready or else.
And finally, my favorite subject: the mindscrews. These are optional, of course, but are effective and a must for psychological games. See, you can mess with the characters all you want. But if you really want to creep people out, start messing with the player. The best example of this is in Eternal Darkness. The game employed a "Sanity Meter" (as does Amnesia) that effects how the game plays. The more your character sees monsters or stands around in the dark, the higher it gets. The higher it gets, the more the game messes with you. You'll walk into a room filled with monsters, you have no health, and oh God you're gonna die, but then they all disappear with a flash. In Silent Hill 2, you'll walk into a room and end up on the other side of the building somehow. Eternal Darkness also makes you think you've just erased your save file, or that your TV shut off. Things like this are designed to disorient the player, and if not overdone they can be really effective in blowing your mind.
Let me just close by saying that I don't hate Dead Space or Homecoming or any other game that I talked about. They're all decent games in their own right, they're just not very good horror games, based on my opinions described above. Everyone has their own tastes, though. If nothing else, I just really hope developers stop making action-oriented horror games. They almost never scare me, and if a game is marketed as a horror game then that's a big problem. I'm looking at you, Resident Evil 5...
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