[WIP] "Don't Let Go" Full conversion with some neat features.

[Robby]

-Permadeath. Upon dying your saves will be deleted (Not sure if this will be possible, if it is I'll do it.)

I'm not certain you can do that. There's no (apparent) script function for that kind of thing.

[Mooserider]

I'm not certain you can do that. There's no (apparent) script function for that kind of thing.

Yeah, I'm not sure about that either. I'm thinking I might implement a saving system like what's used in Tenebris Lake; removing the save and exit function and making an area(s) that you save at. When the player dies I could then overwrite those saves so that if they're loaded it's just a bare, black room.

[Kreekakon]

Time for some feedback on the features!

-Permadeath. Upon dying your saves will be deleted (Not sure if this will be possible, if it is I'll do it.)

I disapprove of things like this as I see it to be a "false difficultly" level. IMO, things like these are more frustrating than helping the horror.

-No monsters. Scares and encounters are scripted sequences - but encounters are still just as life-threatening as in the original ATDD.

I'm VERY interested to see how this turns out. Has potential to be awesome.

-Sanity plays a strong role. Your sanity can affect how you interact with things, what you see, and the story as a whole. Your sanity, along with your health, also regenerates very, very slowly. Since there are no sanity potions, the only way to really regain sanity is to progress or perhaps go to certain "calming" areas.

I remember something similar in Alan Wake. I like this feature since it will urge the player to be pushed towards their safe haven, and leave the "bowels of darkness". It's a bit of a complicated feeling which actually can add to the horror well if done correctly.

-Dying is a VERY significant thing. You don't die in the typical way for Amnesia - if you fail certain things in certain ways you're killed, and a cutscene-esque thing is played unique to how, where and when you died.

I don't really follow on this one. You say dying is significant, but your following words describe it as simply a more "specific" type of death. Could you elaborate on this?

-Non linearity. The story and events will play out differently depending on what you do and when you do it.

Sounds nice

-Many endings. After seven days in the house the end-game is triggered if the story hasn't already ended via you being killed or ending it in some other way. Your ending is influenced by your actions during the story. Will you solve the mystery of the house or will the house consume you?

Multiple endings influenced by player choice/gameplay are always pretty cool!

-No momentos or hints. It's up to YOU to put the pieces together and act accordingly.

You need to work very VERY carefully with this. I might even go as far as to say I disapprove. Unless your level structure, and subtle nudges are done well enough, this will lead the player to getting stuck, and not get a "genius" feeling when they finally solve it. It'll mostly be frustrating, and end up in "FINALLY! THANK GOD!" when they solve it.

-Unique key system: The player starts off with a key to each door in the house, as well as the front door key. From an in-character angle they are kept on the player's keyring. There are no "tags", the description of each key reflects what it actually looks like. They are all named "Key". The player is not told which key leads to what door; they need to figure it out for themselves, get familiar with the house, and memorize which key leads to what door.

Mostly same reasoning for me as my previous statement. Also, if he just bought the house, shouldn't he have some sort of manual that tells him about the keys anyways?

When the player uses the corresponding key on a door, the door unlocks or locks respectively. During
encounters - during which there are more than one way to survive/escape I might add - the player may
need to quickly get inside a room and lock the door behind them.

...Or
the keys may be knocked out of the player's "hand", and they'll have to either scramble to pick them up or just get away and return for them later.

I like this idea =]

-No special glowy items. Players cannot single out items by their glow and pick-up-able-ness. If it's
possible for an item to be used, you can pick it up, even if it actually does nothing.
(I thought in ATDD - Why do I know to pick up the hammer when I could have picked up the brick,
or the knife, or the tongs, etc etc.)

I approve of this, but again it needs to be worked with carefully to work out.

Also I'll add that there is no "Cannot use item this way!" If you try to use two things together that could work but don't, there'll be a message saying how you used it and the result etc.

I'm a massive fan of specificness. Go for it!

-No protagonist voices apart from during cutscenes (which are only actually there in endings or the intro) to improve immersion. I think it may be better if the player was left to their own thoughts and reactions, rather than their character telling the player how they are feeling.

