Real_time strategy + Horror ?

Hey,

What do you guys think of RTS mixed with Horror? Is it possible? Is it a bad mix for PC gaming communities?

I want to try out this design on my project but first I take a look at the past:

"They are billions" - very good RTS game with a nice Zombie theme but very far from being a horror game.

"Classic Xcom/Ufo" - the best tactical game that got a nice horror vibe/feel to it but not in real-time

"Darkwood" - good thriller & horror but not an RTS

This been said I will now present my core pillars for this project and you can do a "nay"-"yay" vote if you want

- Empathy for characters: This is not an FPS so emphasizing with the situation will be a bit hard but I plan to achieve that through Example:1. Each character will be unique( equipment/stats and most important personality, personality is shown trough out randomly generated speech text in result with triggers and situations) 2. The game got Perma-death .3 Character customization

- Adrenaline of making a choice: I want to make players feel each choice matters and increase their adrenaline by not only having perma-death but also saving game cannot be done at any time and it also costs resources according to how many people you got in the squad.

- Phobias: I plan to use as many phobias as possible, for example, there will be a room full of bugs that player must cross (optionally) to get an extra reward

- The mystery of unknown: many random generated algorithms and difficult based on how you play the game

- Mechanics & visuals: for example, we have a monster that got eggs on his back, from those eggs worms come out and if not killed fast the worms keep growing larger and larger. Another example: a huge tentacle monster that only hides in the dark and snatches player characters. Anxiety can be very fast achieved with such gameplay especially if the player will have possibility to barricade himself inside buildings and try to survive the coming monsters

- Theme/plot: I am going for a Lovecraft-alien invasion - demon zombie plot

And since today is #screenschotsaturday here are a couple of screenshots.

Gallery

Maybe it could be done, but it's certainly not easily done. The themes are too antithetical to each other.

Horror is all about tension, not knowing what's around the next corner, and feeling like you aren't equipped to deal with what might be out to get you.

Strategy games are all about surveying the battlefield, getting as much info as possible, and methodically planning your every move.

Having a strategy game that is well designed is going to be hard to make scary, because the nature of a strategy game requires thinking ahead, planning, and executing that plan. Horror games work better at conveying that horror when dealing with the unknown, not knowing where the enemies are, how many of them there are, and what else may be out to get you. You give the player too much information and the horror will suffer, withhold too much information and the player's ability to meaningfully strategize is hindered.

@ll_exile_ll:in that way I think it is a very interesting design challenge to take on. RTS games also tend to operate at a higher pace that isn't easily conducive to building atmosphere or tension. That being said there can be a very palpable tension while playing an RTS as you have to make split second decisions that could mean success or failure for your strategies. That tension is far from horror though it could theoretically be amplified by elements from horror but it's a fine equation. You have to find the balance between what you give the player and what you obfuscate from them to both allow the player to formulate strategies while also keeping them on their toes.

I think that the push/pull between being pro-active with a small army and venture out in the dark vs knowing that enemies will get more powerful if you stay close at home, is where there's some potential for horror in a RTS. Even a non-horror game like Starcraft can feel real scary if you're at like 40 supply and you know that there are mutalisks out there to hit your base or your entire army can get overwhelmed by a bunch of zerglings if you venture out with a too small army. While when you're at 150-200 supply, that horror has mostly gone away from the game as you know you have enough production to replace lost units if they venture out.

That ever-growing worm seems to play into that pretty nicely. Maybe there could also be something be done where the fog of war only really lifts if you build lights on the map or have a unit be out there on the map to trigger a generator or something. Are you willing to split up your units to create more vision, or do you have to keep all your units together to have enough firepower to keep them as safe as possible?

@ll_exile_ll

Yes I understand what you mean and I agree, as I said, the only tactical game that I found that had horror elements was Xcom but even that one was Turn-Based not Real-Time

@fistoh

Thank you for the feedback!

Yes I do try to find a balance between these 2 game types but it is hard since I have no other real pattern that I can follow, all I can think is how good Xcom made this(but it TBS) and how "They are billions" even though it got a zombie horror theme it is not even close to any horror elements.

@onemanarmyy

Thank you! That is a good suggestion, I mean, after all, fear of the dark/unknown is basic 101 Horror

If you also mentioned the worm, here is a combo I did with that creature + flickering lights that affect the visual area, at one flicker you see a few and on the second flicker they already multiplied and evolved (sorry for the bad gif quality)

Small Update

Since our game is made with performance in mind, all shadows and lights must be hand-drawn/animated, I now resumed some of the light "systems" polish. On the good side, with such a system the game will basically run even on a potato computer.

My aim here was not to create realistic lights but rather atmospherical ones.

