Incomplete Horror Game Idea

Cheese7710

Cheese7710

Well-Known Member
Sorry I haven't been on much. I've been very busy. Anyways, I've been watching some horror-genre let's plays from Markiplier and PewDiePie and sometimes other channels, and I came up with a couple ideas of my own:

First off, this idea literally came to me less than a day ago. this is an abstract, incomplete idea, so I still need to think of the actual plot and creatures, people, setting, ect. this is JUST what I have come up with. If I like doing this, I will update this with any new ideas for this.

I noticed in a lot of these games, you either die instantly or heal from nearly-fatal wounds a couple of seconds later. I then thought "What if there was a game that you could survive these encounters with permanent physical and mental scars?"

My idea has four types of damage your character can have: Restorative damage (This includes scrapes and cuts, poisons and gasses, and other minor damages.), Wound Damage (From major cuts and scratches from creatures, bites, and pretty much anything between a minor scratch and a crippling blow), Crippling damage (From Broken limbs, internal bleeding, amputations, and other more permanent damage), and Mental damage (From Traumatic experiences, like witnessing the death of another, experiencing a near-death experience, killing a monster or person, ect.)

Restorative damage will go away shortly after inflicted, but if obtained in mass numbers without given time to heal can turn into Wound damage.

Wound damage will not heal on its own, and requires the help of a First Aid Kit, Painkillers, or other method of healing. (Note that Painkillers would cause mental problems if taken too often due to addiction and, if you don't have any, withdrawals)

Crippling Damage is more permanent, and wounds attained this way will not heal through the course of the game. Amputations can lead to instant death unless you have a tourniquet or First Aid Kit on you, which will make it into Crippling damage. Crippling damage also impedes progress, lowering speed and making it harder to fight the monsters back. If you become too crippled, you will die instantly.

Mental damage is damage caused by drugs or traumatic experiences. Unlike the other damages, this one does not share the same health bar as your other kinds. As you get mental damage, the likeliness of mental conditions increases, such as getting Multiple Personality Disorder, Hallucinating, Temporary insanity, and more. If your mental health reaches zero, you lose your mind, and become another monster in the world...However, this can be prevented by meditating in safe zones, talking to others, or taking certain mental stability drugs to keep you sane.

I'm still trying to decide what the creature/creatures, people, and a lot more about this. If you have any input on my ideas, tell me.
 
I actually really like this idea of receiving a variety of damages in a horror game. It could be a breath of fresh air from the usual "you ded."

But just to clarify:
Cheese7710 said:
Crippling Damage is more permanent, and wounds attained this way will not heal through the course of the game. Amputations can lead to instant death unless you have a tourniquet or First Aid Kit on you, which will make it into Crippling damage. Crippling damage also impedes progress, lowering speed and making it harder to fight the monsters back. If you become too crippled, you will die instantly.
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What extent of cripple damage are we talking about? I can't imagine it would be very fun to escape monsters by hopping on one leg :x
 
Cathykiddo said:
I actually really like this idea of receiving a variety of damages in a horror game. It could be a breath of fresh air from the usual "you ded."

But just to clarify:


What extent of cripple damage are we talking about? I can't imagine it would be very fun to escape monsters by hopping on one leg :x
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Well, they would depend. If you did lose a leg, it may be an instant death unless you have a crutch to continue walking or something.

Most crippling damage happens through carelessness, such as sticking your hand in a weird hole that actually is a guillotine in the wall or jumping into murky water with carnivorous fish creatures. Pretty much, as long as you avoid going "LEROYYYYYYYYYY JEEEENKIIINNSSS!", most Crippling damage that impedes progress can be avoided.

However, Internal bleeding is caused by massive amounts of WOUND damage, and can be gotten by not healing enough or taking massive amounts of damage at once. Broken limbs would be easier to get than amputations, and give not as bad as amputation effects.

In order to keep alive, you would need to carry different medical supplies for different situations, be careful in what you do, and much more.

