On Sale: GamesAssetsToolsTabletopComics
Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
Tags

NotSoMelancholy

1
Posts
A member registered 97 days ago

Recent community posts

I love the new base,  the basement had me on edge the first time I went down it was great! I love the new garage location and what you've done with the stair case to create the same unease as the old hole did but I do have some feedback; most is immersion related. (I do draw comparisons to the old base but I still prefer this new one) I did write a lot so I've boldened parts to it can be skimmed.

(Non-base related)

 The (removal of) ATV Knockdown  The game had an incredible piece of emergent gameplay, I hope it can return and I hope I can find a way to do it justice in text. It has to do with how pursuits play out and how the game's systems played into them to make for a high tension and immersive experience. The ATV came with a great risk/reward feature. This came partially from being able to knock yourself off the ATV, partially from the environment we're driving it in, and partially from the lack of damage we'd take from these collisions. The bottom of it is, the forest is treacherous so when navigating normally you have take your time to get between trees. When you're being pursued it created this emergent gameplay I love: "Do I take it slow and safe, risking the thing catching up but staying on the ATV or Do I try and boost to escape losing maneuverability and risking hitting a tree". Hitting a tree became a punishment in the place damage typically takes and created an incredible horror experience with frantic re-orientation and split second decision making if you did collide with something. By extension this lead to moments of "Do I try and find my ATV or do I run and hope I'm fast enough" ATV knockdowns made you vulnerable, it was exhilarating and felt like a natural world interaction. I miss the ATV knockdown and I hope it's revisited. It managed to create the game equivalent of a protagonist tripping during a chase in a horror movie with all the excitement and frustration you'd expect but I think overall contributed to a positive horror experience. I do also hope that if it's revisited that the player doesn't take damage from the collision, as the chase between you and the entities should be the stars of those scenarios, the knockdown is punishment enough.


(Base Related)

Kitchen Cabinet Doors - I think they're an unnecessary interaction cost for the player. I don't know if it's a design choice to be tied into a future event but I think the swinging doors should be used a little more conservatively. Their awkwardness takes out you of it, but I do very much love the physicality of storing items in the gameworld so it would be nice even if they just became open shelves. It obviously isn't realistic, but I think a gameworld that feels natural to interact with physically creates a much more immersive experience than a 1:1 realistic one.

Room Separation/Overall Size - I hope we get a little more space in commonly used areas of the base for customization. One of the greatest strengths of the original was the large open rooms (both the bedroom and the terminal room). I loved using the furniture to create my own areas within it (the pre-existing walls helped with that as well). I had a corner with the corkboard and printer to document sightings, I had a corner dedicated to hard drives, and just a decorative corner as well and my room was decked out with things I'd found or other decorations You could tailor the space to how you were playing the game and none of it was a hassle to interact with because it was right there in the same room (Corkboard for example. It didn't matter if an event trashed that space, since it was right beside the main terminals I was more than happy to reconfigure or restore it while waiting on signals same with the bedroom). The new base is a lot bigger but it's very segmented and it's largest area (the hallways) I can see serving a gameplay purpose for events but we've lost a lot of practical player useability (and the larger base makes it more of a chore to fix things in other rooms). We've lost a lot of space in high traffic areas to customize and it's a bit of a bummer. Now it might seems silly to be talking like this about customization but it does play a big role in the horror aspect. You make the base your own, it creates a false sense of security as you create a 'safe' feeling space for yourself. It really lets you pull the rug from under the player when events occur in the base or something happens  within it while they're out of the base.

Decal Vents - it sounds weird but, they take me out of the game. Decals are used throughout to add more detail but I think a good strength of the old base's bare minimum design was pretty much every detail (minus the floor drains) were physically there in some way. This is great for the horror, because it doesn't matter if the vents were tied to any events; just the fact that they were there and the idea that maybe some monster could use them added to a sense of paranoia in the base. It also just adds a layer of physicality to the base, selling the player on the idea that it is a tangible place that you're in and immerses you. The 2D vent decals just yell "Hey, don't forget this is a game world!"


These are a bit of small nit picks but I don't know the intentions for the design so really don't want make a concrete judgement on the base as a whole.  Overall the base feels less natural to interact with, the larger base and new rooms I think open up great opportunity for future events within the base. I do find the overall size of the base paired detrimental to the (in-game) day-to-day experiences of the player, just because of the much higher interaction cost to do anything within it now. It really seems just to open up design questions for the base. a large base is great for longer events, but are they frequent enough to justify the size? Does the larger size events/mystery outweigh the associated player fatigue from the higher interaction costs to play within it? What's the balance between physically simulated gameworld interactions, game performance and realism?

I really hope you don't take any of this as being overly critical. I feel the need to stress that you've managed to make a game that I can simultaneously jump fling myself off mountains and towers unscathed not only immersive but also incredibly scary. The way you blur the line between the game and it's world and interconnected them in the horror has really lead to a one of the kind horror experience.