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[Semi-Sane] Is It Real?

edited in Projects
So I had to struggle to come up with something, and I just started thinking about using sanity as a mechanic. This brought to mind the obvious use of sanity in the Cthulu tabletop RPG system.

Is It Real? starts the player off as a man who has been to the edge of space, gazed into the nothingness and lost himself in it. He is paranoid, but is still a good person at heart. He feels like he is constantly being attacked, but suddenly he is. He is now mixed with normal people, other who are attacking him, and bouts of mad delusions.

The main mechanic that I will be trying with this game is that of a sanity meter. I will try and force the player to attack NPCs which will cause The Man Who Has Yet To Be Namedâ„¢ to lose sanity as be does not wish to hurt innocent people. As the player's avatar loses sanity he will begin to perform actions that the player cannot control.

Comments

  • I'm wondering why you're going with a combat-centric mechanic and what that will do to a primarily psychologically themed game.

    Try to think in terms of non-binary choices, that's what you need in a psychological horror: Never really being sure if something you've decided on is a good choice or not. Binary choices, like "attack NPC X until dead" doesn't really feed any horror, mostly because it's something we're all inured to as gamers (except possibly reactionary horror at what has been done through a forced change of perspective - revealing that THIS TIME THE NPC YOU THOUGHT WAS A DEMON WAS ACTUALLY A LITTLE GIRL, AAAAAH - which you can only do so many times).

    It would be a better idea to have players NEVER actually be sure that something is real or not, even after they've finished playing the game. I kinda feel like that level of psychological trickery is easier in text than graphics, so I'd suggest Interactive Fiction game systems.
    Thanked by 2hanli mikegeyser
  • Why was I going with a combat centric mechanic. Well I had a brainfart of mixing Cthulu with protagonist as a not-so-insane-and-evil reaver from Firefly. I think of fun things when I wake up in the morning.

    I really like going texted based interactive fiction, also I have been looking for a chance to use Ren'Py for something. Although I'm wondering if I want to completely scrap any form of stat system. I am currently thinking a sort of colossal cave-esque navigation system.

    I would like to keep combat but have it on a very limited scale. Say a pistol with three bullet, and another three bullet through out the entire game that the player can find.
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