13 replies to this topic

[Berick]

Dread is a top-down action / horror game where you can only see what your character sees. This creates an intense atmosphere, as the player is always guessing what is waiting for them around the next corner.

The game is currently in Alpha stage, as I am a terrible artist and I'm using placeholders that I scrounged from free resources or put together myself. The engine itself is quite far along in development, and a lot of fun to play even with enemy sprites modified from RPG Maker 95 (Changed as of v1.3.5a).

I'm actually most proud of the included level editor, as the possibilities are nearly endless with it. The powerful trigger system it has allows the entire gameplay style to change from Doom (which is what the included level is modeled after), to Alien Swarm, to Resident Evil depending on the designer's preference.

I created the Alpha Trailer above to help recruit artists, and it is working wonders so far. I have several talented artists interested in helping out, so the next few builds should start seeing significantly improved graphics.

If you come up with a cool level, feel free to send it to me at berickcook@gmail.com or post it here, and I'll feature it on the dev blog!

Download Dread v1.3.5a here

Screenshot of latest version (v.1.3.5a)


Changelogs:

v1.3.5a

• New gradient FOV "Shadow" which is much nicer on the eyes.
• The area around the player is now visible
• New enemy by Sidney Durant that replaces the green placeholders.
• Due to "Sticky Keys" issues, the controls have been switched to E for use and Space for fire.

v.1.3.4a

• ESC now opens the in-game menu with SFX volume, Music toggle, Mouse sensitivity, Key Sensitivity, and Return to Menu options.
• Menu options are saved in the "settings.cfg" file.
• Awesome new Title Screen music by Chris Kukla
• New Title screen (now with buttons! How cool is that?)
• 10 new backgrounds by Cody Jernander
• Doors can now be opened while facing away from them
• Internal Background optimizations (areas outside the built level no longer have a background)
• Fixed a plethora of bugs in the level editor
• Fixed a nearly equal plethora of errors in the game
• Added a new feature for certain Trigger types that allows them to either be activated everytime or only once
• Edited documentation to include new features
• Friendly NPC characters now wander around aimlessly
• You can now scroll around the Level Editor with the WASD keys
• I've expanded the level that comes with Dread. It now uses the new backgrounds and also has a completely new ending, so I recommend playing through it again.

Edited by Berick, 02 April 2012 - 09:05 PM.

[Froodjakle]

This is a really cool idea, and it has a lot of potential, but I have a few major issues with it.

First off, the biggest one - The camera. The fact that it rotates with your character's angle is incredibly odd to me. Personally, I would prefer it if the camera had a stationary angle, and the character was centered in the screen and looked towards the mouse, like traditional TDS games. It is very unique the way you have it now, yes, but it just makes the game feel extremely unusual to play, and I found myself feeling VERY disoriented. Maybe not for others, but this is my opinion of it at least. It also makes it more difficult to play with a laptop mousepad, although it's still perfectly doable.
EDIT: After playing with it for a while, the camera became less difficult to use, although I still think a traditional camera would feel better for me, personally.

Second - I ran into some lag issues when playing fullscreen, mostly around the larger center room in the first level (not sure if there's more than one level or not.) Granted, my computer is not very good to begin with, but it's always been more than enough when it comes to Game Maker games - A bit more coding optimization might be in order, especially if you plan to have more complex graphics and levels.

Last - The character is VERY sluggish. With the way your enemies are currently, your only real defense is to run backwards and hope your bullets can kill them before they catch you, considering most areas are very claustrophobic which eliminates strafing as an option entirely. I would suggest adding something like a sprint, or a dodge roll, or both. As it is now, your combat is very simple and dull, and the horror factor alone will only keep people interested for so long.

