A Diskussion about "regenerative health" in horror games.

[the dark side]

@ Aldighieri

Qualifications in terms of storyline or development?, in terms of development, not much, a few mods here and there way back in the old counter-strike days, in terms of storyline, quite a bit, custom storylines for many games (but not amnesia or penumbra, i am only a recent convert to horror, my lack of experience would probably result in the usual lame jumpscare fest as its just not my feild of experience, wich is action-thriller) , a few published short stories in local newspapers and magazines, nothing international as of yet though.

i understand you concern, but, i havn't had outright failure though, outright failure is No one looks at it, and that isnt the case, as i said, i have interested developers, and some pretty impressive ones (starbreeze, gearbox, remedy, crytek Uk (back when they were still kown as "Free Radical" though),etc) look, but, publishers dont want to know for various reasons, normally, "it wont sell in the american console market" (is the rest of the world not worth bothering with?), or "it will be too hard for todays gamers" (proove it!) the IP is in fact well over 6 years old, hence the 12 stories. the cost is high due to the following issues,

1. Graphical Fidelity, people want good graphics today, if you dont have good graphics, and by that im talking unreal 3 quality at least, you wont sell! they also want top quality, fluid, animation, wich requires Mocap and face scanning, wich costs massive money for actors, mocap equipment, stuntmen, a gymnasium, etc.

2. Mutliplatform porting, its PC lead development and launch platform as demanded by the copyright lease, but its open to console porting once its been out on pc for at least 4 months before the console port is started, to make more money and allow for really good sequals.

3. voice over cast ,even relative unknowns dont come cheap, and in a game that is heavilly story driven, bad voice acting is a game wrecker, so you need people with experience of videogame voice overs... and people like Adam Blackwood charge a very pretty penny for there experience

4. Quality Assurance testing, i refuse to put my name on anything that has avoidable glitches or programming issues,

5. Content amount, 26 chapters, some as long as 9 hours per chapter...and that is game one alone.

6. paying the wages of high profile developers, people like randy pitchford have been in the industry many years, and demand a big paycheck as a result,

7. getting it marketed and advertised, too many greart games have flopped due to next to no advertising,

8. paying the press to come and take a look at a game that probably wont interest them because its so different to COD, and many press reviewers these days are "paid noobies" and have no experience of the Pre COD era.

9. Sound and Music. oh sure, you can be a cheapskate and just use library sounds and get the neighbours dog to roll on the keyboard while "fruity loops" is running to create the usual industry standard "wubbwubb" but, the critics and the gamers will hammer you for "ear splittingly bad music and washed out recycled sound effects" people these days want professionally scored music (i am looking and Jespyr Kyd or Rom Di Prisko.. neither is cheap because they are some of the best) and weapons sound recorded from reality, that needs an expert, a warehouse rent, health and safety officials, blank ammo, weapons rental, all costs a fortune.

i have actually cut game number 1 down considerably in order to lower the budget, using a lot of pre existing physics (via havok) removing multiplayer fuctionality, mid level save has gone in the bin ( a reliable mid level save system can take over 200,000 Pounds on its OWN to create!) , yes, all will be added to game one with patches included in sequals, as i dont beleive in making the previous game redundant, if the story is still good, and people still play, the game should be supported, its cost people money! and it still needs a good £4,000,000 total budget, to be covered,. wich makes me angry that the publishers wont accept it, the average call of duty clone costs over £10,000,000 to make the Set peices alone, let alone the Sales and Marketing stuff!, mine will only cost £4,000,000, all in, Develoment, voice overs, quality assurance, sales and marketing, the lot. considerably cheaper. yet they refuse.

I understand you want to prevent anyone from making the same mistakes you made trying to become a dev, beleive me, ive made more than one in my time. its just, im not after the position of Dev, im aftet the position of IP Holder, storyline writer, and Creative controller, the man who tells the devs what to make, the dev team comes from the established pool of pro developers, if i can ever convince a publisher to finance it.

you see, the issue isnt getting the IP developed, ive got so many pro developers interested that ill have to get them all to make demos to see who is going to do the best Job, its been a long while since the mechanics have been used so the teams may be a little "rusty" its getting the finance to get the IP put into development that is the pain because its Not a "safe" COD Clone, its a "risky" throwback. thats the issue. making soemthing "smaller" wouldnt help, sure, it may bring it to within a kickstarter budget, but even them getting the owners of the digitial distribution sites to add it to there lists will be very, very difficult, apprantly croteam had a Nightmare of a time getting people to host serious sam III downloads because they didnt want to take a "risk" on a "Throwback".

Granted, im only going as far back as the Nightfire (gamecube version), NOLF era, im not going as far back as the DOOM, DN3D era, but it seem that publishers go into "make excuses and look at pictures of ponies!" mode as soon as anything that goes back to the mechanics from before "modern warfare" lands on there mat.

i just dont see what there problem is, ive spent years creating this, working out mechanics, balancing the gameplay (there is nothing worse than a mishandled health system regardless of wich type it may be), creating storylines, researching polotics, environments, social econmics, (everything has been researched exept the guns, as well, you can't do that reasearch in the UK due to our laws) , creating charachters, creating concept art. this isnt some "yo mek timesplittahs for yo fanz!" one line twitter proposal, this is a full blown copywrited and registered Intellectual Property with franchise rights, the only reason i can see for there being a problem is the industry is so shoved up the bottoms of a market that is predfominatnly under educated american preteenagers (if the youtube fanbase of the games is anything to go on anyway) they are scared of making anything that isnt call of duty, or exact clone therof, in case they go "diz sukz!!11!!" all over youtube.

what i want to know, and the reason why i joined the forum of a developer who will be able to provide an insight into the way the publishers think, is WHY, that problem exists, once i have that knowledge, i can manipulate the publishers into accepting the IP