Thoughts and Opinion on Ace Attorney - Demon Hunting - Horror Game Thingy

[VeNAM 10]

About the love thing: it shouldn't be forced on the players. If you decide to do it, have an option that says,"This isn't really the time for that."

[- Z - 30]

I've finally gone into developement of Not Me. (well technically i already was two weeks ago, but i was only making tilesets)

I've begun to map out the beginning parts of the game and put events into play. I'm also hunting scripts that may help my game flourish. If you know any scripts that can help, then by all means tell.

 

You can tell me more ideas and advices if you wish. You can even give me your own ideas of a survivor, if you wish! That would help me alot! But for now, all my main concerns have been answered or observed.

 

Again, thanks to everyone who gave advice, informarion, and ideas that really made me alter my game into a better one. Thank you all so much.

[Kayzee 4,032]

You are very welcome! *sprinkles fairy dust on you*

[VeNAM 10]

Good luck! If you need anything, don't hesitate to ask.

[SerpentRose 3]

I'm gonna follow this project, because I want to play whatever you produce. I don't like horror stuff, but this sounds like it will be a lot of fun!

 

As for the love aspect - Unless Markus is 1) Really cute and/or 2) has an awesome personality or 3) just has really desirable traits, all three main females shouldn't have a crush on him. The harem genre is blech. Seen it too much where countless women all fall for some average-looking doof. (See: Tenchi Muyo, and sometimes Sword Art Online.) Multiple love interests can be done well, but I can count those times I've seen on one hand and still have fingers left over. And since this is a horror game, you may not want to bother with it at all, since it would distract from the main goal. As an aside, maybe one of the girls can admit she's had a crush on Markus for the last year, and was too afraid to tell him, but thinks "Hey, if we're gonna die, better now than never." Could give the player reason to be more invested in keeping her alive... And then you can be a dick and have her be one of the shifters just before endgame. XD

 

I do hope the plot gets around to explaining why Markus is the only one with Special Snowflake Vision? Being really spiritual myself and non-religious, I could think of a few legitimate reasons, if you care to learn about shit like auras and metaphysics.

Edited December 22, 2014 by SerpentRose

[- Z - 30]

I'm going at a snail's pace making this game.
I'm still making tilesets for the maps! (At least it's a one-time thing to do, i think)

 

Maybe I've been going slow in making Not Me due to Christmas and New year Holidays coming and going. Hopefully I go a bit quicker this time around.

 

I'll ask one question, though. Could such a game, with all the things i mentioned about it, be done by one person?

 

Well, back to Gimp, and making tilesets. Late Happy New Year!!!

[Spectre 829]

Yes. Get back to work.

 

XD Seriously though, if you'd like some help with graphics, I could offer some assistance from time to time; subject to my own availability. Hit me up if you'd like that.

You're on your own for maps and eventing, though.

[VeNAM 10]

I'm probably not a good enough mapper to help at the moment, but when I am, I'd love to help in any way I can.

[Kayzee 4,032]

I think the project might be able to be theoretically done on your own if you stick with it for long enough, but I doubt it will be done any time soon. In addition you are probably going to need some sort of scripting at some point, and unless you really take the time to dive into learning to script it's probably going to be incredibly frustrating. Graphics and stuff you can get away with using placeholders and RTP resources at least until later in development when you have a good base game to work with, but the basic game mechanics are hard to put off.

[- Z - 30]

Well, currently, this has been my battle plan for Not Me:

1. Gather all my available tilesets for the game and edit them into required tilesets.
2. Begin mapping and eventing the Prologue
3. Repeat step 2 until I reach functional demo.

Seems simple enough. I'll use my own custom stuff once I feel guarantee this game will work. However, step is taking awhile. I feel once I reach step 2 i'll really be on game developement. But only time and effort will tell...

 

I'm an artist, so most of the resources i'll handle will be character bust and cutscenes. Maps seem done with all the resource I got from Steam sales (curse you and your discounts, Gaben). Same with music and sounds. My only concern will be sprites, scripts, and anything else i'm missing. So far, i'm pretty confident how this game is going.

 

Thanks for all the support. I really appreaciate everything you guys are doing for me.

[Kayzee 4,032]

Good luck! *sprinkles fairy dust on you*

[VeNAM 10]

Do you have a Not Me signature banner? Or can I just write "Not Me" in my signature? (Sorry, I've never had a signature before. I don't know how to do it.)

[- Z - 30]

  BANNER!

Spooky Scary Stuff in the spoiler!

Not Me

Don't know if this counts as a banner, but here ya go! Show you're a supporter!

(Title done thanks to cooltext.com)

 

 

Note to self: never do stuff like this at night, ESPECIALLY AT 12 AM. (Got spooks doing so. I think i'm doing good in the horror aspect if this creeped me out.)

