This will be more of a brainstorming session amongst myself, as I'm not exactly sure of my ideas (gameplay-wise) yet. Feel free to chime in with ideas and suggestions. Today I will focus on developing the gameplay aspects of the game, the thing I usually think up first.
Due to general laziness and not wanting to code a whole lot, I'll be using the same side-scrolling platformer engine I'm using now. This engine can be used for two different gameplay styles, standard platforming, or puzzle platforming. Let us discuss and discover which would lend itself better to the horror genre.
Standard
The standard platformer game is about jumping around a level avoiding enemies and collecting things, all while trying to get to the end of the level. Now in the context of a horror game, this could perhaps be avoiding scary monsters and collecting useful things to help against scary monsters. One thing I know about this game is that it will indeed be about being helpless and useless in an environment that is constantly gunning for you. This works well in the standard platform game. A possible gameplay idea: the player has a circle of light around them, enabling them to see only a certain amount around them, this light is constantly decreasing, and players would avoid enemies that take away light while collecting things to increase light. The dark and unknown are scary to people, so providing them a chance to insure safety around them while taking away security when they fail I feel is the sort of dynamic I want. When the light runs out, the player will not start over, but will have to play through the level in the dark. This part is difficult to make scary as there is no risk to the player at this point. If they die, they would just start over unpunished. Players need to fear death, and making them repeat the level as punishment would be tedious instead of terrifying. I look at Silent Hill, arguably the best example of a horror game, and there is no penalty for dying, other than having to start over, perhaps at a save from a long while ago. In fact, no game in the horror genre severely punishes you for dying now that I think about it. Why are you scared of the water monster in Amnesia? Because it is loud and mysterious? If you go into the water, nothing will happen besides death, and then you get another chance right away. There is no penalty and yet it is still scary. So, for some reason, penalty isn't necessary for death intensity, but including it would make gameplay even more frightening.
Puzzle
A puzzle platformer is one in which you solve puzzles, it makes a lot of sense if you think about it. These games aren't so much about avoiding enemies or collecting power-ups, as so much as they are finding a way to get to the end of the level using your BRAIN. Could a game wherein you are meticulously solving puzzles be scary? There could be a constant stress of having to think on your feet while at the same time, manipulating the level to get to your goal. Would the game's constant interruptions while the player is thinking be annoying, or create tension? The last thing I would want to do is annoy the player with little scares and disturbances while they are trying to open doors and move boxes. This gets down to what players really want in a puzzle: challenge in the form of brain-teaser-like objectives. A Rubik's cube is not challenging because someone is jabbing you with a stick in the eye every time you try to rotate a side, it is challenging because you need to use your brain and YOUR BRAIN ALONE. So, trying to make a puzzle artificially difficult by making the game try to scare you would be a bad idea.
After writing this, I think I've fleshed out how I want the gameplay to work, feel free to critique my ideas here, it'll probably help me along the way. I'm gonna try real hard to get an explanation of the gameplay up here for tomorrow, or maybe a Walrus Game Progress Write-up, as big things are happening with that. I just need to get into the habit of writing in this thing again.
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