I had a couple of other, more minor issues too:
-Doors NEED to stay open longer. Many times I would open a door, start killing whatever was on the other side, only to have it close in my face and have to reopen it, causing me to be in extremely close quarters to my foe. Right before I stopped playing I opened a door, took a step inside to figure out what was there, got assaulted by 3 enemies, and couldn't escape because the door had closed almost instantaneously as I walked through. Things like that are just frustrating for a player.
-It would be great if doors could be opened while you weren't facing them, if you were walking in their direction - A character could hypothetically reach behind him and hit whatever button opens them without turning to face it, and it would make it much easier to escape foes but remain on the offensive at the same time.
-You probably already know this, but your sound effects and special effects are pretty weak. I don't feel scared when I hear or see an enemy, and I don't feel like my gun has any power behind it when I shoot (except for the shotgun, which is bad in the complete OPPOSITE direction - It sounds WAY too powerful, more like an explosion in your hands,) nor is there any sense of impact when you hit an enemy, or when an enemy hits you. As far as sound go, I would scrap the music entirely (or at least make it much quieter and more ambient,) or go for a more dynamic soundtrack that rises and falls as action happens, and add various sound effects to the level. Like if you came into an area with working machinery, you would have sounds of the machines working that got louder or quieter the further you were. Or a beeping alarm clock. Various things like that. Ambiance in sound effects is a MUCH stronger tool for horror games than a simple music track.

I think the primary problem with your graphics is that there's just way too much contrast. You're making a horror game - you're surrounded by pitch black on most sides all the time, which is good, but what you CAN see is very bright. There's a lot of whites and light grays, where it should be dark grays and rusted reds and the like. It's also very odd to me that you can see the walls of the area at all times. I think walls outside of your view should at least be darkened, if not invisible entirely. Now, that's not to say you need to make it look like some generic shooter with two colors, gray and more gray, but you need to tone down color when you have it, and leave things generally dark overall. I think it would also help if you had a limit to how far ahead you can view, like a flashlight effect or something like that. A bit of fading in your shadows would help to create a more organic look.


Now, I know this is a lot of complaints, but that's because I see a lot of potential in this project and I want to see it grow. You have a very good idea and system on your hands, now you need to fine-tune it and make it more of a cohesive experience, and keep it from becoming 'another one of the crowd' in the sea of shooters we have nowadays.

I wish you the best of luck!
-Froodjakle

Edited by Froodjakle, 06 March 2012 - 01:42 PM.

[Berick]

Thank you for taking the time to give such in depth feedback!

The camera view is definitely an experimental one. I've had a lot of people love it, a lot of people say it was tough to get used to, some people that totally hate it, and a couple poor folks that say it gave them motion sickness. At this point, I don't know whether I'm going to stick with it or convert it over to a traditional camera style... Personally, I feel that it makes it stand out amongst the, as you so rightfully put it, sea of shooters. Probably what I'll end up doing is making it an option to use the rotating camera or static camera.

You're the first person who has experienced any lag issues though. What are your system specs? There are a couple of key performance bottlenecks that I am optimizing in the next build, but I wasn't really expecting anyone to be having issues with them at this point.

Your last point was by design. It was intended to add some strategy / suspense to an otherwise generic run-and-gun. It forces the player to be cautious when exploring areas: Opening doors, peeking in, and retreating while drawing the enemy out into more maneuverable areas to fight them. However, judging by yours and others feedback, it does need some tweaking. I'm leaning toward a short sprint ability to allow you to get some distance between you and the creatures.

As for the minor issues you listed:

The doors shut quickly like that to prevent you from getting swarmed by the enemies. Door remain open as long as something is in their way, so if they stay open much longer on their own, it would allow streams of enemies to get through. That would make the game significantly more difficult. As it is now, you can use the doors to your advantage. Stand in them to keep them open while peeking inside a room or firing at an enemy, then let them shut to give you some time reload / strategize. Stepping past a door into unknown territory is not advised, as you discovered!

I like idea of being able to open doors from behind. It makes sense, and would help with the frustration you were describing with the above situation.

I agree that the sound and music are just as bad as the art. Again, I was grabbing freebie placeholders from wherever I could grab them. I've now got some talented musicians working on some more dynamic (varies depending on what's going on), better fitting music, and a couple leads on some good sound effect resources (If you know of any, let me know).

I've got some great artists working on better art too, as I agree that everything is much too bright. Especially the neon-green enemies.

It was suggested that I make both the walls and floors visible but darkened when outside your current viewing area. That will add some nice variety to the overall blackness that currently exists. It's going to be tricky to do that with the current way things work, but I'm working on it.

