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[Lucaz]

Tried it, it looks and works nicely. Runs an average of 20 fps, if iit matters.

I took a few screenshots.



http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/9504/horrorscreen3hz1.jpg
http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/5750/horrorscreenlo7.jpg

[null & void]

Okay, yeah. I cannot imagine managing something this unnerving so far but you nailed it.

It's not something I wouldn't play alone in the dark. But it's my experience that if there's nothing to suck you in to the game, nothing to pull you out of the role of "player" and into the game, and the player looks for horror... they'll find nothing. I'm looking for horror, even trying to be a skeptic about it, but the tension is there.

It's nervewracking in its own way because you KNOW nothing's there. It makes it scarier to know nothing will be around the corner, somehow.

This thing's great. Congratulations.

[Simon Andersson]

Its funny how psycology works. Just because I knew there were absolutely nothing to be afraid of, I got goose bumps. (though I should probably give some of the credit to the game, good job!)

A few things.

- The footstep sound dissapear if you press forward and uses the side buttons without lettin go of the forward button. That kinda spooked me at first (for some odd reason).

- I like the mood, the way it feels as if the mannequins are following my every move is nice.

- Are the textures mirrored on purpose? I think it somehow gives it a nice weird atmosphere. (but that migh tjust be me)

Oh, and I catched a little graphical glitch! (otherwisse running fine, 60 fps)

[nayon]

Thanks for all the positive feedback, people. 

I don't want to say much, but yes, some textures are mirrored while some aren't, it's supposed to give an unsettling "wait... what the..." moment.

Yeah I'm aware of the footstep thing, I was wondering whether it was noticeable enough when it disappears, so I kept in that bug to test whether I can use it as a feature later

That tower is also supposed to look glitchy, but not as glitchy as it appears right now.


Right now I'm adding some seriously creepy content, places that you definitely won't want to explore... But you will compelled to be.



Oh, and this isn't even the creepy part, there are going to be indoor maps :D



By the way, thanks for all your exploration so far!

[null & void]

So wait, you're using graphical glitches to add to the atmosphere?

Oh man, I've been waiting for this FOREVER.

In Project Eden, there was a wall in one area which, when you looked around, would jitter back and forth REALLY fast. It never really left its spot or anything, but it sort of... I don't know, it rotated about 25 degrees in either direction REALLY, REALLY fast. I thought I was going insane when I saw it. (It was on a really high wall.)

After that, I always wanted to see a wall in a game where the bricks would shake and clatter about when you walked away from them. Maybe you could do that.

Another thing that'd be extremely unnerving: impossible architecture. Spiral staircase off of the corner of a roof, leading up to a dead end. Bridges to nowhere. Buildings which have no walls.. on the bottom two floors only.

[Hideous]

5 FPS of unplayableness

[null & void]

Seems like a different engine might be better for this.

[nayon]

5 FPS of unplayableness

Even with the lowfi version?

So wait, you're using graphical glitches to add to the atmosphere?

Oh man, I've been waiting for this FOREVER.

In Project Eden, there was a wall in one area which, when you looked around, would jitter back and forth REALLY fast. It never really left its spot or anything, but it sort of... I don't know, it rotated about 25 degrees in either direction REALLY, REALLY fast. I thought I was going insane when I saw it. (It was on a really high wall.)

After that, I always wanted to see a wall in a game where the bricks would shake and clatter about when you walked away from them. Maybe you could do that.

Another thing that'd be extremely unnerving: impossible architecture. Spiral staircase off of the corner of a roof, leading up to a dead end. Bridges to nowhere. Buildings which have no walls.. on the bottom two floors only.

I'm doing that impossible architecture thing already, on the way :D



I'm still trying to cut corners off of graphical features to make it more efficient, but I can't write another engine that handles what I'm trying to do this easily. And yes, many features are already coded in but not in the demo yet... I'm testing.

[null & void]

Regarding the impossible architecture: I think it'd be neat if it wasn't always obvious it was impossible. And when it became obvious, the architecture would fall apart appropriately.

The spiral staircase might fall down. The building might collapse. The bridge might become a covered ramp.

Also: hallucinations. Shadowy figures standing in the periphery when you turn around real fast. When you turn back to look at them, they're gone. This might require some "looking inertia" to be convincing.

The silence is creepy, but somehow I think some undefinable ever-present sound would be appropriate. Stephen King's movie... something of the Langoliers. It had a hard-to-recognize noise that was always present -- and the explanation only came at he end of the movie.

This sort of game wouldn't have an explanation. It'd stay creepy.

Other stuff: defying the laws of physics, water pooling on the ceiling with drops "falling" from the floor would be unnerving in the extreme. Look at surrealist works, Dali's stuff is ideal.

I think the fog should have an animated "cloudy" texture to it. It'd give some room for pareidolia, which the game is sorely lacking currently.

[Simon Andersson]

That tower is also supposed to look glitchy, but not as glitchy as it appears right now.

I might have tried catchng it from its worst angle. :D

[nayon]

Regarding the impossible architecture: I think it'd be neat if it wasn't always obvious it was impossible. And when it became obvious, the architecture would fall apart appropriately.

The spiral staircase might fall down. The building might collapse. The bridge might become a covered ramp.

Also: hallucinations. Shadowy figures standing in the periphery when you turn around real fast. When you turn back to look at them, they're gone. This might require some "looking inertia" to be convincing.

The silence is creepy, but somehow I think some undefinable ever-present sound would be appropriate. Stephen King's movie... something of the Langoliers. It had a hard-to-recognize noise that was always present -- and the explanation only came at he end of the movie.

This sort of game wouldn't have an explanation. It'd stay creepy.

Other stuff: defying the laws of physics, water pooling on the ceiling with drops "falling" from the floor would be unnerving in the extreme. Look at surrealist works, Dali's stuff is ideal.

I think the fog should have an animated "cloudy" texture to it. It'd give some room for pareidolia, which the game is sorely lacking currently.

Don't spoil everything I have in store! :D

[null & void]

Oh, fine. (Ruin all my fun, ya no good lousy...)

I'll PM you ideas from now on. I'm just so excited to see a game like this finally exist.

[Hempuli‽]

Hmm. I've been reading this topic for a while now, so I guess I'll say something actually.

Although I admit that nothing can be indeed very scary, there needs to be some visual/sfx things that make the game scary. In a game like Dead Space, although there're all those monsters, also the parts without them are scary. There's all kinds of whispering and other creepy noises, and the music acts so that when you're near a corner, it becomes more and more pressing, even if there's no-one behind the corner. Yeah, dead space isn't a good example on "nothing being scary", but the stuff they do with the sounds there are amazing.

Another thing I'd consider scary, that would maybe fit this kind of game, would be some sort of guy/thing, that would appear randomly so that the player seems him/it only for a short time in some dark place, and it would run away/disappear quickly after that. Like, when looking through a window to a room, you'd see him watching you, and then rushing away. When I think of it, it would add a lot to the scariness, even if it/he didn't do anthing really, just appearing and going away.

[Kneecaps]

I think this area has some potential creepiness in it.  Also, when I was under the bridge that had the mini pathway in the middle of it, I fell into nothingness.  So the 3D engine isn't 100% perfect yet.

[Kegluneq]

The gray fog kinda bugs me, it makes it seem not so much an intended creepiness, just poor drawing ability from the engine. As suggested earlier, make it move somehow, and I'd prefer a grayish-white fog, something more along the lines of real fog. this gray blanket is just... odd? It seems so out of place its not really as scary as I think it has the potential to be.