- top layer got an alpha object with main shadow shapes

- all walls and big objects generate a shadow PNG

- light object shapes used to cut through the generated wall shadow

So each time a map starts the game will generate one huge shadow / light layer PNG. We also got light animations that we had to fake through some torture procedures.

So here are a few possible shadow/light combos that we use in the game. Hope you enjoy

@cristianbitnigh: I think the closest I can think of that is real time and horror would be a game called Survivor Squad. It is fully real time squad game where you lead a group of four units through small towns and scavenge homes, clear rooms and occasionally save people. Weapons have their own visable firing cone so you are expected to array your team's backs against walls or back to back army of two style so as not to be flanked by a stray zombie. The horror or tension comes in the form of houses and buildings that are trapped in a way that causes your team to be separated or out of action and you have to find some way to get them out or leave and save the people that are still able to move. Sometimes a trap house is one that simply activates alarms and attracts hordes of zombies.

Sometimes the death trap is a large building that will automatically lock all doors and windows when a couple of people walk through the door then you have to search the home for wire cutters or key codes to disarm a bomb that's will kill everyone inside while still dealing with any zombies both inside and outside.

@merxworx01

Thank you for the feedback!

Funny you mentioned survivor squad, I made a game together with the developer of survivor squad back in the flash game era(you can find it online I think, was called awaken rise of heroes, similar gameplay with survivor squad). After that, he made Survivor Squad for PC and I made Flesh Eaters for PC.

Good point about the building note. I made it so that the player can barricade windows and make defense perimeter from the environment is he got an engineer in the squad. The bomb disarm element I have not added yet but your suggestion is good, I will do some experiments regarding it.

Also here is a map where the player is in a house and outside is just 1 huge tentacle monster that snatches player soldiers one by one. The player can never see the entire creature so I boost the fear of unknown element and claustrophobia, I also tried to be fair so the player can win 2 ways, either by killing the monster or by escaping through the underground tunnel(both lead to different game paths)

hope you enjoy

Looking good!

@amingo:Thank you!

I am glad to hear that pixel art is still appealing.

All assets for scenario 06 are done.I aimed for simple gameplay here, also by this point the player will be familiar with all basic mechanics.

Mainly you must fix the vehicle(doing so you will unlock the workshop menu) by looting components from the map(or if you already have components from the previous exploration even better)and during this time you must also protect the perimeter against the undead. After the vehicle is fixed and you have the key, the exit grid will appear

And a small twist at the end, the player will have a choice. increase Action points permanent + 1 during travel map but get permanent x2 prices in the workshop or do not get the bonus AP and have normal prices in the workshop.

Good news!

After 4 years of development, we finally posted a free demo on Itch.io.

https://16bitnights.itch.io/chromosome-evil

The full release on Steam will be on March 24 2022 (3 days away from my post)

@cristianbitnigh: Nice! I'm Enjoying the game.

Some feedback:

Good stuff

• Top-down artwork is very charming and pops in a very pleasing manner.
• Top-down gameplay gave a good first impression.
• Mostly minor gameplay issues.

Bad stuff

• Two back-to-back crashes to desktop.
• The heavy fog around the farm seems to cause slowdown on my old Intel integrated graphics card.
• My squad has frozen a couple times.
• Not enough zombies sometimes—I reckon my playstyle might have caused them to bug out.
• Writing is a little plain, iffy and crufty.

Crash hypothesis

• After noticing that zombies spawn outside when you open a door to a room with windows, I started exploiting that system by opening fewer of those rooms.
• Then I started keeping one zombie alive so that I could grind barricade repairs.
• As a result, the zombie count dwindled to almost nothing.
• This seems to mess with the zombie queue, which may have lead to those crashes.

Writing

I'm not a great writer, but I had a go writing my own version of part of the introduction.

I identified the central themes of the text: the blackout, the omen, and people wanting to make sense of the events. The text is basically the same, but I wanted to paint a bigger and more vivid picture and turn the confusion into the hook at the end of the text:

The possessed storm consumed every bit of sunlight.

In its wake, an unknown force hacked everything—phones, internet, billboards, television and radio broadcasting, computers, civilian and military aircrafts—and delivered a warning message:

“The Ancient One is coming…”

Then, the world blacked out, and no one can tell me the clear and full story.

Maybe add a bit more visual interest here as well. We already have the ominous "Ancient One" warning in the text, so you could add some contrasting imagery. Perhaps we could tie the Ancient Ones in thematically with an African tribe without losing the thread of the narrative. How would an African tribe experience the catastrophe? Would they be more sensitive to the presence of the Ancient Ones? Would they have express their own warning signs? Has this happened before in history? Would they have protected their village and animals? Maybe the tribal people are blacked out in their huts, and there animals are sitting outside in a protective circle, still conscious, but visibly affected.

