Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Been thinking
I saw a mention in Ars Gaming yesterday about gaming villains and/or protagonists. The thrust of the article is that we should have more games where the protagonist is not your scantily-clad Croft-ian female, or you typical marine grunt with guns the size of small city blocks. That Gordon Freeman is supposed to be a scientist, but he kicks ass like the Doom guy, yada yada yada. I read this and I thought to myself, "Wasn't there a game I saw on a 'Begs To Be Remade' list somewhere about a college kid and the Necronomicon? That had an unusual protagonist."
The shoe having been dropped, I followed this train of thought as it barrelled inexorably into its thought castle. See, the game I'm thinking of was a text adventure, the name of which I can't recall for the life of me. You played a college nerd, happily coding in the Comp. Sci. lab at 2AM or so finishing a project for the next day, and you accidentally run a script that invokes the Necronomicon. This in turn summons all kinds of demons, Old Ones and other nasties with names like Yog-Sotthoth and Shub Niggurath and they take over the University. You need to get them back where they came from, and hand in your project by the time it's due. If I got to design this one, (and if you know the name of the title I'm talking about, please let me know!) here's what I would do to make it stand out from the rest of the pack.
One, no guns or fighting. You are a NERD. You do not get to shoot up the demons! If you fired a gun, the kick would probably break your arm. If you were to face off against an Old One, it would probably rip you to bitses. Therefore, the game would be less an "action" title of the typical nature, and more a "run the fuck away" type with a bunch of puzzles or some stealth sequences. You would be able to pick things up, ala Half-Life 2, and you might be able to use a fire extinguisher to buy yourself a few seconds, but if a Shoggoth catches up to you, you're finished. Some of the death scenes could be some of the highlights of the game, so that even if you suck and can't escape, at least you get to see the demon do something cool in rending your little nerd body to bitses. (I can see the ad now: Wanted! Creative artsy-type to devise interesting ways of death, usually involving dismemberment or eating!)
Two, as little music as possible. Since you can't fight, you need to be alert, so sound is key. Hear something approaching? Get out. The music would only get in the way of this, and as such would only be blatantly used when you're absolutely safe, but need that atmospheric edge to make you think otherwise. (Incidentally, that safe bit would be a secret. Don't tell anyone!) To make up for the lack of a soundtrack, the ambient noises in the game would have to be top-notch. Note, however, that I said "blatantly used" up there. There could be very subtle musical bits hidden in the hum of the servers, for example. This would be understated to the point of being subliminal, however.
Three, I would bring back the insanity game mechanic from Eternal Darkness. That was so cool, it can't NOT be done again, and the madness angle inherent in the Cthulhu mythos (which was itself alluded to in ED) is a perfect match. Since I see this title being a PC game, you could do a whole bunch of computer-specific stuff to make you think you've gone crazy:
This, in addition to the ones already touched on, like having ghost monsters attack you, or walking into a room and having it be upside down. If you've played Eternal Darkness, you know about some of the freaky auditory/visual hallucinatory stuff it pulls on you.
Four, the majority of the puzzles would revolve around hacking, and I mean REAL hacking. Using Linux. None of this made-up OS crap we always see. You would get to use grep and cat and vi and all those cool tools. This doesn't necessarily mean that you would need to know how to hack to play the game, however. The extra *nix angle would largely be a bonus, with the big story-driving hacks done through perl scripts or the like that you get from friends across the internet, and essentially functioning like thinly-disguised keycards from gaming days of yore. The biggest bits would be social hacking, in which you use phone calls to try and get passwords and such from key personnel like the security group. Having those, you could then ssh over and run the security camera routines, for example, to keep an eye on the monsters stalking the halls. This could be done through a dialogue minigame, where the idea is not only to ask the right questions, but also to keep your cool and sound convincing--something that would be difficult or easy, depending on how close you are to getting eaten.
Five, you have limited time. I mentioned before you have to get your project handed in on time, but this would need to be extended throughout the game. You could have a "time left" bar, for example, that represents your brain's estimate of how long you have until the monsters get through your latest roadblock. Furthermore, you could be wrong, and think you have 10 seconds left when you hear the Mind Devourer shatter the bar you put across the door. This could even be extended more, and make this perceived time variable depending on adrenaline or caffeine intake. Drink more coffee, and you feel you can move faster; the clock ticks slower, but is it because you're moving faster, or just think you are? Also, some parts of the game could be done differently, depending if you have more time or less. Say you're in the Chem lab, and have been doing Ok so far, so maybe you have time to consult a textbook and make some makeshift explosive or otherwise-nasty chemicals. Maybe you're stuck for time and can't do that, so you have to fabricate a less-trustworthy trap using broken glassware.
So those are five things there that I would want to include. Getting something like this off the ground would be something else though. I would need some pretty good art direction to make convincing monsters, and some good texturers and modellers to make them. The level design would be more or less straightforward, since a college/university campus has most of the elements already needed: windy corridors, locked doors, labs, open areas, etc. As far as technical specs go, I see this one using Source power. The physics would probably be a big help for providing the open-ended puzzles that would be needed, as well as the graphical prowess to make for some creepy baddies. Clever voice-acting would also be a requisite, since the phone dialogues would be somewhat prominent, and you would need someone capable of doing the range of cool and collected to frightened and anxious. Cool internal monologue bits would be mandatory.
So. I would play this game, but then again, I'm me. Anyone else? ¶ 8:01 a.m.