Also, to clarify, I came up with mental damage because I hate how in many horror games, the main character can go literally through hell and not suffer any mental damage (for those who played Ib or watched videos, how exactly does a 9 year old girl stay sane when confronted by hellish monster girls that come out of paintings and crawl to get you?)
 
If you are going to use this type of damage system, you'll have to consider how saving and respawns work.
People will probably do the constant saving to avoid crippling wounds and maybe just kill themselves and go through a respawn if they receive a wound. Although with most horror games you gotta consider respawning as it can remove the tension.
May I suggest a penalty based respawn, with forced autosaves at set intervals that can only load the most recent.
 
I don't know, I'm still stuck on the image of a horror game with cheese

But seriously, I don't really like horror games, but this definitely looks like an idea worth pursuing.

Cheese7710 said:
Wound damage will not heal on its own, and requires the help of a First Aid Kit, Painkillers, or other method of healing. (Note that Painkillers would cause mental problems if taken too often due to addiction and, if you don't have any, withdrawals)

Amputations can lead to instant death unless you have a tourniquet or First Aid Kit on you, which will make it into Crippling damage. Crippling damage also impedes progress, lowering speed and making it harder to fight the monsters back.
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I can understand painkillers causing mental problems if taken too often, but it takes a fairly long time before you would start having withdrawals...

Amputations in real life won't necessarily kill you even if self-administered by your amateur self. Wikipedia tells me that several people with limbs trapped have survived amputating themselves with knives. Would you have an extremely high percentage chance of a fatal wound or keep it simple and have death if you don't have the necessary tools?
 
Vincent2128 said:
I don't know, I'm still stuck on the image of a horror game with cheese

But seriously, I don't really like horror games, but this definitely looks like an idea worth pursuing.


I can understand painkillers causing mental problems if taken too often, but it takes a fairly long time before you would start having withdrawals...

Amputations in real life won't necessarily kill you even if self-administered by your amateur self. Wikipedia tells me that several people with limbs trapped have survived amputating themselves with knives. Would you have an extremely high percentage chance of a fatal wound or keep it simple and have death if you don't have the necessary tools?
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Well, I am still working on the idea of Crippling damage. And that's true about withdraws.
Sean1995 said:
If you are going to use this type of damage system, you'll have to consider how saving and respawns work.
People will probably do the constant saving to avoid crippling wounds and maybe just kill themselves and go through a respawn if they receive a wound. Although with most horror games you gotta consider respawning as it can remove the tension.
May I suggest a penalty based respawn, with forced autosaves at set intervals that can only load the most recent.
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Maybe. I think it would be best if it autosaved after incidents happened, either that, or make some special ending for not saving very often or something.

I still am working things out, and I do appreciate the input, as it helps me work out the kinks in this.
 
Cheese7710 said:
As you get mental damage, the likeliness of mental conditions increases, such as getting Multiple Personality Disorder, Hallucinating, Temporary insanity, and more.
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Suppose one of your multiple personalities becomes a monster from within.
Suppose that monster can manifest itself into the real world through a hallucination.
Suppose that monster can terrorize and hurt you through no physical means other than the phenomenon that your brain made it real.
 
Cheese7710 said:
Well, I am still working on the idea of Crippling damage.
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When I hear "Crippling Damage," in regards to horror games, all I can think of is that scene in Outlast: Whistleblower where you jump down the elevator shaft and break the shit out of your foot, causing you to walk with a noticeable limp and decreased speed for the rest of the game.

Now I'm going off on a limb here and saying jump off of that idea, hell even make it more severe like you already suggested, like being forced to crawl around due to a busted up foot/leg. I'd think if you reach that point you just wind up crawling around until the monster shows up and has a field day with your crippled body. Similar to how in Left 4 Dead when you get downed you sit there and watch the zombies maul the shit out of you, while you're unable to do anything to stop them. But that's just be shooting in the dark for how foot/leg damage would be done. You could probably include being crippled for too long causing mental damage, due to blood loss and/or being in shock or cause mental damage the more you look at the mangled mess of a foot/leg because that shit would fuck you up too.

