Official Poll Regarding SOMA's Monsters

[Neuromancer]

I liked them at first, but I think perhaps there were too many of them. Once you die and restart once it really takes the tension away and it feels less like an organic horror experience and more like a series of systems you have to game to get through. My suggestion would be instead of dying, keep doing the thing where your guy gets hurt for a while, and have the monster disappear and not come back for a reasonable amount of time. I know the idea of no deaths/restarts is probably not popular among the hard core gaming community but for a game like this I think it would make a lot of sense. Thanks for giving us the opportunity to give feedback.

[GhylTarvoke]

My suggestion would be instead of dying, keep doing the thing where your guy gets hurt for a while, and have the monster disappear and not come back for a reasonable amount of time. I know the idea of no deaths/restarts is probably not popular among the hard core gaming community but for a game like this I think it would make a lot of sense.

But with that system, players wouldn't fear getting caught, and could just "commit suicide" to keep moving forward. Like many people have said, these things are tricky.

I never died in Theta and still felt very tense, so the difficulty was just right for me. The CURIE was a completely different matter. Ugh, those cramped corridors...

[Bridge]

The real question is: what monster has the biggest WAU factor?

[Filizitas]

The real question is: what monster has the biggest WAU factor?

That hit the ground so hard.

[hollowleviathan]

Once the player actually knows the rules of this scenario (that Akers jumps back into the ducts after a while, and that the player must be quiet), it works very well.

Is that actually what's supposed to happen? Akers just paced outside of the security office for 5 full, long, looong minutes for me until I just sprinted to the WAU flower room, hid behind shelving where he couldn't reach me until he calmed down and wandered away, even then staying nearby.

He simply would not leave, despite my total silence, huddled in a corner. I was wondering what I was doing wrong...still am!

[Damascus Rose]

Once the player actually knows the rules of this scenario (that Akers jumps back into the ducts after a while, and that the player must be quiet), it works very well.

Is that actually what's supposed to happen? Akers just paced outside of the security office for 5 full, long, looong minutes for me until I just sprinted to the WAU flower room, hid behind shelving where he couldn't reach me until he calmed down and wandered away, even then staying nearby.

He simply would not leave, despite my total silence, huddled in a corner. I was wondering what I was doing wrong...still am!

was that after you formatted the chip? he comes and patrols outside for a bit when you do that, even comes in the room if you don't lock it

[ToomuchFluffy]

I voted for "A bit scary and interesting to encounter", but my experience could be described more accurately, as "Moderately scary, interesting to encounter and sometimes annoying".

The only monster I had any significant trouble with, was the Jiangshi in the Curie. At least in the section before the tentacles he really seemed to just be in the way. The fact that I was trying to explore the room behind the patrol route - with it coming in to kill me a few times - and me completely overlooking the other door didn't help. The chase sequence at the end didn't work for me, because I didn't remember the way back very well, which led to me repeating it 5-6 times.

In most cases I was a little surprised about how often we got a good look at the monsters, considering that seems to go against Frictionals design philosophies (judging from the blog). In Theta it made sense, since they were blind, but in the Curie a monster which we were not supposed to look at was far too tangible and far too "in the way" for that aspect of it to work very well.

On the other hand the Upsilon-robot never seemed like it was intended to scare us, so it worked for me as a pretty simple patrolling monster. In the Theta-labs there is simply enough space to accomodate for a patrolling monster, even if it is always somewhere in the area. And the others didn't seem to have any particular problems while adding to the variety of monster behaviour. I really liked how Omikron had such oddly different pacing for a change.

My expectations for monster behaviour might have been off a little. In the end, no matter how similar SOMA could sometimes seem to A:TDD, the way the monsters were implemented did not. I don't really remember ever getting a good look at the monsters in Amnesia, especially as far as the first half is concerned. But to be sure, the only time I feel that it was a game design problem and not just me overlooking something obvious was the last section of the Curie. So, overall I'm quite positive about the implementation of the creatures in SOMA :-)

[Radiance]

I was thinking about A.I. My impression is if the A.I. would be more aggressive the gameplay could produce more mental and emotional strain.
As some point A.I. was passive and that lead the player to be half-misunderstood and maybe waiting feeling dull at that time.
Also, there could be one or two more monsters per level.
If the player could have some ability/item to stop,delay,disable or entrap them with paralyzation/stasis/emp effect for a brief moment, this could add to more tense encounter.

My counclusion is that aggressiveness of A.I. and more quantity of monsters could contribute to the game scariness.

[Damascus Rose]

I was thinking about A.I. My impression is if the A.I. would be more aggressive the gameplay could produce more mental and emotional strain.
As some point A.I. was passive and that lead the player to be half-misunderstood and maybe waiting feeling dull at that time.
Also, there could be one or two more monsters per level.
If the player could have some ability/item to stop,delay,disable or entrap them with paralyzation/stasis/emp effect for a brief moment, this could add to more tense encounter.

My counclusion is that aggressiveness of A.I. and more quantity of monsters could contribute to the game scariness.

But then we get into what happens when the enemies are too effective at killing you. The diving monster is the quickest and most aggressive enemy in the game, but had the poorest effect on me because he was so impossible for me to avoid. After dying once, or even hiding in a spot and having him patrol for too long outside leaving me no room to sneak away completely ruined the experience and the fear. His aggressiveness initially scared me but his unwillingness to leave me the fuck alone killed it.

And for having more monsters, maybe, maybe not. The only place with many monsters was theta and once you get to the area where there's a bunch that patrol, they aren't very scary and are just a gameplay mechanic. Just an obstacle to get around. There needs to be a medium.

I think there might be something to be said about having a way to fight back, a rare item maybe that you have to make a quick decision on whether to use or save if you think you can get away quick enough, like an emp bomb. Maybe something that takes a long time to recharge. This is the philosophy the game Routine is using; they say that having no way to fight back and always being able to outrun the enemy isn't scary, so they are including some form of combat related to what I mentioned to add to the frantic fear of trying to survive an encounter. We have no way of knowing how well their idea holds up though because the game isn't out obviously (and we've been waiting fucking ages for it.)

The only game I can think of with shit ass combat to make you feel weak compared to the monsters is penumbra overture, and I think most of us are well acquainted on how well that worked. But then again the only real threats in that game were zombie dogs that weren't all that scary. I think the concept is sound but needs to be implemented differently. It could take ages of iteration to finally get right though, effective horror is damn finicky.

[PiratesFr33k]

I voted "Just an annoyance". I don't mean to be rude but... I really wish this game had a "no enemies" mode. I don't see the point of those mini-mechs really. Soma didn't *HAVE* to copy the same stuff from the Amnesia and Penumbra series, if you ask me.

I really, REALLY wanted to experience the game's story, be immersed by the environment and find out what's what, but those tedious "hide & seek" sequences ruined it for me.

Of course, this is just a matter of taste. Again, I'm sorry if my post comes across as diminishing. I certainly like the game's premise in general and it *IS* absolutely worth the money. (So no hard feelings, Frictional Games!) It's just that the game's introduction gave me the impression that it's a story-driven game. Which I (personally) would have liked a lot better.