Scary Strategy RPG game Ideas

[xenopuff]

Brad was recently talking about scary strategy rpgs and i was wondering, how would they make them scary?

I'd like to hear peoples ideas just because, really, I'm curious

Branching off for a second, i think the main factor for fear in a game, for me anyways, is not knowing. Being unaware what I'm up against, where my enemies are and whats going on around me. When I'm playing an FPS and i go down the cliche dark alley, I'm afraid of whats behind me, not infront of me. What i can't see and not what i can see.
Also, atmosphere plays a heavy part in scares. Walking through a room that tells a story. Maybe not your over the top gore fest that has gore in it just for the sake of it being there, but having it controlled, if you know what i mean. Not like guts everywhere, but maybe a blood trail leading to a scene where you can only see some of the corpse, and items scattered around. A saw, a knife ect. At that moment, what i would do is in the background noise, while the player is looking at the scene, trigger a sound, shuffling, something getting knocked off the shelf, ect.

Anyways, how would you apply this into a strategy rpg that still retains good controls and a friendly interface with horror?

So, ideas wanted, just mainly game mechanics and how this would work

Thanks a bunch!!

[criana]

Yeah, the not knowing factor is a huge part. Like, fatal frame for example will occasionally have a cut scene where something "scary" happens, but then it's not as scary because you know it's coming. The scariest thing is turning around and having something just standing there. That scares the hell out of me!

As far as atmosphere is concerned it really has to not push it. Like I hate it when you have games that are too dark. At that point it's not even scary, just cheap. I Also agree with the background noise. That really adds but I don't like it when horror games have background music. Since most of the time it is a psychological game you don't want to take away from the realism. Exceptions for that would be if an in game a stereo was on or like a music box or something to that extent.

So, I suppose, applying this to an RPG setting would be difficult. You wouldn't want the horror branch too far away from the actual story lines. Because I have had moments in a game where I'm like "Why am I here?". So to sum it up in a nutshell I would say key things for a good RPG game : A plot that makes sense with the location and keeping it as real as possible!

[Gravier251]

hearing the idea of a "strategy RPG horror game" kind of reminded me of a quite old game I played a demo of on PC that I had been trying to recall the name of for quite some time.

The game was called "enemy infestation" and from what I recall of the demo it was basically an isometric game where you control a group of individuals on a space station, so you had people like a medic, soldiers, even a barkeeper, etc. They all had their own strengths and weaknesses.

You can only see the rooms you have people in, and on the second demo level aliens constantly spawn from a large hall where larger queen like ones are. That level basically amounted to gathering the survivors together, especially the engineer I think it was as she could lock doors to prevent aliens from getting in. I tended to hoard weapons in the med lab and keep the engineer inside locking the place down in case people go down in one of the attacks. If people go down you pretty much had to drag them back to a medical station to heal them up.

Another interesting mechanic was that there were a wide variety of weapons/tools. And their effect on the aliens varied from level to level. For instance you might have a laser based weapon and shoot the aliens on one level killing/injuring them. While in the next the same weapon actually causes the aliens to multiply or grow in size

The only way to know what weapons were actually any use was to try them out or to try and secure a research station and get a scientist to figure it out.

Sadly I only ever played the demo and haven't really been able to find a copy since (it came out back in about 1998)

I was probably about 10 when I first played it, and am probably looking back through nostalgia that makes it seem better than it was.

But I always found it kind of eerie being barricaded in the med lab and hearing the lift in the cargo room nearby going up and down as the aliens kind of prowl around the deck. It was kind of a nice touch not knowing what to expect on the other side of a door (unless you have managed to secure and lock down all the lifts/doors and cleared all the rooms on your side of the lock down).

I think that game/layout has probably the most potential for creating a tense atmosphere within a strategy game, with how you can only see rooms/halls you currently have people in, along with the ever present threat of enemies and the unreliable weaponry.

It isn't quite a strategy RPG horror game, and it may be a lot less tense than I recall it to be, but it is probably the closest game I can think of to that particular criteria, and judging by how impossible it is to find clips or any references to it I guess it is a pretty obscure game hehe .