This may, or may not cause some problems depending on your story due to the fact that your protagonist may know things the player does not.

[Mooserider]

Thanks for the excellent critique!

I don't really follow on this one. You say dying is significant, but your following words describe it as simply a more "specific" type of death. Could you elaborate on this?

By this I pretty much just mean that there aren't situations where you're dying every ten seconds, which I've seen in a few custom stories. It was to go hand-in hand with permadeath - since when you die you die for good, you only really die if you make a lot of bad decisions or fail during lots of scenarios, so that it's more a death that fits into the story and has a reason to happen than "and then the ghost came in and killed him".

I know what you mean with permadeath but I imagine doing this would balance it out, so that if you die, it's not disappointing or annoying, but rather a part of the/your story.

You need to work very VERY carefully with this. I might even go as far as to say I disapprove. Unless your level structure, and subtle nudges are done well enough, this will lead the player to getting stuck, and not get a "genius" feeling when they finally solve it. It'll mostly be frustrating, and end up in "FINALLY! THANK GOD!" when they solve it.

I've been unsure of whether I'll do this or not and yeah, it would have to be done really well for it to work. If I did this it would just mean, for example, that when you find the kid's room you aren't given a hint like "There's a kid's room - I guess a kid used to live here". You'd have to realise that yourself. Anyway, I guess I'll play it by ear and see how it goes.

Mostly same reasoning for me as my previous statement. Also, if he just bought the house, shouldn't he have some sort of manual that tells him about the keys anyways?

The idea behind this wasn't to make it a puzzle to figure out which key goes to what door; you'll have some good time at the start during which nothing is going on and you can explore the house & try each key. It was more to add a sense of realism and make the player remember which key goes to what door, lest during an encounter they panic trying to find the right key. They would be described like "A large, golden key with a thin decorative handle" - each one would be distinctive. Also, the story is set in the 1900s.

This may, or may not cause some problems depending on your story due to the fact that your protagonist may know things the player does not.

This shouldn't be a problem; there's an introduction telling you everything you'd need to know

Cheers, have a rep

[Kreekakon]

The idea behind this wasn't to make it a puzzle to figure out which key goes to what door; you'll have some good time at the start during which nothing is going on and you can explore the house & try each key. It was more to add a sense of realism and make the player remember which key goes to what door, lest during an encounter they panic trying to find the right key. They would be described like "A large, golden key with a thin decorative handle" - each one would be distinctive. Also, the story is set in the 1900s, like Amnesia (Sorry )

You pretty much hopped over my statement in my previous post. I mean, shouldn't he already know what keys go where when he buys the house? What house seller doesn't give their client keys with tags, or at the very least tells them where they go anyways? XD

Or is there some other way you were thinking to make this logical?

[Mooserider]

You pretty much hopped over my statement in my previous post. I mean, shouldn't he already know what keys go where when he buys the house? What house seller doesn't give their client keys with tags, or at the very least tells them where they go anyways? XD

Or is there some other way you were thinking to make this logical?

Okay, that's a good point. I'll give this a rethink.

[Robby]

I'm not sure about that either. I'm thinking I might implement a saving system like what's used in Tenebris Lake; removing the save and exit function and making an area(s) that you save at. When the player dies I could then overwrite those saves so that if they're loaded it's just a bare, black room.

But you'll need to use a function that activates a checkpoint, it spawns you in a black room (player controls disabled, sanity drain removed as well, since that creates that sound). Then that's it.

But as I said, the overwrite one is not really possible. Each time the autosave function is triggered, it places a new save. I think you can edit in the config file the "autosave slot" numbers. If you set that to 1, your dreams will come true.

[KingWolf]

I think you can edit in the config file the "autosave slot" numbers. If you set that to 1, your dreams will come true.

And in FC's, that may be possible.

[Robby]

I remember seeing an option like "MaxAutosaveSlots" or something like that somewhere. Switch that one from 10 (20) to 1, and it is all set.

[Mooserider]

Ah, thanks, I thought the game only saved something like three autosaves.