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[null & void]

I'm sure it's possible. Even if you're toting around heavy weaponry. I'm trying to pull it off.

I have my own ideas on how to do it, but I want to hear what other people think about it. Is it possible? If so, what's the best way to do it? What way would be easiest (if not optimal)? What should the focus be? Could standard RTS gameplay devices be used to help create horror? What should be adopted from other genres?

That's all.

[Problem Machine]

The essential conflict I see is that RTSes are primarily about the revealing of information and horror is primarily about concealing information. If you can figure out a good way to resolve that conflict, that should be most of the problem solved right there. Perhaps something like fog of war... but more so? Or somehow feeding unreliable information to the player...

Edit: There's also a kind of intrinsic conflict between the intimacy of horror and the kind of overview that most RTSes require. That one may actually be more difficult to solve; perhaps actually cast the player as a commander in a command center, to make the threat to his/her danger a little bit more real.

[null & void]

it appears that to a degree we've come to the same conclusion. Claustrophobia breeds horror. My solution is to make weapon range long but visual range woefully inadequate, as well as fog of war ALWAYS obscuring everything it covers. Strategic placement of units (some far away, the others "spotlighting" for those) becomes important, and the player becomes painfully aware of his/her inability to see. "I wonder what's around the corner?" stays a valid question.

Your other idea, misleading information, is very interesting and one I hadn't considered. Hallucinatory units (ones that don't exist but sometimes can be "half seen" moving on the peripheries of visual range)?

EDIT: I have also considered how to drag the player into that as well. My solution is, in my opinion, pitiful. It's fear of corruption and fear of loss. I don't want to go into too much detail yet, but the player becomees painfully aware that he's not just killing "units" but people as well -- it introduces a "I am a terrible human being" sort of thing to it.

[Gainsworthy]

What kind of RTS we talking about? Big Starcraft/C&C style mass of units, or a more micromanaged affair? From my view, horror in the first would be impossible.

Sounds interesting, though. You'd be well off to give the player a level of communication with the units, too.

[nayon]

I'm thinking like this:

You have a squad, a limited amount of people, each with names. You are on an alien planet, your carrier has crashed and you are supposed to wait for pickup, but the high-ups are interested in the planet so they want you to explore it. It's a dark planet, not much lighting, so all you rely on is your flashlights. Hordes of aliens come at you, then it's silent, not one enemy. Then one comes at you, and you brace yourself for more, but they don't come. They ambush you at a narrow passage, and kill Jenkins, the youngest member of the squad. His death weighs heavily on the squad.

What I'm trying to say is atmosphere, and connection with the units. Make the player care for each single unit. Build backstory for them, give them character and dialog, and the player will be afraid of losing them.

[null & void]

Gainsworthy, it's going to be sort of both. The two will be very seperate though.

Macromanagement and infrastructure will be done at completely seperate times from the micromanagement and war-stuff. There's going to be a LOT of discouragement of rushes and similar completely-destroy-the-enemy maneuvers. You'll be better off relying on guerilla tactics than nukes or human waves.

Atmosphere follows design occasionally, Nayon. But what you suggest sounds more like it'd be better for a Space Hulk-esque game than ... well, an RTS proper.

[pen]

What I'm trying to say is atmosphere, and connection with the units. Make the player care for each single unit. Build backstory for them, give them character and dialog, and the player will be afraid of losing them.

How will you go about this without scripted deaths (assuming single player with heavy story). What happens when the majority of all the characters die on the second level? (Or are they merely knocked unconscious/out of commission for the rest of the mission? - Do you have to carry them to get to where you need to go?

[Zaratustra]

[William Broom]

When I'm playing Dwarf Fortress, I always get freaked out when I see some creature appearing and disappearing at the edge of the screen. Then I spend ages trying to pause the game while it's visible, only to discover that it's just a lizard or something.

So maybe you could make enemy AI that likes to hover at the edges of the fog-of-war, perhaps even trying to lead the player into traps?

[JLJac]

I'd make it be about a relatively small amount of people, each with names, slightly different stats and a hint of personality. Make every single unit important as hell! It's easier to get involved in "story events" if they also affect the gameplay, if you know it changes your odds of survival when things happens in the game it gets easier to connect to the events in a more emotional way too.

The reason why many people choose first person view for horror games is that it gives the player very little information. As kobel said, a top-down RTS view gives the player very much information, which might make the player feel in control of the situation. I'd make the game be much about communication, the transport of information. The player constantly tries to get an as clear as possible view of the situation, the game tries to prevent information from reaching the player.

