H
*HEL*Karri
Guest
Just read about the Hellblaze mod in the respective topic. This brought to my mind some ideas I've been thinking about when it comes to these types of games. I'm not a mod maker, coder, modeller or anything. At most I could do sound effects or background music. Anyway...
The problem in horror games
In most games like this you get spooked by Monster X creeping from behind a corner or leaping at you through the window. What do you do? You plaster it on the wall with your rather sleek gun. Sometimes you get a big monster slowly lurching towards you. What do you do? You slowly back away pumping bulletholes into it until it dies. OK, this is pretty fine for a horror game with stuff like zombies and mutants.
But what if I really wanted to survive *HELL* in a game? If I wanted a game to be about absolute terror instead of plain old horror? If we're talking movies, I'd be talking something like Hellraiser and Event Horizon. Well, the monster designs are rather cool but still, Hellraiser is a bit funny. Event Horizon, however, totally freaks you (or at least me) out.
Possible solutions
* Half-Life, at it's time, was advanced compared to other shooters in that it had more than shooting. It had a storyline and more intricate puzzles than "Push switch A to open door B". There were also situations where you had to make split second decisions to not get crushed or fall down a ravine or whatever. First, for the game, you'd need more of this. Many intense horror/action sequences have had the basic idea of escaping a monster or a certain place or whatever, with an innovative way. Finding a way out quick. For this kind of thing, you first need your character to have many movement abilities, the basic running, crouching, but also going prone and crawling, leaping forward like when jumping to swim etc. (for jumping through a window, a hole or whatever). Also, you should be able to dive down (to the prone position), also leap and dive to your sides.
* The game should be as much first person as possible, to really immerse you. Also, you should be able to see yourself, your legs or something. This is so you could have special stuff.. for example, you are creeping in a dark area with hellish sounds coming from far and near. Suddenly you hear a snarl *really* close. You start turning to see what it is, but it's already on you - your view goes like you're falling down. Once you're down the camera automatically turns to look at your own feet - a zombie or whatever is lying on the ground as well, gnawing at your feet. At this time, pressing the action button would allow for you to kick at the monster in order to have it let go, let you crawl further and get up etc...
* Then, about the plastering to the wall thing. Sure, you could have weapons. Anything to wave at things (such as.. er, well, crowbars or something, lol), torches, maybe even some guns. However, since this is supposed to be a terror mod and it's supposed to look like you're in permanent hell and there's zero percent possibility of survival, your weapons would mostly be to slow things down. Maybe kill some of the lower caste of enemies... but certainly, you wouldn't just kill Xenobites (or what were the creatures' names in Hellraiser) or something with bullets.
Possible scenarios
OK, writing this up I've thought of a few monsters and scenarios... try to imagine these:
* You're in a partially lit room. Maybe a house where the roof has partially come down, and a blood red moon shines light to certain spots.
In the spots where it doesn't shine (most of the room), there's obviously a dark shadow. There are also crates, tables or whatever in the rather large room. You hear a sinister hiss now and then. There's an open door in the other end of a room. A basic "zombie" type of enemy walks into the doorway. He spots you and begins lurching at you. The doorway area is well lit, maybe this would be the first time you see this enemy at a decent light. The instant the zombie steps on a part with a shadow, there's an evil growl or something and something FROM THE SHADOW attacks the zombie, pulling it into the shadow. You get closer to a shadowy part, and the monster leaps at you, scaring the crap out of you too. Basically, we have here a "wall monster" of sorts that can only touch something that is touching a shadow. You, of course, need to get across the room by jumping on the moonlit parts. Something could, of course, make you speed up midway of the room. For example you hear a growl and see two beast-like monsters coming from where you came from. Maybe you've been escaping these guys for a while now or something. They close on the shadows - "Yes!", you go, thinking they'll fall prey to the shadow monster. But the second they're about to step on the shadow, they stop. They wait a bit, then start sniffing on the shadow, realize what's there and then start leaping on the moonlit parts also. And you gotta get to the other end of the room and run away before they get to you.
