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Voting is now open: http://ouyaforum.com/showthread.php?1417-Vote

Ah, thanks! could have sworn I'd already tried that...

I'm guessing competition wise, this is already over, but still fun to have a go. Incidentally, there is nothing scary in any of those reference photos for someone who lives in rural England. Atmospheric? Yes. Scary? About as intimidating as a Sunday morning walk in the countryside:

The cows, the same ones, every day. They mock me, ignoring my presence amongst them, until I shout myself hoarse. Only then do they deign to casually glance in my direction. The docile beasts somehow avoid my approaches, ducking and weaving into the mist that descends each time I get close.

At the far edge of the field, the old brick factory. It reeks of ghosts, dusty and cavernous, stripped bare of man and machinery that once brought it to life. I long for the day when developers come from the city to turn the place into luxury flats and boutique shops. How they would stare at the sudden appearance of this ragged man, this waif, wandering their prime real estate.

Oh how I wish! Wish to be awakened from my perpetual nightmare. It has been months since the days blended together and nights turned to fiction. Since that Sunday morning I set off from the car park off the A514, walking through the cloud drenched woods, never to find my way back. Not a single soul did I see on the roads that morning. Alone then, as I am now, I crave the company of another.

Yet it is a force unnatural and monstrous that accompanies me. The factory's towering chimney looming above me, inescapable, forever visible in the background everywhere I go. It screams, howling despair, emitting a sound that rips my soul with dread, and fills my spine with a tingled chill of a threat. Nameless and invisible, it creeps ever closer with each chime of the tower. Soon it will be upon me, and then I shall know my torture here merely as a walk in the park for all the terrors that await

Of course, whatever haunts the character in the above passage had better be a damn sight scarier than a regular old mutant or alien or somesuch. Equally, the player isn't going to have any guns or knives to destroy what preys in the plane of existence between the conscious and subconscious mind, so that somewhat throws out the usual bullet physics and weapons mechanics

Homeworld is a good example of a game where you have the freedom to achieve your objectives in any multitude of ways, but still has a storyline that blows most narrative-style games out of the water (in its execution more than the actual story itself. It is well told).

Sometimes I'm in the mood for a ripping good story, other times I just want to play in the sand. There are plenty of great sandbox games out there, and I simply don't accept that the emphasis on narrative for non-sandbox games is sucking oxygen away from innovation in the field of game mechanics.

I hear what you're saying about games like Mass Effect, but you're essentially arguing for less depth and breadth of content, and for real fans of those universes, that is what allows them to get so completely involved and immersed in a game. Others just want to tick off their list in the same way they tick a book off their reading list. Well they can play Metro 2033 or portal and be done with it in under a weekend

The real problem is that writing for video games is still in its infancy. I'm a member of a couple of forums for aspiring novel writers and the standard is just so so much higher than anything I've seen in a video game to date.

Thanks all for the advice. Looks like I need to do some research into how easily we can support multiple languages and how much development time that will add to the project