My first videogame

If these flying boxes start dropping some crap on the player, it will begin getting interesting. For now it looks boring. TLDR: I personally won't buy it on Steam as it is now.

On 12/1/2018 at 2:54 PM, Frico said:

Hi everyone! This is my first post. I'm working on a horror game in Unity.
In this game, you (the player) are inside a laberynth. The aim is to get out of it and to accomplish that, you need to collect 3 keys that are scattered randomly. The thing is that you are not alone. You have a flashlight whose power decreases every second. While you are in the dark, your "madness" increases. You will have to escape from a 'monster' and collect the keys as fast as you can, before you get 'mad'. I've been programming it but it is still in 'alpha'. I would love any suggestion or ideas. What do you think? Could it be an interesting game?

Also Ive working on the laberynth. It is in progress. I have to change and fix a lot of things. Ignore the flying boxes. (Attached video).

Sorry for my bad English and Thank you!

Great start!

If you're going to go with the labyrinth idea, then I would suggest putting a roof on the maze if you want to do something more underground, or add in something in the sky to make it seem more alive (even in a darker theme) maybe some moonlight? You could use torches along side the light your player uses.

Another tip: Make a design document for your game. If you do it properly you'll have a sense of direction for how the game should play out. You already know that the player must obtain three keys to get out, but where are these keys, how does the player get them? Are there puzzles to solve to unlock the keys? ect... How do the monsters work? Do they chase you until you hide to avoid them? Are you fighting them in combat? These are some things to think about.

Keep up the good work!

I love how telling truth always gets me downvoted. I got similar feedback after saying that Jesus wont save anybody, because he doesn't exist, and Communism is impossible, because of basic evolutionary principles. Had I wrote that the game is amazing, and OP can publish it into Early Access immediately, I would have got upvoted, because such people rarely can detect sarcasm.

19 minutes ago, NikitaSadkov said:

I love how telling truth always gets me downvoted. I got similar feedback after saying that Jesus wont save anybody, because he doesn't exist, and Communism is impossible, because of basic evolutionary principles. Had I wrote that the game is amazing, and OP can publish it into Early Access immediately, I would have got upvoted, because such people rarely can detect sarcasm.

The OP never said this was a commercial project or even getting released for sale. Your first response really was uncalled for.

You came out and said the project was boring and you wouldn't buy it, however the OP never said the game was for sale or even at that stage.

As far as I could tell from the original post... the OP was looking to show off their first game which is still a work in progress and get some feedback. It doesn't hurt to provide some encouragement and help motivate people to push forward.

5 minutes ago, Rutin said:

The OP never said this was a commercial project or even getting released for sale. Your first response really was uncalled for.

You came out and said the project was boring and you wouldn't buy it, however the OP never said the game was for sale or even at that stage.

As far as I could tell from the original post... the OP was looking to show off their first game and get some feedback. It doesn't hurt to provide some encouragement and help motivate people to push forward.

OP asked "What do you think? Could it be an interesting game?", I honestly responded that is not up to AAA+ standards yet. And the idea of horror game with finding N objects in a labyrinth while monster chases you has been done already a few times. For example, Slenderman games. And there are a lot of such games on Steam, sold for real money, some looking even more alpha than OP's one.

You know what? With those additional details, you're actually giving somewhat useful feedback with actionable points the OP could possibly address.

Your original post however, simply telling a beginner that their game seems boring and you wouldn't play it...? That's not actually useful.

It's that simple.

Let's not get off topic though, all further posts should be directly addressing the situation at hand.

1 hour ago, Rutin said:

Great start!

If you're going to go with the labyrinth idea, then I would suggest putting a roof on the maze if you want to do something more underground, or add in something in the sky to make it seem more alive (even in a darker theme) maybe some moonlight? You could use torches along side the light your player uses.

Another tip: Make a design document for your game. If you do it properly you'll have a sense of direction for how the game should play out. You already know that the player must obtain three keys to get out, but where are these keys, how does the player get them? Are there puzzles to solve to unlock the keys? ect... How do the monsters work? Do they chase you until you hide to avoid them? Are you fighting them in combat? These are some things to think about.

Keep up the good work!

Thank you for your feedback! Let me tell you more about the game. You have to find the 3 keys and then the exit door. The laberynth has 4 quadrants. 3 keys are scattered randomly in the 4 quadrants. There will be signs to guide you to the exit. The scenario will be darker and Im thinking of adding some fog effect.

There will be only one monster 'The ScareCrow' that will chase you along the laberynth and it will be more scarier as along as you get more keys. You can't be near him neither. If you see him you must run.

Think about 2 bars. The first one for flashlight battery and the second one for 'madness' level. You lose when the ' madness ' bar is full. The madness increases if you are near the creature or if you are in complete darkness.

For each key you pick up the game gets more difficult. The flashlight battery reduces faster and recovers slowlier the same happens with the madness level.

I made a document where I wrote these functionalities and the development course.