 

SO. How's my art skill? Does it suck? This will be, it general, the art style of my game (Ignoring the lighting. I put it dark for the sake of scariness). Any questions and criticisms are welcome, as always.

 

Well, back to tilesets!

Edited January 9, 2015 by - Z -

[VeNAM 10]

Umm... It may just be me, but I think the banner is a little to big to go into a signature. I resized it, but I think it needs to be somewhere online already to be able to go into my signature. So I'm just kinda dumping it here. Also I don't know how to take it out of a post sorry.

 

 

 

Edited January 9, 2015 by VeNAM

[- Z - 30]

!UPDATE!

BANNER!

 

Not Me has been going pretty well  in developement! I've spent a lot of time thinking of the final kinks to the game, and I think i'm done planning it out!

 

The story's been finalized. I had mostly ideas for events and situations of the game, but never had them in a particular order. After some outlinging and organzation, I think I finally nailed it on the story aspect! Beginning, middle, end(ings), twists, character, and whatnot! The story's ready!

 

The map of the University is complete! The entire place is set on a hill of sort, with the Observatory being the highest point.

 

 

 

 

 

I also done a full list of survivors in the game! (May add/remove some during developement, but this is the jist of it)

 

 

 

 

 

And their relation to other characters! (Basically their knowledge of other characters. These will be important for figuring out who's who and who isn't who. What I love about this web of knowledge is that you can put your thumb over someone, and by covering them, you will know how much valuable knowledge you lose if said someone is killed.)

 

 

 

 

 

Also some Shifter designs! :wacko: (May need some assistance of their sprites ingame. Don't need one now, but later...)

 

 

 

 

 

AND MAPPING! (What my photoshopping tileset skills turned out to. Check the thread for details!)

 

And so ends my update of the game. As usual, i'll ask a question and need some criticism of said question. Cause every opinion is important!

My new question involves this.

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see from this list, there are some characters that can perform a specific skill that affects what occurs ingame. Most will lead to a new area, and some will give valuable items, and even knowledge.

But two of them have a question mark on them. Cook and Entertain.

 

Cook is to technically recharge a food meter I've been thinking of imputting into the game, but the idea seems far-fetched...

 

Entertain involves raising the sanity meter (not ever shown visually). This is to keep people from developing paranoia and possibly relax from all the hell they go through. Again, this is another idea i see odd.

 

Should I put these two skills (along with the game mechanic mentioned) in the game? Or will this prove too multi-tasking for players? (Remember, the player still have to occupy about Shifter wereabouts all around)

 

That's it for now! I'll return to mapping and eventing. Thanks for any criticism and compliments in advance!

 

[VeNAM 10]

Be careful of how many characters you have. People will have a hard time keeping track of them. Perhaps a testimony section could serve not only to keep track of hints, but house introductions and character developments. Not sure if you want more of a memory thing, but I think it would work if it fits with the feel you're going for.

 

Also, the 'food meter' and 'sanity meter' are okay ideas, but they need polishing. How about this:

• Hunger: Invisible stat; hungry characters are prone to missing clues and forgetting details. They may have a hard time focusing.
• Morale: Invisible stat; discouraged characters get tense and act differently than they usually do. Symptoms may coincide with those of shifters.

Just a suggestion, hope it helps!

[Kayzee 4,032]

I think it is reasonable to maybe have lots and lots of characters, but only have a limited number of them actually show up each play session. But that goes back to the whole randomization thing and I beat that horse to death enough.

 

As for hunger and sanity meters, I think they may end up interesting as long as they are done right. One concern about hunger I have is how time flows in the world. That is, how long in-universe does the game actually last? If the whole game takes place in the timespan of a few hours hunger probably shouldn't be a concern. If it takes place over the course of a day or so it might be a more minor concern, if it took place over a week it would be much more important.

 

Now a "sanity" meter or a "morale" meter might work pretty well too. Personally I don't really like the idea of a flat "sanity" number that measures your mental health, but I think the same idea formulated a different way makes more sense. Morale works, though maybe a better word is "stress" in some formulations. Aka a character with high stress will start to act differently, having a temper, getting jumpy, and eventually having a freak out (I like the term "stress explosion" from Maid RPG) collapsing into a ball and whimpering or throwing a fit. I also like the idea of having sanity be replaced with a "will" meter, the idea being that some mental force is constantly trying to compel everyone and as things happen their resistance to it is slowly warn away. I don't know if that is a good fit for this game though.

