It's Watching: My first custom story

[FortiPlex]

Hello everyone A few days ago, I started getting into the whole 'custom story' thing for Amnesia. And after watching some gameplay of a bunch of stories, I thought to myself; why does there have to be a story involved?

My goal is to make a CS in which the player will have to find a key to open a door to the next map. Pretty much it. Except, getting that key or even finding it will be difficult. Adding to that, I plan on creating an atmosphere that is powerful enough to carry on this task. With the help of sound effects, detail, timed events, etc.

The question is, how long can you survive?

Pictures will be posted soon!

[PutraenusAlivius]

Hello everyone A few days ago, I started getting into the whole 'custom story' thing for Amnesia. And after watching some gameplay of a bunch of stories, I thought to myself; why does there have to be a story involved?

My goal is to make a CS in which the player will have to find a key to open a door to the next map. Pretty much it. Except, getting that key or even finding it will be difficult. Adding to that, I plan on creating an atmosphere that is powerful enough to carry on this task. With the help of sound effects, detail, timed events, etc.

The question is, how long can you survive?

Pictures will be posted soon!

Because story is an important aspect to the game. Why are you in this place? Who are you? Story matters. If you gonna have a terrifying monster, build a legend of what they are and how did they become these creatures.

[FortiPlex]

Because story is an important aspect to the game. Why are you in this place? Who are you? Story matters. If you gonna have a terrifying monster, build a legend of what they are and how did they become these creatures.

Yes, that is true. Though, the story does not build up the fear in which grows inside you when you play a horror game. At times, the story will take you away from the actual game.

It may be a very good addition to any game; since it would be boring and dull without it. My primary focus is mainly on complete fear.

[str4wberrypanic]

You shouldn't make a mod based in searching for keys. The FC community usually thinks this is annoying. I think a mod with creative puzzles would be a lot more sucessful.

[OriginalUsername]

Actually, the story/atmosphere the player is playing in is so important for fear. If you don't have a story going along with your fears, they'll just be annoying jumpscares. If you create an amazing atmosphere where the player is so terrified where he's too scared to go into a room because of your story/atmosphere, that's absolute fear.

[WALP]

purpose to the pointless.

[Romulator]

Because story is an important aspect to the game. Why are you in this place? Who are you? Story matters. If you gonna have a terrifying monster, build a legend of what they are and how did they become these creatures.

Yes, that is true. Though, the story does not build up the fear in which grows inside you when you play a horror game. At times, the story will take you away from the actual game.

It may be a very good addition to any game; since it would be boring and dull without it. My primary focus is mainly on complete fear.

If you read something other than The Hungry Caterpillar you'd know that's a load of bullshit.

Spoiler below!

I put that in a CS which I discontinued ages ago which was just Easter Egg after Easter Egg

[Adrianis]

Hello everyone A few days ago, I started getting into the whole 'custom story' thing for Amnesia. And after watching some gameplay of a bunch of stories, I thought to myself; why does there have to be a story involved?

My goal is to make a CS in which the player will have to find a key to open a door to the next map. Pretty much it. Except, getting that key or even finding it will be difficult. Adding to that, I plan on creating an atmosphere that is powerful enough to carry on this task. With the help of sound effects, detail, timed events, etc.

The question is, how long can you survive?

Pictures will be posted soon!

I think that's a fantastic idea - How many people have tried to create an engaging and terrifying experience without any specific plot/narrative before? Not many, so you should totally do it. Experimentation is so much more exciting than more of the same, even if it turns out to be a complete failure, and modding is the perfect ground for it because it's pretty much zero-risk so you don't really need to care about people liking it - any good or bad opinion is productive.

I think the fact that some people react negatively to the idea is a good sign that it's worth trying, as counter-intuitive as that sounds - it shows that it is assumed that plot would be important to the fear, since horror games often put a lot of emphasis on a strong narrative. We need examples that go the other way.

So make it, then we can all benefit from the experience of seeing whether that can work or not. Maybe it'll suck, maybe that approach can't work, but we're not gonna know til it's been tried right?

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

I'm not entirely opposed to the idea of not having a story either. It can definitely work. Take LIMBO for example. Its creates a great atmosphere and is certainly an engaging experience, but for the majority of the game you don't get any story or explanation at all. You just wake up in this world and move on, because what else is there to do?

However I believe there are still key aspects of a game that you should take care of and that are usually automatically solved by having a story.

The main problem is player motivation. You need to communicate to the player what he needs to do and the better way to do this is making him want to do it instead of just telling him. For example: If your game starts with the player falling down a hole into an underground labyrinth, you have automatically created the motivation "find the exit". The motivation to tackle smaller sub-challenges like finding a key to a door emerges from that on its own, because the end goal is clear to the player.

A bad example on the other hand would be to simply place the player in a house and give him the quest "find the key to the cellar". He has no motivation to do this apart from you giving him the order, thus it will not be very engaging for him to embark on this quest. Most games solve this problem through story - for example by telling the player that he can find a clue relating to his daughters disappearance somewhere in the cellar or stuff like that.
Since you have no story, keep in mind that you have to create the player's motivation through other means instead!

Another point is that even without a story, you still need an interesting setting. This can be easier if you have a backstory of sorts in your head - you don't need to tell the player, but it will help you create an interesting world. This goes hand in hand with environmental storytelling which goes a long way towards creating immersion.

To get back to LIMBO as an example - you'll notice all sorts of symbolism in the game and hints at what ties this world together. There's a strong recurring theme of insects, a mysterious tribe of natives/ other prisoners of the Limbo, ruins of what looks like a civilisation - or maybe a mirror image of the real world?, machinery... it all feels like there IS a story of sorts behind it, only that the game let's you make up your own thoughts about what it might be instead of feeding you information.

What this interesting world does, apart from being all awesome and immersive, is it also helps you with the problem of player motivation that I mentioned earlier. If your world is interesting enough that the player wants to explore it, you have another strong force that pulls him forward.