Hypothetical - Multiplayer Horror

[Apjjm]

I am not sold on the idea that multiplayer horror doesn't work - there needs to be far more attempts and failures for this conclusion to be considered yet. I think multiplayer horror is something that is something that could certainly work, and perhaps if executed well be just as terrifying as any single player game. Just as Amnesia is a single player experience - there could be a game constructed as a solely multiplayer or co-operative horrorshow. As the saying goes: you can't have your cake and eat it - multiplayer horror would likely have to tackle some very different problems than single player making the two pretty much mutually exclusive. Below are just a few such problems off the top of my head:

1. Should players be able to communicate? Deciding no here does make it far easier for the presence of another person to be overcome by the scary stuff in the game - But that obviously assumes that people won't still try to communicate (e.g. arranging props, jumping around by objectives...). No communication could be effective in a non-cooperative environment (E.g. survival at all costs - from both enemies and other players) but that still doesn't prevent people from communicating outside the game. My guess is some kind of limited form of communication between parties (not as direct as chat, but perhaps some in world communication, which would be very dependent on the setting and game) could be used.
   
2. Making Players scared of other players - or at least don't let people feel as safe together. This is especially true if the players know each other outside of the game world.
   
3. How many players should be in your world?
   
4. What is there to prevent players who have played before from ruining the experience for others?
   
5. Latency breaking immersion Not really much that can be done about this aside from LAN play only sadly - so i guess we can just make do here.
   

We can tackle these issues though. Again, off the top of my head below is one idea which tackles the above problems (so i'm certain there are hundreds of novel ways waiting to be thought up - hopefully making some good games). Whether or not this quick idea would actually be scary given the correct atmosphere i guess would require testing and refinement, but it sounds reasonable enough on paper:

Individual Levels Co-op approach

Spoiler below!

In a nutshell
This idea has some elements in common with l4d ("stories", group of survivors) but takes a rather different approach to using the elements. From amnesia the idea borrows the No weapons idea (Though perhaps making weapons extremely limited and likely to draw unwanted attention would also be feasible).

Game world
Consider the game universe to be composed of a large collection of (shortish) stories. Players can choose a story to play from some form tile list in the menu. After starting players join a holding area at the start of the story where they can communicate using chat with other players (This is effectively a lobby, but in the game world). When enough players have entered the holding area (or the players wish to begin) then players may begin the story.

Communication
No chat or voice communication outside of the waiting area. Communication past this point can only be achieved through limited in-game, most likely stigmergic, means.

Co-op focused, but teammates are expendable assets
In each "story" the group are survivors who can choose to group up or go off alone or into sub-groups. Surviving in smaller groups may be encouraged by the game through some kind of reward system. Furthermore, Splitting up will be encouraged by the level design, typically required to solve puzzles.

Some puzzles may present the option to members of the group to sacrifice other members for faster progression or avoidance of a particularly nasty looking area (E.g. a member may have to enter some drained pipes to reach a room with a control panel, but after reaching the panel water can be turned on again straight away, dooming the player to the monsters. Doing this would speed up progression for the group, as perhaps the water needs to be turned on as well as the control panel activated for progression.

Build up the pressure, whittle down the players
Monsters in a co-op environment can be far more brutal and dangerous. Obviously a good variety is necessary - some monsters or hazards can act as a deterrent whereas others could actively hunt people down - sometimes the only way to survive an onslaught is to not be the slowest guy to run away, or the first to be found hiding. As the group size reduces, so does the chance of individual peril: stragglers could be focused by monsters, and they can get more aggressive as the group size reduces.

Group joining
When a group of players is critically reduced (perhaps to a 2 or 3 member group) they face a choice - Do they try and progress further? do they wait for another group to come by?

The latter behavior could be supported by the game by merging game universes under certain conditions - E.g. when two stories are close in progression and both have few players then the game could merge the worlds and allow the groups to find each other (but most likely scare the crap out of each other first).

Handling death and victory
As each story could be independent (though perhaps multi-part stories could work too) the game can simply prevent players from playing a story they have just played for a fixed period of time - there are plenty of other stories into which the player can just jump in.

Victory could be encouraged by awarding players a "survival score" at the end of each campaign, this could depend on group size (smaller = better) and completion time, and provide diminished returns for replaying stories. This seems a little contrived and perhaps it isn't needed?

Handling repetition
User created stories / environments. The game could provide a good collection of initial stories, however, having a huge collection of user stories to choose from would keep variety up. Additionally, levels could have some random elements and procedural content in them. Levels could also maintain left-over markings, bodies, moved props from other players.

A note on world merging
One in-game way of handling world merging was shown in corpse party - this game introduced characters and allowed people to meet up through "parallel spaces" merging. The environment in this game would be a really good example of setting for a potential story. It also shows that it is certainly possible to explain away this feature in terms of the game story and setting.