[SPOILER] Some suggestions for the developers to improve game mechanics. (SPOILERS)

[Jdog8998]

Hey there, I'm a huge fan of your games. I love all of them, Iv played them all plenty of times. And I would like to send this message to the developers as a suggestion to help you guys develop your already terrifying atmosphere. I'm personally talking to Tomas Grip because I feel he'll like what I have to say.

What I'm about to say is minimal, I dont have a huge list of suggestions, Its just one particular aspect of the game you could improve on and multiply the horror factor and suspense almost without changing the game play style or pacing in any drastic sense, In fact, the only thing Im suggesting to modify is the sound and possibly monster behavior, but only so slightly. What I'm suggesting is a slightly different communication style you use to speak to the player and tell him whats going on in the environment.

In first part of the game right after you read Daniels first diary entry, you explore the entrance hall. Shortly after that you enter the archives room. Iv watched so many play throughs and it seems that this part of the game is among the scariest parts of the game next to storage and the Water lurker part. Because of the unknown, and the unclear sense of whats happening in the environment. In the archives you hear lots of foot steps and monster groans but there's no music to indicate whats happening. So the player is extremely hesitant in this part of the game from fear probably more than in any other part of the game, at least from my perspective. This is because the game mechanic's haven't been reviled yet. This brings up my suggestion and point for helping out your next game possibly. You see, the players exploration style and hesitance changes as the game progresses. In the begging they dont know what to expect so they are very nervous. But as soon as you start encountering "spawned" monsters, everything changes. Iv noticed a sense of confidence and rush that develop, because of one thing. The music. Whenever a monster is spawned, the monsters theme plays and its a dead give away when the monster is and is not really there. Therefore it breaks the tension in the game because it makes things more predicable and raises the players confidence, because players will know when the monster is and is not present, so this makes the atmospheric sounds less powerful, because they wont be focusing on it. They don't need it to know whether or not they are safe. From what Iv noticed, not everyone figures it out. But most of the common gamers figure it out around the first couple confrontations. But I believe that its over half of your buyers that figure this out. I'm reading this message over to make sure I explained this clearly, because I'm not very good at being specific, but I'm very confident if I explained this clearly you'l find this advice very useful because it will help make your games more seamless. Unless you knew from the begging what you were doing and and did it on purpose, then I guess this message is pointless.

If one of you guys did read this message, please let me know and don't be afraid to talk to me about it if you want to have a more detailed discussion about what I see in your game design. With that said, I'm not looking for a job or anything like that, I just like to help. I really like your guys ambition and I'd like to help out. Not to say you need my help...lol. I hope you got what I was saying. Maybe you guys already know this. I guess I might find out.


EDIT: I just read your dev blog, you guys already know this I guess. I figured you would anyway.

[Zoridium JackL]

I would prefer if they just used it again the player more often, like in the cellar, anybody remember the music playing and the hint about hiding from monsters coming up on screen, only for you to later find out that there was no monster.

[zeemeerman2]

To Zoridium:
Actually, there is a monster at the Wine Cellar. It's only scripted so much that nine chances out of ten, it wouldn't harm the player and leaves the room (It is not an illusion like in the Archives! It's a real monster!) when the player comes near the monster.
The tutorial message in the same level is a great tool to create suspension. All other tutorial messages came when they were needed. Only this tutorial message, as comparison, it came way too early. But it helped immensely in the suspension.

[Juke]

I'll just hijack this thread to post my own thoughts. Didn't feel like starting a new one and clutter the forums even more.

First, let's start with the Water Monster level. When I played it for the first time I was not able to run at all while in the water. This is what added to the scare for me because you had to bunny hop in a desperate attempt to move quicker, while at the same time hearing the monster's footsteps gaining on you (whether it really did move faster or was just an illusion of the audio effects, I don't know).

Now, I don't know if this is intended or not but I noticed that several Let's Players on Youtube have been able to just run through the water so fast that the monster has no chance of catching them. This results in the fact that the whole encounter is not at all scary, in fact one of them even made a comment about it being easy/less scary than the other monster encounters.

I suggest you revert it back to the way it was cause the change has completely ruined the mood for the water part.

Second thing concerns Justine. I understand that the whole point of No Save is to make death more meaningful but, as a silly scaredy cat that I am, I like to pace myself. However, because it does not save I can't just play for 15 to 30 minutes and then do something else. Having not finished the expansion just yet (don't spoil it, please) I
don't know exactly how long it is in terms of map size but a puzzle or a
monster can take up quite a lot of time that not everyone has. Also, imagine if something really important comes up right at the finishing line and you have to stop a perfect run only to start over again.

So I suggest this: make it like a Hard-Core mode in RPG games such as Diablo and rogue like games. You quit the game, it saves the character. You die, you lose your saved games and/or profile (since the profile is separate from the Dark Descent).

That way one can quit when he feels like it and doesn't feel penalized by it, yet the game retains its meaningful atmosphere of dread because death is final and you only have one life.

[Cranky Old Man]

Yeah, the music is a give-away that makes the rest of the game feel relatively safe.
I'd also like to see patroling monsters which doesn't despawn, so that you get a gameplay more like the one in Forbidden Siren.
Also, please let me choose a Hard difficulty level, because auto-solving puzzles that I'm stuck at, is for babies.

Edit:
Oh, and PLEASE remove the ability to pause the game.
The inventory and the in-game options menu can all be done with real-time huds, and there are always some safe places that the player can stand around in while going to the bathroom or eating. It's really annoying to see other players chicken out in the middle of a scare. There's no immersion in having an instant safety zone at the press of a button.

[spukrian]

there are always some safe places that the player can stand around in while going to the bathroom or eating.

True story: I left Daniel standing in what I thought was a safe place and went to the bathroom. When I came back he had been eaten by a grunt.

[Damascus Rose]

there are always some safe places that the player can stand around in while going to the bathroom or eating.

True story: I left Daniel standing in what I thought was a safe place and went to the bathroom. When I came back he had been eaten by a grunt.

lol where was this safe place?

[spukrian]

lol where was this safe place?

The staircase at the start of the chancel.

[Cranky Old Man]

lol where was this safe place?

The staircase at the start of the chancel.

Oooh, that one. That's like the only place that looks safe but isn't, in the entire game.

[Damascus Rose]

lol where was this safe place?

The staircase at the start of the chancel.

Oh ahha, when the grunts capture you. well it's not like you can do much about this anyway XD