[WIP] Hunted

[Grymmoire]

Hunted (alpha stages placeholder name) is a survival horror puzzle map set set on a seemingly abandoned space station. Our protagonist is awoken late at night by loud banging at their door, but no one is on the other side. Grabbing a nearby flashlight they set out to investigate and discovers that everyone on the station has mysteriously disappeared. Along the way the protagonist finds various anomalies that appear to have been set out just for them to find.

The wad takes inspiration from Unloved and Phocas Island, and Amnesia: TDD. The emphasis is primarily on exploration, atmosphere, and puzzle solving (though I'm thinking something along the lines of Phocas Island in terms of style and difficulty), with the eventual goal being escaping the space station. Combat is non-existent, though there are threats that the player must avoid or escape from and the player will have a constant threat of being hunted down looming over them. The game takes place primarily on a space station, though the player will transition through alternate reality versions of various locations to progress (like Unloved, which took from the Silent Hill series in this respect). The player's main "weapon" will be a flashlight, which helps light the way in some darker places and can help or hinder when dealing with threats.

---

• "New" enemies -- 11 enemies included so far, each with a specific role and function.
• Flashlight mechanics -- Shining the flashlight on various enemies will alter their behavior, for better or worse.
• First Map -- Delta Complex, not complete but done enough that I can move on from it and integrate it with other maps, I won't have to worry about the rest of this map until much later.
• Balanced for lean -- With the help of Watermelon I've got the beginnings of a leaning system, but it still has some issues to be worked out. Alternatively I'm thinking of seeing if I can use Nash's tilting camera resource to create a true leaning system. Either way, it's started but not finished.

---

• Enemy sprite edits -- a tall order, to be sure, but if some edits could be done to the existing monster sprites that would be just great. Right now I'm using R667 sprites and sounds, which is fine, behaviors are totally different, but that still leaves the enemies more familiar than I'd like them to be, and I feel like that takes away from the experience.
• Puzzle system -- this is next up on my list, I'll probably implement a basic system similar to Phocas Island since that's out of my comfort zone but not over my head. Gotta get puzzle items working soon so I can start getting things moving forward gameplay-wise.
• Flashlight sprite -- some have complained that the flashlight sprite looks wrong. The way it's being held is...off. I can see what people are getting at, but I simply can't do sprite edits at that level and I don't know of any other similar angled flashlights. An edit to this sprite making the way it's held more realistic would probably be the best way to go.
• Flashlight light -- mainly aesthetic, but right now the way the flashlight emits like is very basic and unappealing. Something more realistic should be done at some future point in time.
• Next map -- Delta Complex is done, for now, so I can move onto the other maps.
• Leaning system -- what I have can be patched up and called done, or I could try for a true leaning camera (right now it's just a moving camera that moves only horizontally from the player's position).

---

Right now I'm working on this project by myself, though if people want to help out and address some issues that I can't handle, I wouldn't mind. Since I don't have anything in the way of graphical skills, this project uses a lot of outside resources, but I've been keeping track of where everything comes from and (as far as I know) I haven't taken from anything that I'm not allowed. This is an ambitious project and as such I don't expect to be done for another couple years. I'll probably post up specific requests in the resources forum as they come up, including some of the things I've listed above.

[Ribo Zurai]

Ohh this looks good! The hand sprite though looks very weird.

[Raziel236]

Volunteering for any sprite work.

[Hellser]

Good to see that you've posted this, Grymm. If you need feedback on anything, I'm sure Trance and I will help.

[Nash]

Always interested in seeing survival horror projects that take gameplay in a radically different direction in Doom engines. Maps are looking good, too. Good luck!

[Grymmoire]

Ohh this looks good! The hand sprite though looks very weird.

Thanks! Though, yes, I've been told by many that the way the flashlight is held is very off.

Volunteering for any sprite work.

Great! That's a department where I could use the help. If you think you can, doing something with the way the flashlight is held would be good. It's a really weird way to hold a flashlight and almost everyone has made a comment about it so far, but it's also the only set of angled flashlight sprites I know about. Let me know if you want to take a crack at that.

Good to see that you've posted this, Grymm. If you need feedback on anything, I'm sure Trance and I will help.

Yeah, I'll be creating testable alpha versions soon. I don't want to make any kind of public releases for a very long time, but a small focus group of testers would be helpful.

Always interested in seeing survival horror projects that take gameplay in a radically different direction in Doom engines. Maps are looking good, too. Good luck!

Thanks! Yeah, I've had something like this stewing for a while but I've only recently turned it into a project with progress.

[Captain Ventris]

Sounds neat! I'll definitely keep an eye on this.

[Nevander]

Ohh this looks good! The hand sprite though looks very weird.

Thanks! Though, yes, I've been told by many that the way the flashlight is held is very off.

So that explains why I was thinking he was kicking his leg in every screenshot.

[grouchbag]

WOW

[Scripten]

Nice! Those screenies look super atmospheric. And the inspirations, especially Phocas Island, make me very excited to see this. I love those explore-em-up mods.

[fluff]

I very much look forward to this. I know to some that it's blasphemous to make Doom "undoomy" but in my humble opinion we need more projects like this.
As others have mentioned the hand looks off but other than that the screenshots look great and the entire concept behind this sounds very promising!

[Grymmoire]

Blue Shadow brought this flashlight to my attention and I'm thinking the sprites for this one look less odd. So I'll use these and see how it works out.

[HeavenWraith]

Due to my unfortunate circumstances, I've been blackmailed into posting about how this project was nanometers away from being named "Seven" instead of the current placeholder "Hunted", and how that's allegedly the worst possible name for a project in existence.

On a serious note, hello, I'm the local composer/audio engineer for the project, and the soundscape I create is going to take players into the fantasy world of sorcery, valor and courage... until a sudden screeching noise interrupts your experience and you're torn apart limb by limb and eaten by stray homunculi.

And hopefully this post has granted me the privilege of getting in touch with the co-composer by the PM.

[fluff]

Blue Shadow brought this flashlight to my attention and I'm thinking the sprites for this one look less odd. So I'll use these and see how it works out.

That's much nicer!

Due to my unfortunate circumstances, I've been blackmailed into posting about how this project was nanometers away from being named "Seven" instead of the current placeholder "Hunted", and how that's allegedly the worst possible name for a project in existence.

On a serious note, hello, I'm the local composer/audio engineer for the project, and the soundscape I create is going to take players into the fantasy world of sorcery, valor and courage... until a sudden screeching noise interrupts your experience and you're torn apart limb by limb and eaten by stray homunculi.

And hopefully this post has granted me the privilege of getting in touch with the co-composer by the PM.

"Doom Pursues"... a play on words if it isn't obvious, Doom being the games title but also meaning "a terrible fate" and pursues as in well, pursues. I know, not much better.

[Marine667]

nice dynamic lights