* The first encounter with the two beasts mentioned in the last one - Your character has started figuring out what's happening. He's in an apartment building of some sort, in the cellar maybe. With oil warmers and stuff. The door to the cellar has been closed, maybe a cave-in or something. The moon gives you light as you go about. You can't find a way to get high enough to the windows to get out. Suddenly, these two red beasts crash through the windows behind you. These types of enemies charge towards you, then leap at you when they're close. Getting maimed could be avoided by, for instance, leaping to the side or diving down and let them go past/over you. Should they hit a wall, they could be dazed/confused for a second or two. So basically, in here, you would need to dodge the beasts while finding a way out. You could try to shoot a couple of rounds at them only to find it to have not much effect. After some hectic running and last-second dodges you see a vent that you could fit into. You shoot at it, leep forwards and start crawling towards it. If a beast would be close enough, it could bite your leg and slowly start to pull you back. Here you could have the special camera flip - the correct action would be to kick at it with your other leg, if out of ammo, or then shoot at him. Both frantically, of course.
Eventually, this would cause the beast to momentarily let go and screech in pain, letting you crawl to safety. You would emerge at the back of the building, the sewers or something like that.
* You're either on house rooftops or a large open area, and have giant winged bastards after you. They fly over you like vultures, and one or two at a time swoop at you. Which is of course, when you dive, get up and run towards safety. Oops, here they come again, dive, get up, keep your nerves straight, run, shoot the zombies that are closing in on you (except the odd one or two that might be picked up and dropped by the flying things), dive..
* Medusa! You know, the snake-haired woman whose gaze would turn ppl into stone. An altar type of thing with pillars around it or something that happens to be in your way. Maybe with holes and small ravines here and there in the ground. Thunder. You close in on it, and suddenly hear screaming. Something like "Noooo! I won't!" for instance. Then you hear a demonic voice "Look at me!" blablablablal. You see another survivor cowering away with a snake-haired thingy or something like that with it's back towards you. The thingy closes in on it's victim, and repeats his/her/it's order from right behind the victim's back. Shaking, the victim rises and reeeallllly slowly turns at the monster. Big lightning, victim turns to stone. So, guess what you have to do? You have to get past without looking at it while it looks at you. Quite easy, actually. Well, maybe not for the ravines or stuff.
Just something... be creative!
The problem in horror games
In most games like this you get spooked by Monster X creeping from behind a corner or leaping at you through the window. What do you do? You plaster it on the wall with your rather sleek gun. Sometimes you get a big monster slowly lurching towards you. What do you do? You slowly back away pumping bulletholes into it until it dies. OK, this is pretty fine for a horror game with stuff like zombies and mutants.
But what if I really wanted to survive *HELL* in a game? If I wanted a game to be about absolute terror instead of plain old horror? If we're talking movies, I'd be talking something like Hellraiser and Event Horizon. Well, the monster designs are rather cool but still, Hellraiser is a bit funny. Event Horizon, however, totally freaks you (or at least me) out.
Possible solutions
* Half-Life, at it's time, was advanced compared to other shooters in that it had more than shooting. It had a storyline and more intricate puzzles than "Push switch A to open door B". There were also situations where you had to make split second decisions to not get crushed or fall down a ravine or whatever. First, for the game, you'd need more of this. Many intense horror/action sequences have had the basic idea of escaping a monster or a certain place or whatever, with an innovative way. Finding a way out quick. For this kind of thing, you first need your character to have many movement abilities, the basic running, crouching, but also going prone and crawling, leaping forward like when jumping to swim etc. (for jumping through a window, a hole or whatever). Also, you should be able to dive down (to the prone position), also leap and dive to your sides.
* The game should be as much first person as possible, to really immerse you. Also, you should be able to see yourself, your legs or something. This is so you could have special stuff.. for example, you are creeping in a dark area with hellish sounds coming from far and near. Suddenly you hear a snarl *really* close. You start turning to see what it is, but it's already on you - your view goes like you're falling down. Once you're down the camera automatically turns to look at your own feet - a zombie or whatever is lying on the ground as well, gnawing at your feet. At this time, pressing the action button would allow for you to kick at the monster in order to have it let go, let you crawl further and get up etc...