Hand/arm damage, on the other hand (pun intended), I'm drawing blanks.
 
brantbren said:
When I hear "Crippling Damage," in regards to horror games, all I can think of is that scene in Outlast: Whistleblower where you jump down the elevator shaft and break the shit out of your foot, causing you to walk with a noticeable limp and decreased speed for the rest of the game.

Now I'm going off on a limb here and saying jump off of that idea, hell even make it more severe like you already suggested, like being forced to crawl around due to a busted up foot/leg. I'd think if you reach that point you just wind up crawling around until the monster shows up and has a field day with your crippled body. Similar to how in Left 4 Dead when you get downed you sit there and watch the zombies maul the shit out of you, while you're unable to do anything to stop them. But that's just be shooting in the dark for how foot/leg damage would be done. You could probably include being crippled for too long causing mental damage, due to blood loss and/or being in shock or cause mental damage the more you look at the mangled mess of a foot/leg because that shit would fuck you up too.

Hand/arm damage, on the other hand (pun intended), I'm drawing blanks.
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The massive foot damage would leave you a sitting duck unless you happened to have/craft a crutch (don't know if a crafting system should be implemented). Hand damage would prevent certain tasks from being done that require two hands, However, if you had an ally in the dark or something, they could be your hand.

Honestly, crippling damage is a long shot in this idea, but if it could be implemented, I believe it could be unique (seeing as to many games I have seen the creatures either instantly kill you every time or hurt you in a way where you can easily heal)
 
My issue with the crippling damage mechanic is that if there's no way to fix yourself up, it gradually makes the game less enjoyable.

There is a way to rework it into something viable, though. Basically fuse the idea with Amnesia's sanity meter. The worse you get, the worse shit get. Get exposed to extreme heat? You need to find a way to cool off, or the heat starts fucking with your body and mind. Spend too long in the dark? You become scared and paranoid, moving slower until something startles you, then you break into a reckless sprint for your life, making it difficult to control.

Leave it in the player's hands whether or not they end up suffering from shit. If it's random, or 'You chose poorly. :D You're fucked.", then it really kills the unnerving element, which is key for horror games.

Take it from a coward. If you really want to bring someone to their knees from fear, you need to break them down. Unnerve them, make them paranoid, make them question whether the frog outside the window is legit a frog or something that wants slit their throat. Not saying a frog couldn't do that, but still.

To aid in this, something that helped out the earlier R.E. games was lack of supplies. You literally only received a handful of items that, if not managed carefully, would run out in a hurry. If you want to take the non-combat approach, flashlight batteries/lantern oil are always a good choice to start.

Whatever you do, don't take the cheap way out and use primarily jump-scares. Yes, they work, but some people grow immune to them after the 4th bat-busting-through-the-window.

Back to the Crippling damage, It's a nice idea in theory, but bad in practice. If you can find a way to put it in without the random chance or the 'wrong thing to do' scenario, I'd say it'd do it's judge to fuck with people.
 
ChibaMasato said:
make them question whether the frog outside the window is legit a frog or something that wants slit their throat. Not saying a frog couldn't do that, but still.
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Well then, there's one enemy confirmed

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Random question: how do you guys feel about a "one of them" concept? As in, a way to become one of the creaters you are running from? Maybe doing so would have a highly negative outcome, such as an ending where you lose control and murder many people before being killed by a form of law enforcement. Maybe this would increase senses and health, increase speed, and increase immunity to mental damage at the cost of stealth, a permanent mental disorder that makes all living beings look the same, and a bad ending? The decision would be made at a type of alter if a living being were to be sacrificed or something. Please note this idea just came to me and may be terrible.

Also, I think I will rethink crippling damage to just damage that is WAY more difficult to heal than wound. I realize walking around with a broken limb would really make a game less enjoyable. And as to what Chiba said, I believe that those would be additions to mental damage.
 
I read "incomplete" and "idea" and knew this was a Cheese thread.

Reguardless it looks like a cool idea; I'd play it.
 
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