[yellowfishstick]

Have battles like valkyria chronicles, with a very similar battle system, except you can't see the enemies movement. And rather than having a large battlefeild to fight in have a mansion, like resident evil, where the corridors are dark claustrophobic, and twisting. But you never know were an enemy will be, so a zombie could be hiding round a corner. The point of the game should be trying to reunite each member of your team, as all characters should start in different parts of the mansion

[SnowOwl96]

I'm thinking something along the lines of the Echo Night series, Silent Hill Series and Fatal Frame series.

You couldn't turn off the analog on Echo Night Beyond because the fear feeling factor was part of the game.
I don't believe I have to explain why I chose silent hill and fatal frame as well now or do I?

Edit: Otherwise I like some of the post replies above mine.

For those of you who are interested.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echo_Night

[Xalgar]

Something that also adds fear are those clunky old controls and the fact that your character is a total wimp. Being a badass like in RE4 and DMC1 (to an extent) draws away from the horror and more into "Imma gonna fight these monsters". Also, how often the monsters appear affects this too. Compare Doom 3 to a classic Resident Evil game. Doom 3 seems to have baddies in every room and ruins any chance for atmosphere building.

I also despise "new enemy" cutscenes, it totally ruins any sort of suprise you get. RE3 did this right when you were running down an alleyway and all of a sudden in the upper levels of a building, a crazy creature is scaling a wall trying to get out of your line of sight. At this moment, I'm terrified to continue.

Scary Stratgy RPG probably would never work out. However, I think I have some pointers.

1) It MUST be real-time, Turn Based would make the scary mansion turn into a cheap and slightly spooky $5 haunted house.

2) Camera control has to be limited, a fog system that represent a unit's Line of Sight (LoS) would be a must. Also, a camera must follow moving unit's somehow, then again how would you do this in real time where there are more units to move at once?

[ceby]

I respectively disagree Xalgar I think a scary strategy RPG could happen in turned based form.
The main things that would have to be included in this type of game would be the ambiance of the maps being played on and the restriction of the line of sight on the player.

Here is how I think this could work out.
The game would center around a small squad of people, it wouldn't be scary if you had an entire army backing you up on the missions Maps would usually be confined to dark/confined locals such as offices/space stations/the woods ect. Line of sight would be limited to what the characters could see with the fog of war reappearing once a character isn't looking in that direction. Perhaps the biggest thing needed would be the power of the enemies that the character faced. While not necessarily weaklings the characters would need to be constantly mindful of enemies in order not to get slaughtered. Think of Aliens the movie as an example, even with all that gear they still needed to be on their toes when fighting the Aliens or they were toast.

I think the classic game X-Com had a bunch of this stuff covered. I remember playing it and for the first couple of missions was pretty dang scared. You could hear the enemies when it was their turn but never new who was going to pop out. It could be a easily killed grey or a fearsome alien walker that was nigh indestructible.

[happylilbuddha]

Apr 2, 2009 17:22:04 GMT -5 Xalgar said:

1) It MUST be real-time, Turn Based would make the scary mansion turn into a cheap and slightly spooky $5 haunted house.

Not necessarily, of course it would help setting the atmosphere if you had some sort of hectic encounters with the enemy. And if you don't include a timelimit for your turn a turn based system wouldn't turn out to well in that environment, or at least there's no way I can think about that would preserve the panic of a hectic encounter.

Also, the enemies would have to be very hard, or outnumbering you by far, adding some survival to it.
However that would probably make the game annoyingly hard.

So maybe we should rather look for a tense atmosphere that makes the player scared of his environment, not his enemies.
Silent Hill 2 pulled this off quite well. Of course, plasying it I was afraid of the monsters, but also of the whole town, the characters (Eddy) and in the end even kind of James himself.

What would work very well is to make the player question that what he sees is what the game want's the player to see, like in Eternal Darkness. I never experienced those events myself, but I read reviews about the game that included stuff like a fly that the reviewer believed to be crawling over the screen, but that was actually in game, toying with his mind; also the game pulled off a fake restart, but instead of the Gamecube logo the XBox starting sequence popped up.
It made the player feel he was going insane himself.

What I want to say is that it would be easier, and probably more effective, to implement a more subtle style of horror into a S-RPG, and thus a turn based system would work as well as a real time system.

