Toward the light [Full Game?]
So this really interesting thing has started happening - basically people have started posting vids all over the place of my 7dfps entry Towards the Light. Curiously most of them are completely oblivious to the fact that it's actually just a game jam entry, and think it's just a really short indie game.
Once of my favourites so far:
This raises some interesting questions, primarily at what point do I decide to go ahead and try make this a full game?
- How much interest in a game jam entry do you take as a sign that you have something worthwhile?
- How many hours gameplay do I need to create to have something people are willing to pay for?
- How long before the horror game market reaches saturation? Think Amnesia, Slender... Amnesia 2 will be a significant competitor with a massive head start...
- The watching people browning their pants is inherently viral (not to mention wonderfully entertaining), is this too good an opportunity to miss out on?
- will it be possible to reach the people who didn't like ( and I mean REALLY didn't like it), or is that not the point?
Right now the only thing within my reach is to create a dear esther like experience - a few hours long. This would also entail me finding an environment artist of some sort, possible - but a significant investment on my part. I'm just thinking aloud at this point and willing to hear any thoughts or hear any experiences you'd like to share.
Once of my favourites so far:
This raises some interesting questions, primarily at what point do I decide to go ahead and try make this a full game?
- How much interest in a game jam entry do you take as a sign that you have something worthwhile?
- How many hours gameplay do I need to create to have something people are willing to pay for?
- How long before the horror game market reaches saturation? Think Amnesia, Slender... Amnesia 2 will be a significant competitor with a massive head start...
- The watching people browning their pants is inherently viral (not to mention wonderfully entertaining), is this too good an opportunity to miss out on?
- will it be possible to reach the people who didn't like ( and I mean REALLY didn't like it), or is that not the point?
Right now the only thing within my reach is to create a dear esther like experience - a few hours long. This would also entail me finding an environment artist of some sort, possible - but a significant investment on my part. I'm just thinking aloud at this point and willing to hear any thoughts or hear any experiences you'd like to share.
Comments
What IS the point of reaching people who didn't like it (that said, "not liking it" is a very broad phrase - why don't they like it? They don't like shitting their pants, they found it boring, they found it too short, etc? I say the people who don't like shitting their pants actually like the game - or at least will talk about it to other people, creating more hype)?
Either way I do see something quite special here, I think the design of the game is quite nice as it seems you gave people just enough flares and cues that'll make them reach the end with very little prompting. Which is great. I think if you flesh the mechanic out it'll be quite breathtaking (literally) :)
No experience from me, just my point of view :)
It's a nice unique concept of gameplay. After watching some youtube videos and seeing people nearly crap themselves, I couldn't help but laugh.
Definitely has the potential to rise up and become a game that is fun to play. Some people found it quite easy, too easy.
Maybe limiting a person's ability to sprint would help. So a person could sprint for 2 or 3 seconds and then there is a cool down period. It would add to the players anxiety and make them want to GTFO when they here a freaky sound.
If you want to make it a proper indie game then introduce a story line, it doesn't have to be complex. But there should be a reason why I'm in a cave and I've got flares to help me get out.
I think if people are showing interest you should go for it! :) Unless you've got other games you'd rather make.
I don't know if it's a good idea... I'm also kind of thinking aloud... but could it be episodic? I mean you could polish up what you have (you've mentioned some good ideas before about how you'd adjust it), and then maybe release a companion experience (also a short experience maybe)... and expand it like that?
That format might not capitalize on idea though... Viralness isn't my forte. And I've never experimented in this genre.
About the game itself: I really like the survival aspect of the design. The fact that the resources are limited AND you feel threatened seems like quite a rich design space...
SPOILER FOLLOWS:
I think there is wonderful misdirection going on... The player assumes that they'll be in trouble if they use up all their flares, and then when they're worrying about that you throw the scare at them.
The weirdest thing about it is perhaps this: The game might be so hilarious, and maybe so viral, particularly because the supposed monster can't actually kill you... And also because the actual goal is in itself very easy and accessible to just about anyone. I'm not sure though. To make a longer game you might need to make the threat real (even if you still don't see it). Because otherwise players might figure out it is all bark and spoil the game for themselves. So I'm wondering if a real deadly threat, or an actually challenging game, would diminish the hilarity (and viralness).
I'd probably suggest trying to create other not-particularly-challenging experiences that none-the-less threaten grave consequences upon failure (like running out of light, or oxygen, or going insane, or breaking your legs or slowly bleeding to death as you run out of bandages) and surprise the players with other threats.
Also... if the monster is primarily located through sound... could there be a way to make players go temporarily deaf (with ringing ears or something after a dynamite explosion)
I guess my answer is: This seems like a great design space to explore. Don't go and hire an artist or something if you cannot find more nuggets of awesomeness within it (you probably have ideas). I'd say the feedback you've got means it's definitely worth sinking some time into... you'll only be able to tell if it is worth sinking a substantial amount of time into if you experiment further.
