I think of starting a small development blog series about How can you add horror/thriller in a real-time tactical game.
Big idea is to use different phobias but in a smart way.
EPISODE 1
- BUG PHOBIA: in most residential houses maps there is old food so each time I place 1 or 2 animated bugs, sublime to appear from time to time from under table nothing too exaggerated, sometimes I also combine them with some animated fly`s but in this current map I want to really mess up players with BUG phobias so under the animated light that flickers from time to time I placed a huge amount of bugs. I also plan to later make a room full of bugs that the player must move his squad through. Note that bugs do not have any mechanic, this is purely psihological
- MIND PLAY - PSYCHOLOGICAL: during this stage, the player does not know anything about the creature's origin, it can be a religious factor, military experiment, alien factor, and so on. So in this map, I placed a pentagram to encourage religious plot affirmation but then again under the flickering light I placed some dead tentacles coming from the wall that can also move the mind toward a Lovecraftian type of plot and not removing the idea of an alien invasion either, I mean the pentagram can be just the work of a madman.
-MIND PLAY - MECHANICS: in most residential maps thing is simple, you enter the map and zombie type enemies start coming according to your aggro level(aggro level is based on how the player plays the game) but if you enter on this map with lower then LVL 3 aggro, no monster will come, the player will not know this so he will always be on edge, and if you enter this map with aggro LVL 4 or 5 then very strong monsters will come, the kind of monsters that the player will not normally encounter. Basic by doing this I train player's minds to always have a certain fear/caution of the unknown.
- MAP ARCHITECTURE - CHEAP SCARE JUMP: this is one of the very few bathrooms that got a dark edge from where monsters can come, note that after many of the other buildings exploration if the player sees the bathrooms and dark edge but never had any monsters come out from there he will have a nice surprise when this design element will be different this time.
- MAIN MECHANIC: the player can always leave the building whenever he wants but then he will miss out on the looting rewards, this will be placed in balance with perma-death and unique characters that the player can get attached to (either because of invested equipment in that character, or past history or purely by personality trait based on text lines) so the player will try hard to keep his squad alive and will always be on edge of decision making.
Hope you enjoyed
PS: I do not know if I will continue this series because soon I must concentrate my attention on marketing and actual scenarios + ending + loot more work :(