I saw a mention in Ars Gaming yesterday about gaming villains and/or protagonists. The thrust of the article is that we should have more games where the protagonist is not your scantily-clad Croft-ian female, or you typical marine grunt with guns the size of small city blocks. That Gordon Freeman is supposed to be a scientist, but he kicks ass like the Doom guy, yada yada yada. I read this and I thought to myself, "Wasn't there a game I saw on a 'Begs To Be Remade' list somewhere about a college kid and the Necronomicon? That had an unusual protagonist."
The shoe having been dropped, I followed this train of thought as it barrelled inexorably into its thought castle. See, the game I'm thinking of was a text adventure, the name of which I can't recall for the life of me. You played a college nerd, happily coding in the Comp. Sci. lab at 2AM or so finishing a project for the next day, and you accidentally run a script that invokes the Necronomicon. This in turn summons all kinds of demons, Old Ones and other nasties with names like Yog-Sotthoth and Shub Niggurath and they take over the University. You need to get them back where they came from, and hand in your project by the time it's due. If I got to design this one, (and if you know the name of the title I'm talking about, please let me know!) here's what I would do to make it stand out from the rest of the pack.
One, no guns or fighting. You are a NERD. You do not get to shoot up the demons! If you fired a gun, the kick would probably break your arm. If you were to face off against an Old One, it would probably rip you to bitses. Therefore, the game would be less an "action" title of the typical nature, and more a "run the fuck away" type with a bunch of puzzles or some stealth sequences. You would be able to pick things up, ala Half-Life 2, and you might be able to use a fire extinguisher to buy yourself a few seconds, but if a Shoggoth catches up to you, you're finished. Some of the death scenes could be some of the highlights of the game, so that even if you suck and can't escape, at least you get to see the demon do something cool in rending your little nerd body to bitses. (I can see the ad now: Wanted! Creative artsy-type to devise interesting ways of death, usually involving dismemberment or eating!)
Two, as little music as possible. Since you can't fight, you need to be alert, so sound is key. Hear something approaching? Get out. The music would only get in the way of this, and as such would only be blatantly used when you're absolutely safe, but need that atmospheric edge to make you think otherwise. (Incidentally, that safe bit would be a secret. Don't tell anyone!) To make up for the lack of a soundtrack, the ambient noises in the game would have to be top-notch. Note, however, that I said "blatantly used" up there. There could be very subtle musical bits hidden in the hum of the servers, for example. This would be understated to the point of being subliminal, however.
Three, I would bring back the insanity game mechanic from Eternal Darkness. That was so cool, it can't NOT be done again, and the madness angle inherent in the Cthulhu mythos (which was itself alluded to in ED) is a perfect match. Since I see this title being a PC game, you could do a whole bunch of computer-specific stuff to make you think you've gone crazy:
- Suddenly start clipping through walls
- Hit a blue screen of death mid-flight
- Snow crash, or maybe drop into debug mode
- Have modem sounds come through your speakers at inopportune times, such as during the roar of a monster
- etc...
This, in addition to the ones already touched on, like having ghost monsters attack you, or walking into a room and having it be upside down. If you've played Eternal Darkness, you know about some of the freaky auditory/visual hallucinatory stuff it pulls on you.
Four, the majority of the puzzles would revolve around hacking, and I mean REAL hacking. Using Linux. None of this made-up OS crap we always see. You would get to use grep and cat and vi and all those cool tools. This doesn't necessarily mean that you would need to know how to hack to play the game, however. The extra *nix angle would largely be a bonus, with the big story-driving hacks done through perl scripts or the like that you get from friends across the internet, and essentially functioning like thinly-disguised keycards from gaming days of yore. The biggest bits would be social hacking, in which you use phone calls to try and get passwords and such from key personnel like the security group. Having those, you could then ssh over and run the security camera routines, for example, to keep an eye on the monsters stalking the halls. This could be done through a dialogue minigame, where the idea is not only to ask the right questions, but also to keep your cool and sound convincing--something that would be difficult or easy, depending on how close you are to getting eaten.
Five, you have limited time. I mentioned before you have to get your project handed in on time, but this would need to be extended throughout the game. You could have a "time left" bar, for example, that represents your brain's estimate of how long you have until the monsters get through your latest roadblock. Furthermore, you could be wrong, and think you have 10 seconds left when you hear the Mind Devourer shatter the bar you put across the door. This could even be extended more, and make this perceived time variable depending on adrenaline or caffeine intake. Drink more coffee, and you feel you can move faster; the clock ticks slower, but is it because you're moving faster, or just think you are? Also, some parts of the game could be done differently, depending if you have more time or less. Say you're in the Chem lab, and have been doing Ok so far, so maybe you have time to consult a textbook and make some makeshift explosive or otherwise-nasty chemicals. Maybe you're stuck for time and can't do that, so you have to fabricate a less-trustworthy trap using broken glassware.
So those are five things there that I would want to include. Getting something like this off the ground would be something else though. I would need some pretty good art direction to make convincing monsters, and some good texturers and modellers to make them. The level design would be more or less straightforward, since a college/university campus has most of the elements already needed: windy corridors, locked doors, labs, open areas, etc. As far as technical specs go, I see this one using Source power. The physics would probably be a big help for providing the open-ended puzzles that would be needed, as well as the graphical prowess to make for some creepy baddies. Clever voice-acting would also be a requisite, since the phone dialogues would be somewhat prominent, and you would need someone capable of doing the range of cool and collected to frightened and anxious. Cool internal monologue bits would be mandatory.
So. I would play this game, but then again, I'm me. Anyone else? ¶ 8:01 a.m.
