Yes indeed, more "escape the maze" goodness. Do I hear a collective sigh? :P
Pretty straight forward (for now..), you get dropped in to an ancient maze, and must retrieve your objective and then find your way out by solving riddles and maybe some puzzles if I get a chance to design some. Oh and Something lives in the maze...
The point of all this is to learn. At the end of this I want to be able to say that my knowledge on AI and manipulating emotions has increased. And this will also be an experiment. I want to see what scares you guys, the dark? the soft footsteps behind you? the light dying? I want to create fear, so let me know as I go along what I can make more frightening :)
1st Build: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/199184153/E-RUN!.html
1st Build screenshot: (my 'Most Interesting Screenshots of 2013' entry)
2nd Build: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/199184153/E-LURKER-B2.html
2nd Build screenshot: (turns his back towards me...)
3rd Build: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/199184153/E-Lurker-b3.html
3rd Build screenshot: (what big eyes you have...)
4th Build: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/199184153/E-LURKER-BUILD4.html
FINAL BUILD (Number 5): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/199184153/E-LURKER-Build5.html
Final Build screenshot:
Other:
Pretty straight forward (for now..), you get dropped in to an ancient maze, and must retrieve your objective and then find your way out by solving riddles and maybe some puzzles if I get a chance to design some. Oh and Something lives in the maze...
The point of all this is to learn. At the end of this I want to be able to say that my knowledge on AI and manipulating emotions has increased. And this will also be an experiment. I want to see what scares you guys, the dark? the soft footsteps behind you? the light dying? I want to create fear, so let me know as I go along what I can make more frightening :)
1st Build: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/199184153/E-RUN!.html
1st Build screenshot: (my 'Most Interesting Screenshots of 2013' entry)
2nd Build: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/199184153/E-LURKER-B2.html
2nd Build screenshot: (turns his back towards me...)
3rd Build: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/199184153/E-Lurker-b3.html
3rd Build screenshot: (what big eyes you have...)
4th Build: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/199184153/E-LURKER-BUILD4.html
FINAL BUILD (Number 5): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/199184153/E-LURKER-Build5.html
Final Build screenshot:
Other:
Comments
Edit: should point out that the AI (what AI?) is very stupid. and at the moment there is no goal yet.
The mouse control is very sensitive at the moment, will there be an option in a later build to turn that down a bit? Would also be cool if the mouse is docked within the Unity window (currently it starts floating out of the box to the corners of the website), with an option to release that control so you can once again interact with your browser.
The monster jumping out of nowhere is cool but he's very quick at the moment, and since the momentum of your movement takes a while to react it seems like it'll get you in an instant every time (actually had one round where it jumped out just as I started moving). I imagine you've got these plans in the works but would be great if the monster stalks you for a while before revealing itself, kinda like Slender, so at first you might hear a distant roar, then after a while you hear it breathing and snuffling about... then hear footsteps as it gets closer, basically create a panic in the player as they start moving blindly around the maze not wanting to stop and check around them in case the monster is too close.
I've played the multiplayer version of Slender in Garry's Mod with some friends, and found that the scariest thing you can do as Slender is just stalk the players rather than trying to kill them... follow them around so they can hear your footsteps, reveal yourself and stand staring at them in the distance, then disappear again. Letting the player's imagination fill out the blanks is much more effective than making the threat immediately tangible/visible.
Looking good so far :)
Sure I can add a settings tab to the menu, could go for graphics, sound volume and as you suggest sensitivity settings, just not right at the top of the list at the moment :P
Yeah I should take the glow off of the monster, it takes away from the suspense to much i think. and he does actually stalk you..if he sees you and is a certain distance from you, I will have to work on the stalk mode the most to make it more interesting. so yeah I have a condition on him that if you get to close to him he will kill you, thats what happens when you run into him around a corner... as for the speed, I want it like that for his hunt mode, since he needs to find you fast at the end of the timer or I risk going over 5 minutes. perhaps I can make the hunt mode two separate states. I'll add a weapon later that will serve in slowing him down though, at least to test and see if weapons will add to the idea, create some false sense of safety :P. I also want to make him back track when in his stalk mode and you start getting to close to him, and yes I still want to add a bunch of different audio ques for him.
Unfortunately my skills dont go that deep to make him able to stalk as successfully as you stalked your friends, so I have to find ways to fake it. I also have to put in the fear of failing before the timer ends (oh and a end objective :P), at the moment if you play your cards right, he will not kill you at all while there is still time left. makes him less scary. so I want mistakes to be lethal. oh and I want to add doors :D seems trivial, but doors will add a lot to the whole experience.
