Even though freedom is something of a buzz words these days in games, most games needs to restrict the player somehow. This is especially true for various types of adventure games where the player must be guided along a story path. In this blog post I will call these restrictions “obstacles” and will briefly discuss the various design problems connected with these.
Nothing will save you!
In this post the the no-save system hinted at in the previous post will be discussed by going over various systems and see how they apply to horror games. I also want to point out that as in the last post, saving means the type of save that determines where the player starts after failure (death) and not progress recording.
What will save you?
Having talked about combat for a few weeks I will now move onto something else: Save systems in horror games. I will briefly discuss the various save systems available and how they affect the scare factor.
A History of violence. Part 3
In this blog post I will focus an underused combat mechanic: Chase Sequences. This type of “combat” is very common in horror movies, but quite rare in horror games. I will briefly discuss how we used it in Penumbra, problems it causes and how some other games have implemented it.
A History of violence. Part 2
In this part of “A History of Violence” I will briefly investigate some of the types of combat found in horror games, compare them to films and discuss how they impact on the scare-factor.
A History of violence. Part 1
Ever since I started working on horror games (first was a simple 2d game called Fiend) I have been thinking about what kind of combat one wants in a horror game.
The “fun” in horror games?
When discussing gameplay in games, the main focus is mostly on making it “fun”. The meaning of “fun” is usually that it is an enjoyable experience for the player and that boredom and frustration are reduced as much as possible. Normally this is the main priority when working on some part of the game and if it is not “fun” enough, that part will be remade or scrapped. In many horror games things are different though and focus is instead put on invoking emotions other than just “fun”.
Welcome!
Welcome to Frictional Games’ newly created for blog for all of you interested in our work and/or horror games.
Character Postmortem: Amabel Swanson
Tom (writer for Penumbra) has written a little post mortem on Dr Swanson.
Coping with Optimizing
We have been pretty bad at updating this work log, mostly because we have had so darn much to do. However we want to mend that and start writing more frequently from now on!