One scenario that came into my mind was radio disruption. You communicate with your units through radio, and the further they get from HQ the weaker is the signal. When they are too far away you can't any longer get any status updates from them, and they can no longer recieve any new orders. Sometimes you try to keep contact with the units by making them set up radio nodes on their path, enabling communication, but you don't have an infinite number of nodes, and sometimes you have to send them out int the dark, and just wait, trying to come to conclusions of what happened based on if they return or not.

I think the "being a horrible person" idea is great! You could base the gameplay on trust, like this: The units do as you say only if they trust you, or if they have no other choice. You want the units to think that you are doing everything you can to grant their survival, have control of the situation and knows everything about what's happening. What is actually going on is that you have very few, scattered pieces of information, and are mainly trying to achieve some higher goal, something that a few humans can be sacrificed for. Sometimes you have to betray the units that trust you the most by leading them straight into their deaths, and when they cry to you for help say nothing but "sorry, it's for a higher goal". Also you will have to prevent the units to talk to each other too much, they might figure out what's going on and refuse to obey their orders. Backstabbing helpless people that trust you surely will make the player feel like a bad person...

I'd keep away from scripted events. Even if you think they are unpredictable they are often not quite as surpising as you believe. One third into the game people are expecting the first death of an important character, and when it then happens it has less impact. Make as much of the game as possible dynamic and random generated, so that the player never really knows what to expect, even if playing it for the second time. I've actually been a bit scared by spelunky sometimes, not because of it's atmosphere but because it's totally unpredictable what will happen next, and I know dying has serious consequences.

Good luck, this will certainly be interesting to see more of later on!

[Problem Machine]

They ambush you at a narrow passage, and kill Jenkins

Well that's what he gets for rushing in like that.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

What kind of RTS we talking about? Big Starcraft/C&C style mass of units, or a more micromanaged affair? From my view, horror in the first would be impossible.

Sounds interesting, though. You'd be well off to give the player a level of communication with the units, too.

The sheer horror at facing someone much better than you at Starcraft can't be equaled by any horror game or any horror film.

[null & void]

I read over JLJac's stuff -- again, doesn't sound appropriate for an RTS proper, I don't think.

I DEFINITELY like the radio communication idea though. I'm imagining something like Siren. Instead of just moving your view to the units, you have to "tune in" to their signal to see them. Increases the depth of the short sight range. Very nice idea.

The corruption I have is more about the OTHER people you kill (the game's going to be multiplayer heavy, most likely) -- you'll feel like a terrible human being for ordering your units to kill other people. I'm also going to add a "profitable slavery" angle. (The game was inspired heavily by White Wolf's old World of Darkness Wraith game-line.) There will also, of course, be fear for the safety of your units -- I'm just using a slightly different (some might call it cheating) technique to get the player to care about them.

[Ivan]

Most of the early X-com missions on higher difficulties, especially at night (and especially the city terror ones (which tend to happen at night anyway)) can only be considered as turn-based horror. Watching your hapless team get slaughtered one by one by off-screen horrors as they panic and lose control is what it's all about. That's turn based though. I don't think it would work in real time as well.

[Valter]

I agree with RinkuHero. Zerg Rushes are terrifying.

Here's another concept: one of the lighthouses that sweeps for enemies on planet X has broken down. A squad of soldiers is sent to fix the problem.

There are no problems on the way to the lighthouse, but it is very dark. You reach the lighthouse, and it seems that nothing went wrong. It just... turned off. Naturally, being the good soldiers your are, you turn back on the light.

And there are thousands of them!

You have to spend the rest of the game holding out against the evil horde before help arrives. Or you could force the players to make their way back to the ship they landed on, Dark Fury style.

[null & void]

I think I need to clarify what I'm looking for. I don't need concepts (although i think they could be useful to others) I need things to do which will make the game frightening regardless of concept.

This isn't to say your concepts are bad, rather they just aren't what I'm looking for.

[Ivan]

You should play X-com if you haven't yet. It's chock full of emergent moments that are really scary.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I need things to do which will make the game frightening regardless of concept.

In my experience how games and movies produce a feeling of "horror" is 90% music and sound, and perhaps 10% suspense and sudden surprise.

Play some horror-themed games or watch some horror-themed movies and you'll notice it's mostly the music that matters. Watch/play them with your speakers off or the TV muted and you won't be scared one bit.

[Valter]

I'd say the best way to increase horror would be fog of war and flanking attacks.

Whenever the player's units leave the "safe zone", their main base, enemies will start to spawn behind them or to the sides. Whenever you overextend, you get surrounded. That would freak out the player.

[rob]

If this is squad based a good idea would be that if anyone dies it's a game over. The player would be much more scared in an attack if he needs to make sure every unit makes it out alive. In an RTS it seems like as long as you have your base and some resource gathering units you'll be fine, because you can just rebuild your army. If you force the player to manage every unit it could create a claustrophobic game experience.