Also: You cannot compete with Amnesia 2 in terms of scale and polish. What you've got right now feels fresh I think, and because it feels like a new experience the polish doesn't really matter. Worry about the polish if and when it does turn out that you have something that can benefit from it (eg. you can get a couple new good scares from it and the experience starts getting longer). I'd think that adding polish right now is premature. You can probably test most of your ideas about taking it further without increasing the polish.
That said: This does seem to me like a project many artists will be keen to help with. And if you can find an artist who loves this genre they may have awesome ideas that greatly benefit the project. It might be that some of the best setpieces in a game like this arise out of visuals (like traveling to the light).
I'm a bit of a baby when it comes to scary games... but I'd be keen to try Toward the Light again if there was some new interesting experience added in. I expect your other players would feel similarly.
"This seems like a great design space to explore. Don't go and hire an artist or something if you cannot find more nuggets of awesomeness within it (you probably have ideas)"
Probably what I needed to hear more than anything else. I like the idea of getting people involved in this - could work well in a episodic nature. If/when I get into this further I will put up a forum up so people can get involved and give ideas. Had one guy go so far as uploading a run-through vid just for the sake of spreading to word and trying to convince me to make it a full game.
Also trying to get in touch with the makers of the amnesia sequel/dear esther while I'm in the uk. If nothing else I figure they'd be cool people to meet...
That sort of thing could be interesting if you automate the recording ...
Any chance of a "Towards The Light Again, the Last Light was A Trick!".
Or a "Desperately Towards The Light"... etc
Basically I'd love to see you make a reprisal. This has got to have been one of the most cool and successful games from last 7DFPS.
Thanks for the awesome words. Totally depends on work commitments. 7 days is an eternity amount of time to free up. Might be a good way to kickstart development though. Like a Toward the light chapter 2 or something.
Looking forward to this! It's been a good year or so since I played Towards the Light and Amnesia (at about the same time). My body is ready for more emotional trauma :P
I thought the minimalist 3D in the first version was a smart choice. It was simple enough that it didn't really fall into that uncanny valley of having some art but it being undercooked. So I don't know if you need a 3D artist, but I'd expect it'd be great if someone could lift the art burden for you (and perhaps rock out at it, and upgrade the atmosphere).
Looking forward to some more survival horror (assuming that's what you do). I think the focus on limiting resources and the interesting interplay of mechanics in Towards the Light is something that stands out against the malaise of walk around in maze horror games (Slender clones) that are popular right now.
I'd love to see a return of the flares. Making light a resource, and the placement of light both a meaningful choice AND a temporary effect, puts so much pressure on the player and interacts with their survival along several axises. I felt it was a brilliant stroke in TTL part 1.
Making desperately meaningful choices under time pressure is an intense experience that doesn't exactly exist in the Slender clones I am aware of. The flashlight in Slenderman, though a resource, does not produce quite as intense choices, as turning it off and on isn't something that is time constrained, whereas with the flares in TTL, if your current flare fades to dark, then the following flare will be much harder to aim.
Although I recently became aware that the flashlight in Slenderman attracts the monster (which is a useful thing to know, and a clever mechanic).
It's possible to hit a slippery slope in TTL where your previous flare miss-shot makes the next flare harder to aim and each successive failure makes failure more likely). Which is a far more brutal slippery slope than Slenderman (and the clones that I am aware of). And in this genre that might be a strong selling point...
Though if you experiment in other directions, or with a totally different game, that'd also be sweet.
http://www.thefuntastic.com/demo/toward-the-light/
It is a 7 day FPS entry, Funtastic did all the code and art and sound. So set your expectations accordingly.
[edit] It seems to be downloading. ^_^
After reading the description on the linked-to page, I find myself with the thought: It is dark here. You are likely to be eaten by a grue. ;P
[edit 2] All right, I've played it. ^_^
First of all, I enjoyed it! The number of flares and the duration of each flare seemed about right to me, and the environment was just twisty enough to get turned around in without their light without much risk of a well-lit player getting lost. The atmosphere -- which I think tends to be rather important in a horror game -- seemed well-handled.
I do have a question... what is the "big scare" mentioned above? The only thing that I ever encountered was the growling in the last cave. I even went back a few times to go monster hunting. Having looked more closely at the thread above (I had been avoiding spoilers, as I recall), I do now see that there is no actual danger to the player character, but even so I'll admit that I was somewhat expecting more.
I will say this: I give you quite a bit of credit for not using jump scares (that I found, at least): those seem to be all too common in horror games, and I consider them to be somewhat cheap scares.
Amnesia did resource management REALLY well. You have oil for your gas lamp, which you can use to stave off insanity (aka monsters) because the darkness drives you insane. That was actually the thing I was trying to capture, was the feeling of isolation and sensory deprivation driving you insane - I only played amnesia after I had created TTL, so it's curious to see similar approaches.
