I'm making this psychological horror game and I need some input from y'all. So, you play as a late night receptionist/security guard at a building. You're comfortable inside your secure reception room. You're not expecting late night visitors to the office. Most of the game involves you sitting behind the desk reading your book(probably a real life novel that's on public domain like Sherlock Holmes).
However, stuff starts to get freaky. The lights start flickering and you start seeing creepy things pop up around the corner of your vision.
The player thinks his mind's playing tricks on him and he has an option to consume medicine to minimize this like in Amnesia BUT there has to be a drawback to taking meds which I haven't figured out. It has to make something else worse. And if you dont take your meds, then something else has to happen that ends the game. Need some help on this please.
The situation only gets worse throughout the night. You also monitor the hallways, the bathrooms, and lobby on the camera.
I also haven't figured out the end game, as in a decent climax.
Can you guys help me with more pointers? I'm not a writer so I'd like your help! Thanks!
Make the book reading fill the entire screen and when you lower the book, you're sonewhere else in the building. E. G. youre mindlessly wandering
Jayden Jenkins
People don't play video games to read. If you want that mechanic to work it's got to be not actual reading or you need to invest a lot of time in creating an original story that sets the mood for the game in general.
Owen Ross
Interesting! Ok. What else would you say the MC should do to pass time at work?
Connor Diaz
When you're off your meds for too long you get hardlocked to your desk and start posting about Jews ruining everything on Any Forums
Caleb Gutierrez
This user is right, instead of using already done mechanics develop the book mechanic more. You can make it so the text is obfuscated or distorted in times of increased danger or something instead of some sanity bar/meds bullshit. H.P. Lovecraft stuff should be open domain also so use that instead of Holmes. Don't do flickering lights and random stuff. The drawback to keeping your head in the book is that you can't see what's going on in the monitors/or where you are going if you make it more mobile than sitting in the desk area. The M Night Shayamalan level twist is that you aren't in an office, you're in a zoo and an Ape escapes and kills you if you don't stop it from escaping using the monitors and door controls. [/spoilers]
You're helping me get a bigger picture user. But can you please expand on this more without the autistic ending twist? How would I end this game? What's the ending here?
Jonathan Powell
Also, to make the book reading more interesting make it a puzzle mechanic, where you shift words around or match up letters to decode things, so instead of reading you are deciphering instructions because the book is actually a manual to control the zoo locks and how to deal with escaping animals
Grayson Miller
Surely having the book be integral to the gameplay and plot would be the way forward. Remove all UI and just have the book as a sort of journal, and like said, have it be lowered/raised on the fly.
Justin Johnson
sounds very cliche and cringe, not scary at all. basically jumpscares and the most generic tropes of atmospheric horror (ooOooOoo flickering lights!!)
Landon Cox
Not him but pitch me a horror game without using a single trope.
Sebastian Evans
So it's FNAF but in an office building.
Christopher Reed
You could make it your first day at work, and the other employee hazed you by dosing your coffee with animal tranqs or zoo drugs to explain why the player sees an office setting. If you successfully stop the Ape from getting to you (Alt ending it gets out and attacks randos) then you outlast the effects and see the zoo again. The good ending is that you survive, the OK ending is the Ape escapes without killing you, but attacks randos, and the failed state is you are killed while still under the influence thinking it's some crazy office monster. You were a temp agent that's used to working in offices as the backstory, if you prevent the ape escape you get to sue the zoo/temp agency and can live life without being such a fucking wagie anymore.
Justin Fisher
NO APES!!! Yep. Ok how would you make the game's environment scary in an office building
Liam King
>ya'll Fuck off with your newspeak incsoc faggot
Gavin Long
Is that...a doctor's office....I"M GOING INSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANE
Jaxon Richardson
I don't wish to insult you OP, I'm a horror fan and it's nice to see investment in the genre, but your game idea sounds very derivative. The fact that you don't have any ideas on how something can be scary besides the tired cliches of flickering lights and spooky noises makes me think you're not cut out for this.
Without a shred of irony, the joke zoo idea is better than yours. There would be a definite uncanniness to looking through a security monitor in an enclosed office space in the city and seeing a large shape shifting around in the darkness which turns out to be a large ape. Something weird in an environment were it couldn't possibly be. I'd play that far sooner than I'd play 'Assorted Horror Game Tropes 37'.
Sebastian Harris
how about it turns out you're actually St. Peter guarding the gates of heaven. the book youre reading from is a list of sinners or something, or non sinners who are allowed into heaven?
and basially youre having just another day on the job guarding the gates of heaven when a bunch of demons try storming the building and it sort of turns into Doom. at that point though it risks turning into a generic FPS
Daniel Jenkins
So Biblical Papers Please?
Benjamin Wright
I guess it could be some other type of human like mammal as well, like a chimpanzee, possibly a bear, or do a couple different monsters based on animals to help hint the player along to realize they are in a zoo. I think getting away from the office setting would go a long way to making it scarier, I know it's tough when the asset stores are loaded with office prefab bullshit. This might also work with a mine, and you're like an assistant foreman or something, make it a space mine so it's easy to model the environments and adds extra unknown scare potential.
Ian Murphy
So the book could be Planet of the Apes - I think that's public domain. The twist is that you're hallucinating the ape, it's in fact caused by the meds you're taking. The twist on the twist is that you're a legit schitzo and are misinterpreting mundane things for supernatural. Like the lights buzzing and random calls are just normal happenstances of the office - you're just taking more and more meds in response to normal things.
Noah Mitchell
>Without a shred of irony, the joke zoo idea is better than yours This, seriously. I'm absolutely stealing this ape idea. Thanks anons.
Joseph Sullivan
I legit worked this job while in college. The security branch of the company (landlords for two office/residential buildings) had 10 guys and we would work in 12h shifts, 3 guys per shift - one guy at front desk, one guy at security room camera screens and one guy doing rounds around the buildings. It does get pretty surreal at like 6AM, 11 hours into your shift. Of the freakiest shit I saw, there was this one time a guy walked out of his apartment at like 4 in the morning, then proceeded to press his ear to every electrical outlet in the corridor as if listening to something. Another time I saw one of the residents who was a musician move those big trunks you see at concerts from his apartment to his truck in the garage at like 4 in the morning. I've seen him transport that shit before but always during normal time and either with his mates (bandmates?) or hired hands. He had this hottie gf that would occasionally come over, but idk if I saw her after the trunk thing.
Bentley Robinson
Instead of just a book, try having multiple things to do. I would expect a bored security guard to watch a movie on his phone or play a mobile game, in addition to reading books. In the videogame The Darkness, you can actually watch the entire movie of To Kill A Mockingbird.
Just have the medicine be coffee or caffeine pills and the drawback is that eventually your caffeine buzz goes away and you start crashing so you need to get more coffee/caffeine. If you fall asleep you get killed by the monster/laid off from your job. The goal is to just make it through the night, that’s all.