I'm also working on making the harsh edges of the FOV into a small gradient. That should make things more visually appealing.

Don't worry, I'm not taking your criticisms as complaints. They are actually very useful, and will hopefully help me make this game into something great!

[Berick]

Version 1.3.4a is now available

I've included some of the features you suggested, Froodjakle, and fixed quite a few bugs.

I've also redone the included level, and it now has a different ending.

[DonnieM]

Very cool game! It has a great horror feel to it.

[Berick]

Thanks! Especially since that was the feel I was going for.

[Klassic]

Great start! I'm working on a horror game as well and I know how difficult it can be

A couple notes:

-Having the player located so far towards the bottom of the screen was a bit of an odd camera angle, I found. It hurt my eyes a bit
-I felt like I could see too much of the game world at any given moment, perhaps the screen is too far zoomed out?
-In tight hallways if I was attacked by a monster I couldn't do much other than take damage as I shot at it. Wasn't sure if I should have been running away or not

Looking forward to seeing future versions!

[Berick]

Thanks! I took a look at your website. Ascension looks really cool! I'll be trying it out tonight. Do you have thread for it?

The camera is kind of experimental. I wanted to minimize the amount of dead space there was on the screen, while maximizing the player's forward viewing area. The idea is that the player is essentially playing a FPS from a top down perspective, so they should be able to see as much as possible of what the character would see.

And yes, running is an integral part of this game's play style. Though I intend to add both a knockback melee and "sprint" ability, cause lots of people are finding it a bit too hard.

[Klassic]

We do indeed, though that demo is now far outdated: Click me

I think the idea behind the camera is good, it might be the level of zoom/HUD location that's bothering me, hard to say.

Regarding combat, what might work better than melee is a dodge, if possible.

[Berick]

Thanks, I'll check it out anyway.

Hmm, perhaps when the actual HUD gets made (instead of the crappy placeholder) it will be better?

A dodge is doable too, but melee and melee weapons will be good for times when you have no ammo or no weapons (which is currently impossible, but planned for later on).

Edited by Berick, 19 March 2012 - 10:10 PM.

[Berick]

I love Minecraft's redstone game mechanic. I'm actually one of the founders of a large group of engineers who make calculators, computers, and videogames with it.

So imagine how excited I was when I realized that I could do the same kind of things in Dread with the current level editor!



This was not an intentional feature. Just a byproduct of the surprisingly powerful Trigger system.

Edited by Berick, 20 March 2012 - 06:48 PM.

[Tobias(NL)]

That was pretty cool, I do however have some criticism.
First, your level design was way to predictable. You had enemies waiting in almost every corner, or behind every door. This made it so predictable that the whole 'when will there come a creep' feeling vanished (I assume that's one of the reasons you've used this lighting engine). Secondly, change your gun sound, it's pretty damn ugly:P And last, the graphics did their job, but they were kinda static. But hell, it's a WIP, so I'm not sure whether they are placeholders or not.

Anyhow, you've got yourself a pretty nice little game, it's full of potential!
Goodluck.

EDIT: Haven't tested the editor, but it looks awesome.

Edited by Tobias(NL), 23 March 2012 - 06:21 PM.

[Berick]

Version 1.3.5a is now available! The change log has been added to the first post, as well as a screenshot of the new FOV.

I've also released a new level called "The Loading Dock" that picks up where the demo level leaves off. It's done in more of a survival horror style.

-------------

Tobias(NL): Thanks for the feedback! I designed the demo level with "Doom" in mind, so its predictability is quite understandable. The gun sounds will be changing soon (was hoping to get to that in this update, but a cold knocked out a good chunk of my dev time).

[plugger]

Hi Berick,

I've played your demo and I really enjoy what you've done here.

The camera that spins around in synch with the player's view is unusual but I think it works well for the design of the game. The limited LOS is superb and combined with the music and 'pop-up' monsters makes for an immersive experience.

A couple of suggestions...

When your gun runs out of ammo you could play a 'click, click' sound to give an audible clue, eg. you're firing on an empty chamber. Adds to the suspense.

It would greatly enhance replayability if the monster locations were randomised, rather than being in the same spot all the time.

Looking good!

Cheers,
Plugger