[Gravier251]

yeah, it may be possible to make a turn based game scary or suspenseful, especially with unpredictable enemies and restricted vision. Though real time does add a degree of tension in that you are not given as much time to think or plan matters, which would probably make it somewhat easier to work with.

Looking into Enemy infestation it had a fair few interesting ideas with the varied people (classes) and the way you can't entirely predict what the weapons will do until you try them, or where the aliens are roaming unless you have locked down most of the ship. They also seem to grab downed survivors and drag them off to where more aliens are to make it more difficult for you to rescue them.

To make a strategy RPG kind of tense or scary I would think that you would need kind of intelligent enemies (in terms of AI and their pathing) who prowl around hunting you, with restricted vision by making it confined to hallways/rooms or some kind of fog of war style limitation, though I think the former would probably lend itself to the genre better in this case, I could be wrong though.

Anyway, another thing would probably be to make it have relateable characters (for the RPG aspect and to also make the player want to keep them alive). I think that having characters in danger that you actually value can be kind of suspenseful, like with fire emblem, or similar games the fact that people with depth and character can die and become unavailable permanently. The game isn't exactly scary but when you watch one of your team members take consecutive hits it is pretty tense as you dread losing them and having to restart the mission on that grounds.

To make a strategy RPG game scary you would probably need a lot of atmosphere, with ambient sounds creating that general uneasiness without even seeing any enemies. Probably using a set team of individuals with class roles and personalities along with a reasonable amount of risk and difficulty.

Could have an isometric sort of strategy game with a small group of survivors with certain skills based on their profession (doctor, mechanic, police, etc.) trying to traverse a zombie infested region. Perhaps with a system similar to commandos 3 in the whole having a large exterior region with interiors linked to that which flow smoothly without loading and are accessible to all.

You could even have the whole looking out of windows mechanics in there so you can keep an eye on the activity outside. Anyway you could kind of move between buildings, generally low on supplies and struggle to find a way across as the enemies roam around or begin to swarm on you. Perhaps even throw in a sort of barricading mechanic to give a bit of (dangerous) breathing space as you gather supplies and figure out where to move next. Skill progression would probably be mostly grounded in aptitude with firearms, etc. With set classes/people having better starting skills, or special unique abilities to make them important.

Though that would probably be a pretty varied experience, with potential for some scary/suspenseful moments mixed in with the kind of intense flight for survival aspect that occurs.

I guess it would need more interior moments and vision restriction, with different times in the day or a dark run down interior, you could probably even throw in lighting via flashlight should you find one, which would probably comes across a bit similar to the game shadowgrounds in terms of visuals, given the high camera angle.

The inventory system should probably be slightly restrictive, perhaps just in that you have a weight limit and the closer you come to that with characters it begins to slow movement, which would kind of make it more difficult to gather too many supplies without crippling your ability to evade the enemy.

Anyway, I went a bit overboard on coming up with somewhat specific mechanics/premise there I think hehe.

It sounds kind of novel and interesting but I don't think it would translate into an actual game very well

Anyway, I think a strategy RPG game would be a pretty difficult and expensive venture to pull off correctly, though I expect it is possible given the right premise and atmosphere.

[Xalgar]

Apr 3, 2009 13:04:37 GMT -5 ceby said:

I respectively disagree Xalgar I think a scary strategy RPG could happen in turned based form.
The main things that would have to be included in this type of game would be the ambiance of the maps being played on and the restriction of the line of sight on the player.

Here is how I think this could work out.
The game would center around a small squad of people, it wouldn't be scary if you had an entire army backing you up on the missions Maps would usually be confined to dark/confined locals such as offices/space stations/the woods ect. Line of sight would be limited to what the characters could see with the fog of war reappearing once a character isn't looking in that direction. Perhaps the biggest thing needed would be the power of the enemies that the character faced. While not necessarily weaklings the characters would need to be constantly mindful of enemies in order not to get slaughtered. Think of Aliens the movie as an example, even with all that gear they still needed to be on their toes when fighting the Aliens or they were toast.

I think the classic game X-Com had a bunch of this stuff covered. I remember playing it and for the first couple of missions was pretty dang scared. You could hear the enemies when it was their turn but never new who was going to pop out. It could be a easily killed grey or a fearsome alien walker that was nigh indestructible.

I agree ambiance is VERY important, without it... it's just killing random monsters instead of horror.

