BA4: Game Design Document #08

Jess Plays Amnesia & Alan Wake!

Since the start of this project I have been playing 2 games known for their links back to survival horror games. Two of the very few games which are known in the current gen gaming world as “genuinely scary”.  I wanted to play Fatal Frame II (not just watch a huge video play through) but the delivery of a copy would have taken too long –sad face-. So I went with these two games as I have never played them before so I could take notes on how and why they scared me so that we could use the notes to influence our game ideas.

Okay, so, Amnesia. Damn this game scares me D:  I took a lot of screen shots while playing of things I thought would benefit the group and help them, as well as me, understand the horror. Get ready for LOADS of pictures! Amnesia is classed on Steam as an action/adventure but to me it is modern survival horror, even their website classes it as a “first person survival horror game”. This in itself says a lot, Steam doesn’t seem to have a survival horror section D: 

Amnesia, 2010, Frictional Games, http://www.amnesiagame.com

Character

Amnesia is a first person survival horror game in which you assume the role of Daniel. Other characters include Alexander of Brennenburg, Agrippa, Willhelm, “the Shadow”, the Gatherers (servant & grunt) and the Kaernk (water lurker). Most of the time in the game you are alone, hence the lack of screenshots here. I was too scared to get shots of the monsters!  

Environments: Colour and Distortions

When you go insane (after being in the dark too long) the screen begins to distort your first person perspective to give the idea that you are going mad. Amnesia also uses a technique to indicate you are having a flash back in which the screen gains a heavy dark vignette around the edge and any colour/visible areas within the frame are left over saturated and contrasted. The game also uses colour very interestingly within the environments. 

  

Environments: Props

I was talking to my group today about how Amnesia is a beautiful game, there is no denying it, but the rooms are sometimes fairly generic/repetitive and can feel similar to previous rooms you have explored. However, there are areas you come across which contradict this and seem to have a lot more personality to them as well as a much more engaging environment/surrounding.  The group can use this to influence our concepts regarding the museum and its exhibitions, we can see how areas are displayed and if it affects the atmosphere of the area and why. 

Environment: Atmosphere

Amnesia has one of the best atmospheres in a game that I have ever seen. It is genuinely a terrifying world to be in. The black/dark areas on your screen do not just look like a black patch of colour, they genuinely feel like areas of the game you just can not see or dare go into. Darkness is portrayed incredibly well and the use of light is just fantastic; something we really need to nail as a group in our design document. Here are examples of clever atmosphere in the game that I have come across while playing. 

 

Gameplay

Based on the research our group has done, we have settled for a first person perspective (despite Fatal Frame II being a third person perspective) as we feel this will best reflect the type of gameplay we want. We want the player to feel fully immersed as the character and being put in a first person perspective does this best. The player will be able to interact with areas of the museum and explore further with the use of touch and movement. This will also play a key part in the puzzles as well as the camera functions that we will be discussing later as a group. In Amnesia you can even peek round corners to scan out your path in case of monsters lurking, I really like this mechanic, it’s not used in many games and can add tension when roaming dark corridors. In order to tell the player the story, Amnesia uses flashbacks and notes of diaries/journals which are mysteriously found throughout the game. This is how we want to tell our player the story of our game. 

 

Alan Wake is a third person shooter dubbed as an action adventure with psychological horror. I hadn’t played it before but I had heard rumour it was a scary current gen game with survival horror elements; a game I couldn’t pass up to use as research for our idea. I soon found that this was simply more action with a creepy atmosphere thrown in for good measure. There were a couple of jump scares which mad my heart beat fast but ultimately this just isn't the kind of game we wanted to create, it has proved useful though in terms of influences. 

Alan Wake, 2010, Remedy Entertainment, http://www.alanwake.com/

Gameplay

We soon discovered that the old survival horror game classics such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill were scary because of the static camera and temperamental controls (or plain lack of any control) which caused the scares and anxiety whilst playing, not the angle at which you viewed your character. Alan Wake is different (and the same goes for a lot of modern “horror” games using third person controls) because the use of the third person perspective brings you as a player out of any direct harm and this in return eases the scare factor in my opinion. This is very apparent in games such as Resident Evil 5, where despite trying to be scary, the action is more predominant from a third person perspective and therefore just isn’t scary. We don’t want this to happen in our game. Alan Wake has collectibles which is a nice feature.

 You get the use of a torch to blind enemies and a gun with what I feel would become limited ammo, but at the start it felt like I was force fed ammo as soon as I shot even just 1 bullet at an enemy. The enemies are presented in a creepy way but they are really too human related and therefore don’t stand well with the “psychological horror” side of the game. You are constantly finding pieces of your manuscript which is a nice tie in with our game and how you’d find letters from yourself. Light and fog play key parts on gameplay in Alan Wake and are used in very clever ways, something to consider in our game. 

Atmosphere

I must say that the atmosphere created in Alan Wake is very good. Although we aren't taking much from this game, the foggy and dimly lit areas are something to feel incredibly inspired by. In the night time sections I played, there wasn’t loads of colour but it was smartly used if there was any. Often the world had a green tinge to it. Ultimately the world felt very unwelcoming, something we want to create in our game. 

 

 I captured all of these images from the games whilst I was playing them

Gameplay Summary

•  First person perspective is best for inducing fear into the player.
•  Dark colours (or little next to no colour) works well.
•  Colour can be used of course, but it needs to fit in with the environment.
•  Severe use of strong ambient lighting can make or break an environment.
•  Guns ruin scary gameplay, it is far more scary to have no weapon at all.
•  Running is scarier than combat.
•  Human enemies are too familiar and do not create enough fear in the player.
•  Fog and darkness work very well together to create tension in areas of gameplay.
•  Interactivity is always a plus. Being able to interact with the environments gives a more realistic experience to the player.
•  The feeling of extreme loneliness or the unknown is terrifying.
•  Not knowing or understanding the story at the beginning of the game is okay!
•  Not insulting the player with objective clues, tips and hints works best to keep it scary.
•  Linear paths are boring and ultimately are not scary, nor is a linear story.