 

There could also be subtle hidden status effects or meters rather then one meter for mental effects. What if some events can cause people to start to act paranoid, and another might make them have a shorter temper, and yet another would make them depressed, or others that make them oddly manic? Rather then one "sanity" measurement you have several moods people can be in, maybe sometimes mixing and matching, sometimes having the effect of them becoming more bipolar. This could especially be interesting with you having to watch out for imposers that may act off too and it's hard to tell the difference between a impostor and someone who just has seen to much. In fact an imposter's tell could be that they DON'T start acting funny when some events happen sometimes.

[- Z - 30]

Well, the whole list of characters I put up is the complete list of survivors ingame that you can get. Ignoring the protagonist and the main 5, all others characters are just there as your source of information and assistance (hence the skills). They are also there as targets for Shifters. Their abscence in the game is only devestating if the information they had was valuable to you at the moment.

This is where I have this mechanic in the game: not all characters are necessary to pass the game. You will head to different places of the university, and whichever place you're going, the character important there will be the character you want to have with you. However, once you start reaching near the midpoint of the game, it will be obvious some places will no longer need to be explored again. This is where some character's usefulness begin to expire. So, darkly speaking, if such character is unfortunatly offed by a Shifter, their loss isn't too large.

It is possible to keep all characters alive, but that's only if you're a sort of completionist. I do have planned for characters to contribute to the ending, but, again, not all are needed for such ending.

 

Oh, and Killo, the randomized thing of characters is a great plan! The randomization of different characters you get in the game will definitely make each playthrough of the game very different. I love that mechanic! I can imagine someone play the game and finish it once, then tries the game again, expect a similar run. But instead, the first character he recruits is different than who he recruited last time, now making some areas now became harder/easier to inspect. One player can get someone who is knowing of the Stadium, so he heads there first, while another player gets someone who is knowing of the Auditorium, while another player (possibly me) gets a shifter. (I have bad luck in games )

 

I'll definitely go for randomized character placement in Not Me, and I'll see if i can do randomized puzzles/item placement. Gotta make sure placement of characters is balanced and not game-breaking.

 

Now about the food/sanity meters. I definitely love the sanity/morale ideas you guys are giving, especially how you guys described it!

And the food thing seems good. Timewise, the game takes a time of 3-4 weeks, so hunger is definitely an issue. But, i don't know if i should put that in, since the sanity/morale thing is already a tasking problem, and including the constant fear of Shifters lurking amok, the problems keep stacking up. I don't want to put too many problems for the player to handle all at once. I want the player to enjoy the game for it's horror atmosphere, and not fustrate to keeping characters alive constantly because of many things.

 

So the food thing may be scrapped, for simplicity of the game.

 

Besides, i'm still in process of making a demo, and not the entire game, so the food mechanic seems even less necessary. The demo will have at max 10-15ish characters, and only about 1/3 or 1/2 of the map will be explorable. So demo-wise, all the characters and maps I've shown, I will only be using half to a third of them into the demo.

 

Thanks for all the help. I really appreciate it. If there's other things you have a question about, then you can give a reply. For now, i'll continue developement until something else comes up. Again, thanks.

[Kayzee 4,032]

Hehe, I am glad you like the idea, I just hope you can get it to work. You might need something beyond the normal event system. I mean, I guess just having lots and lots of switches and variables would work to, but it would be a real pain whenever you want to add something.

You know, following up on what I was saying about weird mental status effects that make your characters act funny, I found out A game called Darkest Dungeon actually does that! I watched a video and it was kinda interesting how the party started doing things like refusing to be healed and repositioning themselves where they aren't wanted, and how the enemies would complacently wreck them as a result.

[Primeless 5]

I just mostly think randomization fits this type of game, it works to make the player paranoid, to make sure they are always out of their comfort zone.

 

Hehe, I kinda am wondering now if you could also make game menus and interface things also demons sometimes... sometimes very rarely a menu might have a slight misspelling or something, and if you click it...

 

 

hahaha!!! you are so evil!!!! PURGUE YOURSELF!!!!

 

thats a great idea! Im buying it for a game with a corruption system. It could be cool if, once you get corrupted (and superpowered because of that), you miss some options in the menu xD

 

edit: im also playing darkest dungeon. 

"dont kill it! i need to study it's brain" XD

 

Edited February 13, 2015 by Primeless

[Kayzee 4,032]

Hehe, if you want a game that actually sort of does mess with the menus like that, check out The Consuming Shadow. It also does a good job of doing the whole randomized horror game thing where you have to find clues and stuff, but it's a lot more focused on combat and the random puzzle elements are less involved then this game idea.

Edited February 13, 2015 by KilloZapit

[Primeless 5]

Hehe, if you want a game that actually sort of does mess with the menus like that, check out The Consuming Shadow. It also does a good job of doing the whole randomized horror game thing where you have to find clues and stuff, but it's a lot more focused on combat and the random puzzle elements are less involved then this game idea.

 

 

thx for the advice, i'll try it this weekend