I know i know first things first, i saw AI *americian infantry, or w/e* i saw his thread, and i thought wow i should attempt to give a guide for a horror game in a new thread, so heres my attempt at it, please tell me what you thought about this, and how useful it actually is.
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the first step.
Full Layout First///Level Layout.
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1. The first step is to you guess it...create the layout of the level, i reccamend you start with grid paper, and pretend that each grid box is 1 segment area.
Use the grid paper for the basic layout, and doors, windows, ladders, stairs, all of that, basicially anything you would use in the segment tab in fpsc.
2. Alright now to keep the sanity of me and other users, lets pretend that youve made your grid/layout of the level.
Alright take your grid and apply it to fpsc with ONLY the things you included on the grid. so basicially do the segments.
Alright now that you have all of the segments, doors, reachable areas pretty much done its time to advance to the second step.
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The Second Step
Entitys.
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Donts.
1. Dont place objects that are out of place
Example: Dont place soda cans all over the ground inside of a meat factory, lol.
2. Do not mix in clean items with dirty items.
Example: dont place a brand new generator next to a old messy grungy one.
3. Do not leave rooms too bare.
Example: Do not leave any room with no entitys in it, it will BORE the player.
4. Do not put TOO many items in each room.
Example: try not to put so many objects in each room that it will lag the player to bad so its unbareable.
5. Do not make everything dynamic///static, mix it up, but be sure to keep things more towards static to solve lag issues.
DO'S
1. Do put enough items in each room to keep the player feeling like hes exploring new things each time he opens a door.
2. Do create retextures and new models with apparent rust,grunge and other dirty effects to the model/texture.
3. Do test often and save often when adding new entitys.
4. Do put puzzles in the level, because no one wants to play a horror game with only killing, puzzles makes the player feel like hes doing something different then mindless killing.
5. Do have the player interact with the enviornment atleast once per level. so the character doesnt feel like the enviornment isnt all non moveable.
Alright now lets assume youve gotten the entitys and segments done.
lets move on to the 3rd step.
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Step 3
Characters/enemys.
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This section is very easy.
Make sure you hide the characters or make them jump out at the character to surprise him. enemys should typicially be faster than the player, to make them not able to just run away, so they have to stay and fight. may sound cheesy now, but when playing the game, your players/customers will get into it, if its good enough.
Alright so, so far you have, the SEGMENTS, ENTITYS, AND ENEMYS DONE.
lets move on.
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Step 4.
Sounds.
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Now this is the key element of horror games, the sounds will scare the player or pump them up. it is very ideal to put scary/action sounds before a character jumps out at them, so the player doesnt feel like they had no warning, or it just suddenly appeared.
Alright so this section was easy too, arnt you glad?
So now you have, Entitys, segments, enemys, and sounds done.
Your almost there.
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Step 5
Lighting.
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This is probably the most key element in fpsc, without proper lighting the game could apear not to be scary.
So this part is mostly up to you, the designer, but i reccamend you keep to dark browns, reds, and pretty much anything really dark, or just dark enough so the character can see what he/she NEEDS to see.
Make sure to place lights next to light entitys.
And also make sure you have more than one light per room, dont count on one light per room, keep the light range to about 150-250 each light.
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step 6.
Finializing & Twinking
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Alright now that you have sounds, entitys, segments, lighting, enemys done.
After everythings done, just go back in, test the game, make sure fps rates are playable, make sure objects that should be on the wall, are actually on the wall, make sure objects are actually on the ground, make sure the lighting looks like it comes from the light source. etc etc.
And there is your guide to making a horror game, i hope it helps some of you.
You'll Know When You See It.
Death has no end
