Bay 12 Games Forum

Maybe even better - it could let you play that "several years later". Anyone played Mafia?

... (you'd have to make it very, VERY, realistic) ...

I seriously doubt that. My recommendation would be to go with 2D simplification and if happy with the result then thinking about something 3D.

Imagination can do a lot and visuals are only a part of the atmosphere.

Ok ... quite a nice start describing the idea and the atmosphere. Basically it reminds me some things from Silent Hill and Alone in the Dark series. Especially Silent Hill 4.



My thoughts and things that would interest me more (I am sorry, I will be using "he" for a player, I am too used to czech grammar):

a) I see a big problem in finding a good way how to hold the player in mansion. Yo do not want to lock the doors but putting outside something that would kill the player is not a solution (haunted forrest filled with strongest enemies is this case). Ideally the player should fear leaving the house even more than staying inside, but I am not sure how to acomplish this. Also - if he cannot leave the mansion, how did he get there in the first place?

b) What is the goal of the game again? The player should not leave the mansion, will spend a lot of days there (according to the idea with full moon, etc) but every day he spends there, he is less and less motivated to stay because the situation in there gets worse and worse.

c) Putting the house in complete pitch black darkness may not be that good idea. The problem is that in darkness you can not see shadows. You want neutral Nasties, bad Nasties, evil Nasties and more. It would be hard to recognize them visualy. Also dying with terrible death in pitch dark is not that punishing as killing player terribly so he can see it. And the fleshlight is not the solution here since thing that could kill you fear the light.

d) Not sure if the player would be all that scared. The exploding windows, and other effects are good but not scary. There may be shock but not fear. The Nasties coming closer and closer trying to kill you may hold the fear level high for longer time. Objects changing places could go unnoticed, rooms shifting may be only confusing. Unseen forces knocking you from the stores - how would you present this? The nice house idea is super awesome.

e) Do you imagine linear story? It would make things like atmosphere building and preparing scary moments much much easier.

f) The other characters may be great idea but also may be very weird. If there is one or two sidekicks, you could talk to them, get closer to them ad fear for them. If you have safe room full of specialist for pick locking, hauling, mechanism constructing and ice cream licking, it looses meaning and atmosphere.

g) Would be the game scary in the day also?

There ARE tons of games like this, which are on the real internet.

Just google search for it.

Here's one I'm stuck on:
http://www.ouverture-facile.com/start/index.html

The entire website, like all 200 pages of it, is one big puzzle.
Also, a skilled google searcher could hack the answers,
but I don't recommend it, since it defeats the purpose,
 and the creators have no way around it.

Man, I love those, my favourite is Notpron. SO many wasted days on this ... so many.


Back at the topic. As already said, it has been done and was done poorly. But the idea itself is pretty good. Be very careful when planning this. Like some others, I would also suggest custom browser or browser plugin, because you will not have to care about creating realistic illusion of living web. Some little user scripts, fake email adresses and a few agents on social network sites and forums will do the job much easily and will be cheaper. Also it will be easier to mantain and update in case of takedown of some of pages used.

Heat conservation problem - could be resolved by need of using more fuel.

Theoretically this could be hackable in right now (not exactly as described, but...). I am pretty sure there was a plugin for DFHack (or similar program) that spawned a unit of magma wherever you wished.

@SebbyTheFreak:
Really awesome dwarf. Your style strongly reminds me Noitu Love or Castle Crushers. Very, very awesome, I love it. Only two small things - what is that small blob right behind his head? and it appears that he is not holding the pick.

Yes but I don't want to watch that in case he doesn't do it the way I am. Essentially I want to know if I have the right idea and am failing because I'm timing it wrong or something similar or if I have completely the wrong idea and need to rethink it.

Yeah ... I was stuck on the same level. You actually are doing it wrong - I was trying it for hours the same way. You really have to do it as on the video.

My Sandcasters work, because none of these things are actually in use and we can say whatever we want about them.

The empty set argument? Man, that is evil.