* Then, about the plastering to the wall thing. Sure, you could have weapons. Anything to wave at things (such as.. er, well, crowbars or something, lol), torches, maybe even some guns. However, since this is supposed to be a terror mod and it's supposed to look like you're in permanent hell and there's zero percent possibility of survival, your weapons would mostly be to slow things down. Maybe kill some of the lower caste of enemies... but certainly, you wouldn't just kill Xenobites (or what were the creatures' names in Hellraiser) or something with bullets.
Possible scenarios
OK, writing this up I've thought of a few monsters and scenarios... try to imagine these:
* You're in a partially lit room. Maybe a house where the roof has partially come down, and a blood red moon shines light to certain spots.
In the spots where it doesn't shine (most of the room), there's obviously a dark shadow. There are also crates, tables or whatever in the rather large room. You hear a sinister hiss now and then. There's an open door in the other end of a room. A basic "zombie" type of enemy walks into the doorway. He spots you and begins lurching at you. The doorway area is well lit, maybe this would be the first time you see this enemy at a decent light. The instant the zombie steps on a part with a shadow, there's an evil growl or something and something FROM THE SHADOW attacks the zombie, pulling it into the shadow. You get closer to a shadowy part, and the monster leaps at you, scaring the crap out of you too. Basically, we have here a "wall monster" of sorts that can only touch something that is touching a shadow. You, of course, need to get across the room by jumping on the moonlit parts. Something could, of course, make you speed up midway of the room. For example you hear a growl and see two beast-like monsters coming from where you came from. Maybe you've been escaping these guys for a while now or something. They close on the shadows - "Yes!", you go, thinking they'll fall prey to the shadow monster. But the second they're about to step on the shadow, they stop. They wait a bit, then start sniffing on the shadow, realize what's there and then start leaping on the moonlit parts also. And you gotta get to the other end of the room and run away before they get to you.
* The first encounter with the two beasts mentioned in the last one - Your character has started figuring out what's happening. He's in an apartment building of some sort, in the cellar maybe. With oil warmers and stuff. The door to the cellar has been closed, maybe a cave-in or something. The moon gives you light as you go about. You can't find a way to get high enough to the windows to get out. Suddenly, these two red beasts crash through the windows behind you. These types of enemies charge towards you, then leap at you when they're close. Getting maimed could be avoided by, for instance, leaping to the side or diving down and let them go past/over you. Should they hit a wall, they could be dazed/confused for a second or two. So basically, in here, you would need to dodge the beasts while finding a way out. You could try to shoot a couple of rounds at them only to find it to have not much effect. After some hectic running and last-second dodges you see a vent that you could fit into. You shoot at it, leep forwards and start crawling towards it. If a beast would be close enough, it could bite your leg and slowly start to pull you back. Here you could have the special camera flip - the correct action would be to kick at it with your other leg, if out of ammo, or then shoot at him. Both frantically, of course.
Eventually, this would cause the beast to momentarily let go and screech in pain, letting you crawl to safety. You would emerge at the back of the building, the sewers or something like that.* You're either on house rooftops or a large open area, and have giant winged bastards after you. They fly over you like vultures, and one or two at a time swoop at you. Which is of course, when you dive, get up and run towards safety. Oops, here they come again, dive, get up, keep your nerves straight, run, shoot the zombies that are closing in on you (except the odd one or two that might be picked up and dropped by the flying things), dive..
* Medusa! You know, the snake-haired woman whose gaze would turn ppl into stone. An altar type of thing with pillars around it or something that happens to be in your way. Maybe with holes and small ravines here and there in the ground. Thunder. You close in on it, and suddenly hear screaming. Something like "Noooo! I won't!" for instance. Then you hear a demonic voice "Look at me!" blablablablal. You see another survivor cowering away with a snake-haired thingy or something like that with it's back towards you. The thingy closes in on it's victim, and repeats his/her/it's order from right behind the victim's back. Shaking, the victim rises and reeeallllly slowly turns at the monster. Big lightning, victim turns to stone. So, guess what you have to do? You have to get past without looking at it while it looks at you. Quite easy, actually. Well, maybe not for the ravines or stuff.
Just something... be creative!