Doors do sound like a scary addition, forcing you to briefly stop your mad rush to open them (and maybe players will be inclined to close the door behind them in the hopes of slowing down their pursuer)
http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/ScriptReference/Screen-lockCursor.html
for the cursor moving off the unity window. I had a similar issue lately and was able to sort it out with this (thanks again @Rigormortis for the help).
mmm I did not realize the cursor was such a big problem. I will fix that when I get home. I usually right click the webplayer window and go fullscreen, I didn't have problems there, are you guys also having problems in the fullscreen mode? have been wondering If i could force fullscreen mode somehow. Will have to look into that :P
ah imagine you are slowly walking down a corridor, and somewhere nearby you hear a door creaking open...
or your time is up, in the distance you hear a howl, and then hear doors being crashed through as the monster homes in on you
and yeah I'll make him less aggressive but more creepy ;) have some cool ideas how to achieve that. I also want to make use of light somehow. I thought about lighting torches, these will force the monster to avoid lit areas. but the idea was that the explanation for the 5 minute time limit was that after your time is up, the torch you carry will die,and the monster will see that as his opportunity. do through some unexplained monster magic make all the light across the maze go out?
Now as for the monster's interaction with the doors. I thought I would make doors automatically open and close for the monster (players will have to open and close it manually) and when the monster "opens" a door it will give it a speed debuff, so you would be able to slow it down that way. thoughts?
Oh that makes more sense. lol.
at the moment in build 2 you can run away from it if you meet it in the right situation ;) if you are to close to it (within 5 units) it will attack you outright (unless you have a handy nearby turn). but if it finds you and stalks you at a distance you can outrun it and cause it to lose track of you. this will go better and more predictable in the next build though. I do kinda like it being unpredictable as that make it just that bit more scary. but it can frustrate if it happens every time right? the next build should bring the monster up to a total of 8 states. this makes it much more versatile. I will also be adding all the new sound stuff. so yes, playing with sound, though scary, will give you better awareness.
thanks for testing :) I will see about making the monsters more decent at the roaming. I'm unsure what more i can do to give better indication of where the monster is other than sound, dont want to make it too easy :P but I'm looking into playing with light, so you could turn your torch off and hide somewhere and the monster might not take notice of you. doors will also help to give you a better indication of where the monster is, and help you run away, and make it a more creepy experience.
I'm also going to see about taking the instant death out, so if you happen to catch it off guard it will be more likely to only injure you and then back off, just to give you a scare and a warning.
states are: Idle, roam, stalk, flee, hunt, attack, howl, and possibly feast and ambush, those depends on whether feast makes sense and if I can get ambush to work the way I want it to. and I probably don't need howl as a separate state :P what can I say, curse the need for sleep!
Feast will only make sense if I get a chance to put in other denizens. so these will give you some false scares, since they probably wont be very dangerous. but the monster will kill them if he finds them, making them scream wretchedly (hopefully creepy to hear from some distance away), and then he will feast on them (hopefully creepy to walk in on).
as usual I'm being way to ambitious :P but I may continue working on this for some time after the deadline. I'm having lots of fun with this, and learning from it.
On a side note I will have a new build out by the end of the weekend
I'll just leave this picture here
some notes:
1. My mouse is *very* sensitive for some reason - I'm wondering if other people will have difficulty with my game.
2. The sounds are awesome, the footsteps need to be a touch softer, but otherwise excellent.
3. The music changing to upbeat after your 'grace period' runs out was very cool and you know the monster is out to get you.
4. I spent around 1.5 minutes just trying to pick up the damn lantern, it's VERY difficult to do, especially when you look down, it looks like the camera is above your characters head, not in it.
5. E to pick up the lantern, but F to open doors? huh?
6. You can enter the portal without picking up the lantern - I assume you're still busy with that.
7. I literally crapped my pants when the monster found me :P
yeah like i said, its all broken at the moment. everything is in a kind of limbo, half way between being thought up and being implemented :P
1. Ill add that in an options menu once I get to that
2. it was just fast and furious throwing them in there. Most sounds were made by Allen Purkiss
3. thanks @Gibbo !
4. its already easier :P there is now a crosshair, the item will also light up, and a "press Q or E to pick up" will appear
5. there is a very good reason for that (at least i think so) Q and E will control the left and right hands respectively. so pressing E picks something up in the right hand, pressing it again will throw it, or swap it. F will be only for general interaction.
