catbarf on 26/6/2013 at 22:27
I just watched the gameplay trailer again and wow, I am actually really excited for this. Something as mundane as a humanoid robot is made really, really creepy by the ambient sound. Also that laser pistol is extremely cool.
Edit: Damn, open-ended AND multiple endings? This is sounding better and better. The permadeath makes sense since they say it's only supposed to be a three hour experience, I guess the endings will give it replayability.
TTK12G3 on 26/6/2013 at 22:44
Quote Posted by dethtoll
Scarce resources. Ammo and health are difficult to come by, and you need to make every shot count.
Inventory management. As a corollary to the previous point. You can only carry so much, so you have to know what to bring while leaving some room for new, important items. You're forced to make choices.
Difficult combat. Your enemies are difficult to bring down.
Strong horror theme. Duh. Note that this is NOT meant to be subjective, i.e. how scary an individual player finds it. It refers more to scary situations with scary monsters in a way intended to increase tension. Alone this doesn't qualify (many games have creepy "downtime" sections where the normal high-energy combat is replaced by creepy stuff, but that doesn't make them survival horror) but it's probably the one element that's absolutely required.
Noticeable lack of NPCs. It's just you and the monsters for most of the game.
Puzzle-solving. Not every surhor has this, but it's in enough of them that it's worthy of mention.
Individualized enemy encounters. You're often facing no more than a few monsters at a time.
And one more thing that I've thought of since the last time I posted this list:
Closed circle environment. In other words, you're effectively trapped in a crazy place and you need to get out. The best surhors aren't linear point A-point B games. If there's progression, it's usually in the form of opening up new areas, for example when you're done with the apartments in Silent Hill 2 you wind up on the other side of the barricades preventing you from getting to Rosewater Park.
Here are some things that survival horror is NOT defined by:
How scary the individual player finds it. Resident Evil isn't scary to me like Silent Hill, but it's still survival horror. Fatal Frame put me to sleep. It's still survival horror. Doom 3 had scary bits. It's not survival horror.
Country of origin. Japan made good survival horrors back in the day, yes, but the entire Japanese games industry is in decline, and a decent survival horror in the classic mode coming out of Japan is very, very rare, nowadays, in part because they tend to be more action-focused now. Normally I wouldn't even have to list this because you all should fucking know better, but apparently 242 didn't and probably still doesn't.
Camera angle or other mechanical elements. Resident Evil had fixed camera because it was essentially a love letter to Alone in the Dark. Silent Hill's camera was not fixed save for specific situations, but had tank controls much like Resident Evil. System Shock 2 is in first person.
Dude, that's so broad, you can fit Pokemon in there.
Chade on 26/6/2013 at 23:05
I would have said that the definition is both too narrow and too broad. Too narrow in the sense that it's an arbitrary checklist of features, and too broad in the sense that doesn't capture the essence of survival horror.
Here's my attempt after five seconds thought. Probably missed something. I guess my real point is that this sort of definition seems better to me then a bullet-list of features.
Survival horror: a game designed to make the player feel trapped, alone, and frightened.
faetal on 26/6/2013 at 23:11
So tetris then.
june gloom on 26/6/2013 at 23:59
Quote Posted by TTK12G3
Dude, that's so broad, you can fit Pokemon in there.
Quote Posted by Chade
I would have said that the definition is both too narrow and too broad. Too narrow in the sense that it's an arbitrary checklist of features, and too broad in the sense that doesn't capture the essence of survival horror.
Here's my attempt after five seconds thought. Probably missed something. I guess my real point is that this sort of definition seems better to me then a bullet-list of features.
Survival horror: a game designed to make the player feel trapped, alone, and frightened.
Fine. Baldur's Gate is a point and click adventure. Genre has no meaning, so I can say that!
Survival horror has established characteristics that together go into survival horror. I was listing those characteristics. There's probably a few things I missed but FFS don't fucking sit there and tell me surhor is some subjective definition.
I'm not asking people to defer to me as King of the Universe always and forever but FFS at least have the decency of giving me the benefit of the doubt.
Chade on 27/6/2013 at 00:29
I didn't say genre has no meaning, and BG is not a point and click adventure game. Nor is my definition completely subjective, although it's certainly more subjective then yours. But we can point to elements in games and talk about how they are meant to induce certain reactions in players without getting completely into subjective territory.
But taking your definition, it's easy to walk through each point and dream up a survival horror game design which would violate that point.
Scarce resources: easy to imagine a surhor with infinite ammo. Requires somewhat different combat to the norm, of course. The player mustn't be confident that they can get a shot off before being attacked.
Inventory management: hard to know whether my suggestions would be considered cheating or not, what exactly counts as inventory? Is having no inventory at all considered inventory management? What if the player can carry unlimited assorted rubbish, but can't carry the ones that really help him survive?
Difficult combat: ok, so any game that makes you afraid is going to have some sort of ever-present danger to it. Doesn't have to be combat though.
Strong horror theme: I'll give you this one, I think.
Noticeable lack of NPCs: ok, any game that makes you feel alone is probably not going to have a large supporting cast. On the other hand, it's possible to imagine a small group of people forced to co-operate but secretly plotting against each other and stabbing each other in the back. You can still induce feelings of isolation without actually being alone.
Puzzle-solving: largely irrelevant, as you noted.
Individualized enemy encounters: nothing but an artifact of historical AI behaviour. It should absolutely be possible to build a surhor about, for instance, being hunted by a pack of wolves
Closed circle environment: ok, any game that makes you feel trapped is probably going to be a closed circle environment. It's possible to imagine surhors where the "trap" is not physical, but I can't think of how that might work in concrete terms, or whether it would even break this rule.
Livo on 27/6/2013 at 02:31
The sound design is excellent in the trailer and I'm intrigued by the developer's descriptions of how the C.A.T will work in regards to hacking and other things like night vision.
I'm bummed out that they haven't said anything about mod tools or mod support on their website or Twitter account though :erg:
Muzman on 27/6/2013 at 02:54
The real question is, Is Sir Whore the least appealing contraction in all of gaming?