7 hours ago, NikitaSadkov said:

If these flying boxes start dropping some crap on the player, it will begin getting interesting. For now it looks boring. TLDR: I personally won't buy it on Steam as it is now.

As I said the game is in progress this is just a prototype. Ive shown you the laberynth design only. The boxes are useless there will be interesting and scary objects along the laberynth that will give you the creeps. You are right, I wouldn't buy it as it is now too.

Please dont fight. Thank you very much for your feedback. As soon as I progress I will be showing it to you.

Im thinking to publish it in a few months or early on Google Play Store. Now Im trying to get the project noticed. Can you give me some advice?

Again, sorry for my bad English. Im a native spanish speaker.

That does sound like similar gameplay to Slender - perhaps you could take some lessons from the design of that game.

If you're aiming to scare players, I'd pay particular attention to sound design, which can be very effective.

2 hours ago, jbadams said:

That does sound like similar gameplay to Slender - perhaps you could take some lessons from the design of that game. 

If you're aiming to scare players, I'd pay particular attention to sound design, which can be very effective.

Interesting analysis I didnt know that Slender was so simple in design. I will take some of that article to make my game. Thank you very much!

You have a sun in the sky. If it should be night (it is dark, right?) then the sun should not be there

18 hours ago, jbadams said:

That does sound like similar gameplay to Slender - perhaps you could take some lessons from the design of that game.

If you're aiming to scare players, I'd pay particular attention to sound design, which can be very effective.

Nice analysis. Beside jump scares (i.e. zombie getting out of a closet), using out of place things to scare audience appears to be a common design element. For example, Stephen King used a clown character in his "It" novel: a clown may not look that scary in circus, but seeing a clown at night in the woods totally changes the perception. Although these new Alien games, very similar to Slenderman or OPs design, don't use it that much, yet still manage to scare many players. But Silent Hill, Penumbra and Amnesia do use it. A lot of people are scared of things they are bad at or when a game appears to know too much about them, so if you carefully analyze player, you can present experience that will genuinely scare him/her. Maybe trying to processing his Facebook profile and incorporating statistical findings into game experience, unknown to player. That will scare the crap of a typical player. Half-open spaces, like wood, where danger can come from any side, yet there are some obstacles that my hide the danger, seems to make player uncomfortable too. Slenderman games also use tall grass with small kid monster hidding in it. Children of the Corn has cornfields instead of wood, where hero moves through it, suddenly stumbling upon some sacrifice place.

Both Slenderman and the horror-based clowns exploit the psychological issues we commonly call the Uncanny Valley. They are close to human, but exhibit features that are disturbingly not quite human.

Things being out of place causes tension for similar reasons: Players know that something should be a certain way, but it is not quite correct.

The effect only works while the material feels improper. As an example, when the Dr Who franchise introduced the Weeping Angels they were creepy because the behavior was both human-like and disturbingly non-human, the same effect as the Uncanny Valley. But as the series repeated the behavior over and over and over again viewers recognized the behavior as normal and typical for that creature.

it takes a bit of skill and a bit of luck to find it, but there is a place where something looks and feels like it should be correct, but still has subtle not-quite-correct aspects that are disturbing and make the hairs on your neck stand up. Your brain recognizes that it isn't quite right, even though logically you could work past or excuse the differences.

18 minutes ago, frob said:

Both Slenderman and the horror-based clowns exploit the psychological issues we commonly call the Uncanny Valley. They are close to human, but exhibit features that are disturbingly not quite human.

Stephen king uses it a lot, i.e. clowns, creepy children, or Pet Sematary's zombie cats, that appear normal at first. Although he also uses other fears, like acrophobia. The labyrinth environment could be unconfortable too, if there are a lot of pathways, with monsters setting up an ambush behind a corner, breaking ceiling behind player (Resident Evil 7 style). In fact, it is nice to study, how they changed everything from RE7, which is completely different from previous RE games, although actually returning to the Alone in the Dark roots.

On ‎12‎/‎2‎/‎2018 at 7:55 PM, Frico said:

Interesting analysis I didnt know that Slender was so simple in design. I will take some of that article to make my game. Thank you very much!

I was getting the feel of slenderman too. Almost exact same flash light, not saying its bad, it could be fun with work. But yes the earlier statement about sound design is very much correct, when sound is compounded on correctly, it changes the whole experience of the game. An example would be how much less fun I had with slenderman if I turned the sound off lol.

On ‎12‎/‎3‎/‎2018 at 2:33 AM, 1024 said:

You have a sun in the sky. If it should be night (it is dark, right?) then the sun should not be there

Maybe the character is already half mad and starts seeing things that don't mix lol

On 12/2/2018 at 1:33 PM, NikitaSadkov said:

If these flying boxes start dropping some crap on the player, it will begin getting interesting. For now it looks boring. TLDR: I personally won't buy it on Steam as it is now.

This inspired me. Imagine big mazes with an exit door. Maybe you can pick up batteries for the flashlight. Add some pitfalls. Don't forget the exit door/portal. There should be a special that will make you bounce in the air, and fall, so you can get a peek at the maze.