Ambiance would be really hard to pull off though because when I think of a Strategy RPG, I'm thinking overtop view where your not in the environment at all. What could work though, is that for a turn based system, you switch characters and your in the first person view. That could add a bit to the horror. Turn a corner and BAM! Crazy ghoul with saw blades for a mouth is attacking you. Either that or each unit has a set time limit to move and act freely like in VC but it wouldn't work very well since in most horror games, enemies are typically melee based and not Lancers named Jann.

[zekana]

i like the idea of eternal darkness of your character going insane effects the player as well. the more trauma your character goes through, the more it makes you question whats real and whats not.

think of this. if we do that room idea and its just 1 person, that person lets say is panicing. they are fearful of the outside. they hear a window crack and they freak out but calm down. they go to the window and in their mind see a dark figure. as you are the player seeing what they see, you will see that dark figure briefly as well. there was neevr anything there but becasue your character thinks there was something there, you do to.

something like that would have to be used very sparingly but it does add this effect of, what if you can't even trust what you see and hear. something like that would add in this whole new layer of fearing whats never been there in the first place.


also, i like the idea of the game not having background music at all but only shows the noice of the world. sometimes dead silence can be the most scariest thing there is for when there is nothing, it makes you think something will come.
i do think that like maybe in 1 level there could be a dungeon type of level where your going through levels and levels of tourtured souls and your hearing the sounds of agony and to add in this horrorble fealing, one of the characters is singing along to the screams as if it was music to them. i think something like that when you've built up this bond and trust with this character shattering when you realize, they've lost it and theres nothing you can do for them except prey getting them out can cure them.


what do you think? those ideas could work?

[Xalgar]

Apr 5, 2009 7:52:25 GMT -5 zekana said:

i like the idea of eternal darkness of your character going insane effects the player as well. the more trauma your character goes through, the more it makes you question whats real and whats not.

think of this. if we do that room idea and its just 1 person, that person lets say is panicing. they are fearful of the outside. they hear a window crack and they freak out but calm down. they go to the window and in their mind see a dark figure. as you are the player seeing what they see, you will see that dark figure briefly as well. there was neevr anything there but becasue your character thinks there was something there, you do to.

something like that would have to be used very sparingly but it does add this effect of, what if you can't even trust what you see and hear. something like that would add in this whole new layer of fearing whats never been there in the first place.


also, i like the idea of the game not having background music at all but only shows the noice of the world. sometimes dead silence can be the most scariest thing there is for when there is nothing, it makes you think something will come.
i do think that like maybe in 1 level there could be a dungeon type of level where your going through levels and levels of tourtured souls and your hearing the sounds of agony and to add in this horrorble fealing, one of the characters is singing along to the screams as if it was music to them. i think something like that when you've built up this bond and trust with this character shattering when you realize, they've lost it and theres nothing you can do for them except prey getting them out can cure them.


what do you think? those ideas could work?

Awesome ideas! But the character singing to tortured screams would just make me laugh and say "What the hell?", but I guess it depends on how a situation like that is built up. Could make you feel like the character has become insane and you have to make it sane again or else you lose control of it and it starts shooting at your own guys and smashing it's head against doors because it doesn't see that it's there. Or if the build up is horrible, you just laugh and don't really know what's going on.

It's a hit or miss thing that has to be handled perfectly.

[banky]

Apr 3, 2009 13:04:37 GMT -5 ceby said:

I think the classic game X-Com had a bunch of this stuff covered. I remember playing it and for the first couple of missions was pretty dang scared. You could hear the enemies when it was their turn but never new who was going to pop out. It could be a easily killed grey or a fearsome alien walker that was nigh indestructible.

I agree with Ceby about X-Com getting thing pretty close. I think X-Com was much more tense than it was actually scary though. You were tense because you had no idea if you were going to turn a corner and be face to face with some new alien you weren't prepared for.

To be scary you need to feel like you are the one being hunted. You can't have a ridiculous arsenal of offensive and even defensive capabilities at your disposal. You have to fear that if you make a poor decision you could pay dearly for it.

Even a game where you actually have no offensive capabilities could be scary, and your only objective was to escape. Trying to escape from a haunted house with no means of attacking your enemies would definitely make you think through each decision carefully.