6. well it will be in a nice chest in that room, I will not hold hands by teaching that items and exploration is important. It will become painfully clear after a go or two :P
7. nice, did it jump you or stalk you?
I couldn't see a crosshair so it took a while to pick up that lantern, eventually worked out that you need to stand at quite a distance away from it (loading the game up first time without the lantern was pretty terrifying but short-lived since using lightning to navigate isn't an effective strategy)
The doors are a great mechanic as I found myself debating whether to close them (to slow the monster down) or leave them open so I would know I'd been there if I was walking in circles.
Glad the music works :) (noticed it cuts off at the end though, was the music length slightly too long?)
Crosshair and all that other juicy stuff should be in build 4 (maybe at the end of next weekend) thats if life doesnt keep wanting attention. yeah lots of stuff half finished or not implemented yet. I'll also be removing the insta death thing, see if i can squeeze in a injury system. also reading about lighting and stuff over on @Nitrogen 's entry I thought I would drain out all the colour from the game, except key things. and add some more stuff to the level as Nitrogen suggested
haha glad the doors made you think. Now i should go ahead and be an ass and make the monster also know you have been there if it sees an open door ;)
well the timer is actually 4:30 minutes, and then however long it takes the monster to catch you after the time has ran out. so thats why it was cut off. ill add a screen for when the monster has caught you. you know like, blood splashing on the screen with a roar, and then a cheesy comment "fluffy has added your spleen to his collection"
Currently I'm writing my monsters AI mostly from scratch. no more will it get confused, so more will it get jump scared by you and attack ;)
this is the state interactions i'm going for:
I've just put up a basic drone AI tester of my game in the other thread!
I've gone a bit more basic than you. I've got:
- Roam
- Investigating (when a sound is heard from a certain place)
- Sighted (when the player is seen by the drone)
- Attacking (once the drone is up close and personal)
- Lost Visual (when the drone looses sight of the player, it hunts around for a bit before going back to roam)
Well mine is focused on the monster, so I try to get the monster as smart and complex as I am able to :)
Investigating might be very cool, I havent gotten around to giving my monster any investigative talents haha, had thought of it though, make it listen to sounds, make it aware of doors that are left open, or open and empty chests, blood trails...all that good stuff :D
I do have line of sight, though I want to expand it to have a view cone, so you can actually hide from it if you are say behind it.
My monster also no longer instantly kill you. It will be a little mischivious by attacking you and teleporting away, or ambushing you.
my search is simple at the moment. once it loses sight of you, it moves to your last known location. if it doesnt find you by the time it reaches the last known location, it goes back to roaming.
overall, my monster still needs a lot of work before it will feel like a true thinking threat to you. that investigate stuff will go a long way to helping that
2 big eye sores.
1. where did the walls of the first room go? O.O
2. he proves just how flexible his arms are when you he is carring the key
The player model really seems to like stroking the walls when you get close :B
So I had two vastly different play throughs.
On my first run, the monster spawned basically on top of me, I could immediately hear it being rediculously noisy with the doors and footsteps. Then I opened a door and the eyes were opening the same door... awkward... It stuck me in place for a moment while it escaped through me, down the corridor, but then it kept peering at me from around the corner. The eyes would fade away if I got too close, but I could then walk right up to them without fear of getting hurt - scariness broken!
On the second try, the monster never switched off roam mode (until the time ran out), and never found me. I found the 'key', managed to fumble and pick it up but never found any exit to use it on. I found the little hinting light particles a very nice touch.
did you try walking away from the monster with your back turned to it?
yes follow the lights! or should you? maybe they will lead you directly to the monster...or perhaps they will lead you to your objectives?
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/199184153/E-LURKER-Build5.html
I will also put this up on the first post.
as always I was overambitious and as such it is not polished to the level that I was hoping for. (But I have some very poor narrative now, so what does polish matter? :D) I made some TextToSpeech clips, it's just silly how well they worked out. monster should now also be a bit more active instead of vigorously stalking around a deserted corner of the labarinth. tell me about what you guys experiance while playing it :D
The voices.. dont work for me I'm afraid. I like my demons without an american accent and a slight hitch to their voices :P
Can you imagine a demon with an afrikaans accent? trust me you dont want to go there :P
It would be pretty funny to match the enemy's voices from Far Cry 2 with your demon though... "Ek het hom hier!" om nom nom nom