As of now I have a few projects in development.
.Spyro 3 Level
. Alien Level
& Finally my Dracula Level.
EARLY BLOCKOUT
The game is set in the 1800's in Victorian England where a young reporter called Ashe is trying to uncover a dangerous mystery.
A forbidden castle ground has been sealed off by local villages for years with zero explanation.
Set in a day and age where information can be rare, you set out to uncover the truth...only to discover a darker land than she ever imagined.
The game is set in 3rd person, an worry for a lot of people straight away is that its hard to make scary 3rd person scary games due to the FoV, I completely disagree with games like The Evil within and Resident Evil 2/3 Remake.
Atmosphere, environment and player tasks create the horror alone with the chilling story to match, if anything I feel this design fits PERFECTLY for 3rd person due to the large scale environment and game-play mechanics.
In the game Ashe doesn't have many mechanics, the game features zero combat so with the enemies in this game you must hide, run or die.
The main mechanic of the game is scoops, similar to The Occupation, you make the story yourself so in a sense this game is open ended.
Scoops can be found in a manner of ways:
•Books/Notes/Scrolls
•Eavesdropping
•Photographs
•Relics
•Friendly NPC's
And more.
Throughout the game Ashe can at anytime look at her journal to read over notes and examine puzzles she discovered earlier in the game to help with further encounters.
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Certain areas, bosses and endings to the game can only be found through certain scoops, building a bigger dependence on discovering the story, or simply escaping the castle with your life and surviving the night.
In a way, the story structure takes inspiration too from games like Dead Rising!
The game after the first few tutorial intro levels features a HUB style area with a few friendly NPC's, you can talk to them and go over notes.
More importantly its the only time you can save at all during the game.
This game features a pseudo-perma death, let me explain.
The game has a perma death system sending you back to the very start of your last save point, but you can only ever save in the HUB area before you encounter on a quest or to explore a section of the castle, making encounters scarier.
Most horror games with enemies become a case of understanding enemy patterns and dying over and over, eventually it becomes less scary so the idea of losing all your progress adds to the fear.
With each failed attempt anxiety builds, if you die 10 times throughout the game, its game over fully. (Obviously all can change over time, this is early GDD notes).
Once inside the castle and in your HUB world, pick and choose which areas of the castle to undertake first, semi-open world with the choice pattern.
Your main quest is to find a way to escape the castle once you are trapped, your actual goal is to uncover the mystery.
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These are all early thoughts and everything can change, but I hope you enjoyed this read and my first thoughts of this project.
Any feedback don't hesitate to contact with ideas!
When I have more there will be updates for the game, until then stay safe everybody and take care in this horrible times!
Dracula Update - November 2020
This project as a side note originally started as a Blocktober project that I've taken forward with many other projects!
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