Premise for a horror game

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3 comments, last by Capripsy 5 years, 3 months ago

I want to pitch an idea for a horror game I was thinking about. It would take place 8n the small town on Hopes Peak. A small town in the shadow of a mountain. Eventually, tragedies start occurring, leading to more and more bodies. When there were more dead than living the town left our reality, and was suspened in it own limbo. The protagonist must escape, and evade the residents of the once cheery town. There will be 5 types of things you can come across. Survivors, who either try to 8gnore the madness around them or straight up fight and survive. There are the Mad Ones, people who went insane. There are terrifying monsters that hunt the liv8ng, and there are also various ghosts. The final catagory are the cultists, more on that later. But (currently) the plot is that the local old fashioned mayor finds his daughter pregnate from a poor boy. The mayor kills both, and the poor boys sister and the mayors son conspire to avenge their respective siblings. They try to kill him with poison, but they fail, getting the dosage wrong. After finding an old book on ghosts, the sister of the poor boy gets the mayors son to join her in summoning the souls of their sibl8ngs. They fail, accidentally putting a few wrong words. They summon a demon, that at first plays along, pretending to be the siblings... siblings. But it eventually starts to spread it aura of evil into the town, causing and increase of suicides. Eventhally, after having summoned the demon, the poor boy and mayors daughter get m8ndcontrolled by the demon,and they start a cult. The cult at first targets not normal people, like deafs, blinds, gays, etc. Eventually the string of dissapearences is enough for the town to try to march on the mayor, demanding he do something. He orders the pol8ce to protect him, and the loyal ones do. The demon escalates the emotions until they riot, resulting in over 100 dead. With now over 1,000 dead and bitter souls, the town is closer to the spirit world than reality. T eventually breaks off, causing it to forget that it ever existed. Its been in limbo for 26 years when the protag Emma Fields. She and her friends are dragged out to go mountaineering, but get accidentally transported to Hopes peak. Now desolate and mostly empty, the town once had 4, 000 people in it, now prehaps 500 who are sane. The survivors are paranoid of Emma and her friends, eventually getting hostile, think8ng them to be evil projections. They get tossed out, into the street. From there they must survive and go to various locations in town, to get Key Fragments. Once all the fragments are collected, they combine to open a door the room where the demon was originally summoned. They must dispel him from their, and the town will be returned to their reality. One thing featured in the game will be memoirs, which will detail the various notable entities you meet. 

 

Tell me what ya think.

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That could be an interesting book! ?

The plot seems ok to me, initially. Sounds a lot like Silent Hill, to be honest, so you should try to not copy too much from it. Maybe tone down the monsters part, making them insane, but still people.

In terms of gameplay, are you making a horror game with guns (like Silent Hill) or a more survival/stealth one (like Outlast)?

You also need to explain some things. For example:

  • why the mayor killed his daughter and the poor boy? Was he insane at the time or he is just trying to keep his honour? Maybe you could explore that.
  • the "kill the mayor with poison" seems a bit too specific. Is it really necessary? Was the only thing they tried before the summoning ritual?
  • how and why they knew about the ghost summoning ritual? Was it an old local legend? Has this happened before? What the ghosts could have done to the mayor that they tried to summon them?
  • why the demon wants the city to go to the spirit realm? (he probably just loves seeing people suffer, but still)
  • why the protagonist and his friends are transported to Hopes Peak? Are they linked somehow to the city (again, looks too much like Silent Hill)? Or was it really an acident?
  • as foreigners, how they know about this Key Fragments? Someone in town told them? Was this person (or the demon!) really trying to help or finish the transition to the spiritual world?
  • 500 people is a lot of people. It will be hard for your protagonist to hide from all of them, even harder if the town is small

The player doesn't need to know all this, but it will help you to keep the plot coherent. 

7 hours ago, Capripsy said:

The cult at first targets not normal people, like deafs, blinds, gays, etc

One advice: be careful with how "not normal" are classified. Calling gays "not normal" (or even deaf or blind people) can get you in trouble if you fail to make sure that this is the cultists view in-game, and that they're biased and bigoted (and insane).

I second everything that TerraSkilll mentioned, and I'd also like to add that there has to be a reason for Emma and her friends to not also fall under the demon's influence as easily as its summoners did because from what you've detailed so far, the demon seems pretty dang strong if it could affect the whole town with its powers.

"If I had the power of a god, I'd prevent others from obtaining that same power and throw mine away, even if I had to kill myself, because no matter how good the intentions may be, using omnipotence will have trade-offs for the good and bad but on an infinite scale beyond human imagination."

I think both of you are right, and I have came up with improved things for all of the stuff you brought up. Thanks!

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