@Thaumaturge The growling at the end definitely qualifies as a jump scare. The impact of this however depends entirely on how immersed you are in the experience, also how loud your sound is I guess. Some people, as per the video above, well it get's them hard. Others, like yourself kinda go meh? Is that it? The jump scare tactic was never my intention but I ran out of time in quite a big way so was the only I could think of to finish it off
For this edition I would definitely like to enhance the mood. Things like breathing was a big one I didn't get to put in the last one. Also adding some kind of real danger definitely amps up the intensity (ala slender) but I really like the theme of your demons are in your own head. Will see what I do with this one. Also music is another question? I like the quiet desolation, but the music in slender managed to create a lot of tension and dread despite being really cheesy. Will have to see where I go with this as well.
The other thing is to just create more of a sense of player choice. Bigger map with more routes was the number one thing people asked for. Solving this brings a lot of design challenges (what happens when people get lost, being lost in a game with something horrible chasing you is just too awful a feeling. For me anyway) but will be an interesting one to try and solve.
For myself, I'm inclined to not consider it a "full" jump scare, at the least: to me a proper jump scare is primarily visual, perhaps backed up by sound, since I find that sudden, horrific visuals tend to have a much more intense effect than most sounds.
As to including danger while keeping the monsters in the character's head, between that and your mention of Amnesia I have an idea, if I may:
The longer the character spends in darkness, or stops to listen to sounds, or runs, or stares at a single object, perhaps, the higher their hidden "insanity meter" climbs; moving around at walking pace and keeping one's area well-lit reduces this unseen meter. The higher the meter, the more disturbing effects they encounter: start with claws scrabbling on stone, then monster sounds, then blood (that isn't there when you turn back), then bodies (likewise) -- and eventually illusory pathways that potentially lead the player to their death (such as by encouraging them to walk out over a chasm). Such pathways should have some tell, I think -- a subtly off colour, or a faint keening sound around them, or some such thing.
[edit] And that was an amusing video, thank you. ^_^
It did remind me of one thing: some people are more easily scared than others, and different people may rank various horror elements in terms of fear induced in different orders; what most scares one may be different to what most scares another, for example.
I'm not sure if there really is an upper limit to the unbearableness. Horror gamers seem to be actively searching for the most traumatic experiences they can find... and then recommending them to their favourite youtubers in order to watch them suffer.
Just a thought I have about character models... although I'd expect TheFuntastic is already thinking in this vein (given his horror choices in the past).
I think it's in a Slender clone, or a more recent iteration of Slender itself. One of the Slender games anyway. But there are these zombie girls that you use the flash light to hold back. While I like the mechanic of having to walk backwards away from something while Slender stalks you, I don't like that the monsters are so visible... it removes some of the mystery... and them jumping into you face and going "Ooooga Boooga!" seemed to me to be kind of weak.
So I really like the idea that the terror is coming from within. I think having monster models isn't a bad thing (if there is screen distortion) but if the monsters are revealed and the player is able to study them, then I think it can fall apart a little bit.
I gather that fans of Slender-games prefer Slenderman to The Haunt for this reason. Slenderman is much more vague in its details, and the imagination fills in the gaps far better than the artists and sound designers of The Haunt did.
I know I'm writing here a lot... but I don't really play horror games... they affect me quite severely. But I find them really FASCINATING... so I'm living vicariously through Funtastic a little here (I have to admit). Please read all my suggestions with that in mind, I'm really not trying to backseat design this game.
@TheFuntastic When you say music in Slenderman... do you mean the deep drum in the distance?
Also... regarding collaborations... There might be some musicians around here that might be keen to produce some material that you could play around with.
I'd recommend doing a forum post specifically asking for collaborators... these forums are getting quite busy.
It's like, meant to be or something :P
I'm sure this is something you're already thinking about... but in the first game there was no cost for the sprinting (as far as I am aware). And so always sprinting (or sprinting as much as possible) was the dominant strategy. If there was a cost, even a subtle one, for sprinting (like it attracted the monster slightly more, or made you more afraid) I'd expect that'd benefit the design. Especially if sprinting was a short-term benefit but a long term risk.
Obviously TTL 1 was a jam game, so not everything could be perfect. And I still think it's easily one of the most interesting games to come out of the first 7DFPS.
(I almost had "spriting" in that second-to-last sentence; I think that we all know the terrible sanity of cost of spriting. *nods sorrowfully* :P)
It's nothing you couldn't also find on the asset store I imagine... but it'd maybe save you some time if you're tinkering with that sort of thing yourself.
Sprinting actually has a cost already - you get tired. But feedback is missing, mainly panting. Sprinting gets you away from danger but overwhelms your senses, which makes it harder to detect danger. Big thing I didn't get round to last time. If I even just get that in this time I'll be happy.
@blackshipsfillthesky yeah, I meant the heartbeat drum sound in slender. Also img fx would be swell! You have my email yes?
Okay. Time to face this hangover and actually start work! (*Peter opens unity for the first time today...)