Secluded - Indie Thriller/Light Horror Game

[eliasfrost]

Secluded

Indie Thriller/Light Horror

Twitter: @Secluded_Game

Premise:
Codename: 'Secluded' is a indie thriller/light horror game developed by Elias Frost. The game is about Vanessa, an old friend to Zac White: a psychologically crippled murderer recently released after a long time in prison with psychological rehabilitation. One unfortunate evening Zac is kidnapped by Samuel and Kevin, a closely tied together duo with a dark secret. It is up to you (Vanessa) to uncover that secret and save your old friend. The game focuses heavily on blending puzzle and narration. As well as a bit of exploration.


Vision:
The game is viewed from an isometric perspective and the graphical style is pixelated with dark and washed out colors to provide the atmosphere envisioned by me. I have put a lot of my work to really squeeze my all into this project, especially the sound design and graphics, my vision is to create a relatively top-notch game both gameplay wise and presentation, to the best of my abilties of course, I am a one-man band after all. If something feels wrong, then it is wrong and I'm not afraid to revisit parts of my game to tweak it to keep the quality consistent throughout the game. This is in fact my very first 'real' game dev project and it is a great undertaking but I hope some encouragement and dedication will help me through this.

Screenshots:




Videos:
Since the game is in development, parts of the areas shown in the video is subject to change. That said, please enjoy! And excuse the quality!




Thanks for reading, if you like it, please feel free to tell someone you know about the project.

[Romulator]

I won't really test play this, but based on the trailer, I'll give you what I think:

Pros:
- Love the Isometric layout. I really enjoyed Final Fantasy Tactics and AoE gaming, which had a similar view. Looks better than a flat 2D environment in my opinion.
- The inside of 3B is pretty good as well. I like how the environment's clock is the main sound.
- The build up plot that you have is not too bad, however I think it is a bit cliche. Regardless, a lot of good stories have come out of it
- The animations are great so far.

Cons
- If you're gonna rely on text speech, make sure not to have large slabs of text on a timer. Either give the player to click or press something, or break it up a little bit.
- Some people may find the clicking to go somewhere a bit tedious. Interacting, maybe not, but for movement, MAYBE.

From a Devs perspective, just have a think about the cons, and look to find ways of tackling them, but you don't have to do much Take the pros and make sure to look over later things to find if you can make them better, or take options in the later levels and incorporate into the older.

[eliasfrost]

Thank you for your feedback, it's very helpful.

About the cons:

-No text in the game is set on timer, it's all click-to-proceed. Even the intro. It's hard to demonstrate in a video though.
-I'm afraid that is an engine constraint, there are ways to get keyboard movement to work, but it's extremely buggy and has collision problems to no end. That said, as much as I'd like to add it as an option, I rather remove it entirely than leaving a broken feature in the game.

Cheers

[Romulator]

Ahh okay Regardless, good luck! Would definitely play the finished product. I'm not a tester though so hopefully some others are willing to help :3

[eliasfrost]

Thank you.

I just want to point out for everyone that there's no experience needed to test the game, if you can game, then you can probably play-test the game.

[summit]

Wow, I read "Secluded" as "Seduced". My mind is still complicated with porn, lol.

On topic: I can maybe test it on the next days.

[eliasfrost]

I will collect names from testers after the next few days and invite final testers on friday.

[Ashtoreth]

I would be happy to test your game out! I consider myself a casual gamer, but I am very thorough when I play video games and I have a good eye for detail.

[eliasfrost]

Thank you for your interest

Tomorrow is wednesday and I want to tell everyone that on Thursday is the day I'm going to finalize the list, so if anyone wants to test the game, please leave a comment before 24:59 tomorrow.

[RawkBandMan]

I'm not sure what time it is for you, but it's 20:58 on Wednesday as I am typing this. I would like to beta test the game, and like Ashtoreth, I consider myself a casual gamer.