Tips for making a Survival Horror Mod?

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Viscra Maelstrom
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Re: Tips for making a Survival Horror Mod?

Post by Viscra Maelstrom »

having the right, calm music for safe zones is important, as well, so players understand that whenever they hear it, they are safe and cannot be harmed there (aka Resident Evil). of course, if you're making a Doom mod, then the importance of safe zones might be a bit less so, because well, you can save anywhere.
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SHayden
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Re: Tips for making a Survival Horror Mod?

Post by SHayden »

Ichor wrote:
Maleficus wrote:One thing to consider is also sound design. The best survival horror games have always had stellar sound design and the right atmospheric music to set the tone.

There’s really a lot that goes into making a good survival horror game. Art style, audio, atmosphere, controls, enemies, everything is vital. I’d recommend replaying one of your favorites and just analyze how the game was designed overall. Take note of what it did right and how it was effective, and use that knowledge when designing your own scenarios.
Sometimes it's better to not have any music. It shouldn't be dead quiet either (for the most part). Many times, just some background sounds (creeks, wind blowing, faint droning or humming noise, etc.) could be enough of an atmosphere without needing a looping song. And there may be some occasions where no noise whatsoever is good for building tension, especially if the player starts getting used to the background noise.
I have something to add regarding sound and ambient department. 2 of the survival horror games I know and like very much, though different under the hood, have excellent atmosphere. One is called vanish and is an indie horror game and it did awesome job creating a tense survival horror ambient in first-person. The other is lone survivor and is a retro-style 2D game from 2012 that was actually developed by a music composer or whatever and it's atmosphere is an A+ for a such game that actually has silent hill 2 written all over it. Check those 2 games to see what I really mean :P
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Dr_Cosmobyte
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Re: Tips for making a Survival Horror Mod?

Post by Dr_Cosmobyte »

I believe the first question you should ask yourself is "What kind of Survival Horror i want to show?" I mean, we might think on the RE series, since it kinda made the word spread around, but, RE has that appeal to action which works better in Doom. Monsters in RE are bullet sponges, sometimes being positioned in very specific situations, and after wasting all your ammo (something you learn to measure in older RE games), then you understand why "Survival" and "Horror" are merged together.

Then we have another type of game, which is, of course, known better from the Silent Hill series: Psychologic horror. Here we have the same rules as RE regarding the "surviving hostile places saving your resources", but it instead plays a bit with your mind, and, as said by some here, plays with your conception of what is right or wrong. This will lead to two main topics i wanted to talk about: Monsters and weapons.

As for weapons, i believe that the most important thing is to have a certain linearity between them.

Are those weapons real? Are they close to their real counterparts? Are they all from the same era? Same country? All of them were used during a war? Civilian weapons, tactical weapons or a mix of civilian weapons and a bit of luck finding an army combat rifle close to a dead soldier? How hard should it be to obtain the ammo of X or Y weapon? How strong i want them to be on monsters?

And then they come up:

Should they be something supernatural? From Hell? Aliens? Monsters resembling actual living beings, but corrupted by a virus or possessed by demons? Should they cause fear to the player or just alert them of obvious danger? Should its behaviour be predictable to rise the player odds?

I could continue, but this will get very tedious to read.
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