Thematically, there's still the issue of most of the game being bright, though.

The other thought I had about writing was just keeping everything concise, not getting too clever (Left 4 Dead designer Chet Faliszek has said, "A clever line is actually a problem.") It would also be good to tie more impactful horror moments into the environment and the systems and mechanics (Left 4 Dead also does this well).

WOW!

Thank you so much for the detailed feedback @ravey !

I passed down your notes regarding the crashes to my programmer & partner Sadoff.

Can I ask what do you mean by "back-to-back crashes to desktop."?

And yes, one of the mechanics is not to be greedy to open to many doors, sometimes many monsters spam behind closed doors sometimes they spam with a clear pathway, there is a random element in mind.

As for our performance-related problem, we did have something similar in the past but that was related to alt+tab/minimizing the game. Do you have the same issues when you play in full screen?

Unfortunately, we are just 1 day from the full release on Steam but fortunately we will keep repairing the bugs and updating the game even after the release.

As for the text your writing and suggestions are good, for us it was a bit hard and we relied on many text modifications from players of our community because our native language is not english(I am from Romania) and we had many gram mistakes and problem in writing logic

Crashes

I had two crashes with two New Games—no save files were used. Both times I was in the exact same apartment building on the first map. It's the one with the corridor that looks like an L bent 90 degrees clockwise with two doors in the middles facing outward on each side. Both times I wasn't in the location for maybe 5 minutes. Both times I was primarily grinding barricade repairs for XP.

Farm Performance Issue

I play in full screen, this is where the issue occurs for me.

Writing/Translation

I notice all the text is stored in the .exe file. Would it be possible to dumping it out to a text file for editing?

Whoa, hadn't seen this thread before: it's really cool that you've been posting about the development here! And congrats on the imminent release - making games is a difficult and ardous process indeed, so managing to complete a robust game is worthy of applause.

Enjoyed the demo, great work! (Sorry I can't provide as thorough and detailed design feedback as Ravey)

@manburger: The game feels too easy to me. I often feel like I'm just wasting time, ammo and building materials with almost no pressure when I wish the zombies would kick my butt out of the building already!

@ravey: As a baby that likes babygames, this is less of a issue for me - but it is a good point that in a game like this, you'd probably want to cultivate a tense, oppressive horror atmosphere and compelling gameplay where the player is always on the back foot, being hounded and scrounging for resources, by increasing enemy pressure and the overall challenge level.

@ravey:Thank you for the feedback but bugs and stuff like that please do share them in Steam next time because I am doing art, animation, design and PR not programming, the code is made by my partner and he only checks the bug report forums(he is a savage guy).

As for the game being too easy congratulations, you are very skilled because 90% of the players found it too hard.

@manburger Thank you for the kind words and support and constructive criticism!

Now some more news:

Chromosome Evil was positively received on Steam and GoG so we decided to make a sequel to this.

We also remade the entire game engine because of one silly function: the zoom-in mechanic, but considering what is going on these days with unity I think the custom engine was totally worth it.

Improvements in comparison with the original

VISUALS

- more polished cutscenes with some basic animations and parallax effects

- female characters

- all animations re-made and polished from the ground up

- all visuals polished

- new enemy types, we adjusted them to be more Lovecraftian

- new map types like forest and desert environments

MECHANICS

- zoom in function

- a dynamic fog of war

- new evolution system for enemies

- enemy destroyable body parts according to where the projectile hits

- new travel map system with a real-time mechanic

- building with floor layers(can travel between floors)

- full base mechanic (convoy) with deeper gameplay

- introducing the M.U.L.E.

- A lot of new skills for characters, for example, Mele combat now uses stamina

- Characters are now even more unique, we added personal perks and general perks in addition to the skills

- Game options are now at higher quality

- New weapons and new weapon mechanics such as sniper rifles, mele shields, barb wire for defense, medical pod, and so on

- static enemies that will wait for you in the dark

STORY

- PREQUEL: in the tutorial, you will play as the brother of the main protagonists from the first game

- MAIN GAME: action will take place after the military path ends from the first game(cannon ending)

- a lot more Lovecraftian plot, enemies and monsters

And some delicious preview:

Combat:

Let me know what you think, also if you have any questions about the first game numbers let me know

Meantime things went well, we released the sequel in Early Acces, which had positive reception again and now we are 1 month away from the full release.

Here are some more content:

It is safe to say that we decided to move a bit away from the horror elements and concentrated more on the management part of the gameplay.

I generally don’t believe in bad combinations of genres if it’s done with talent.