Ideas and feedback

Feedback & Ideas

After brainstorming ideas , we had a sheet of notes to take to our feedback session. The concept itself is solid, but there were a number of plot holes in our understanding of how to construct a solid/believable  narrative.

In a nutshell we want to design a point and click third person perspective horror crime game.

You play as a detective called Jason Ross going through a difficult divorce, with a daughter, Lilly stuck in the middle. One night, Susan, his ex wife and Lilly go out for the evening and don't return that night. The next morning Jason gets a call from his partner, Shaun requesting him to attend an investigation. When arriving at the scene, he finds that the mystery, him and Shaun must solve is more complicated than first anticipated.

Here is a tidier version of the page scanned below:

• Cult based murder/narrative (investigation horror genre)
• Horror elements (Amnesia, Silent Hill, Alan Wake)
• Flash backs activated when interacting with objects/clues found in the game (e.g. picks up a photograph, activates a flashback. Flashback visuals disoriented and grainy
• Visuals: Dark, creepy (makes it harder to find things, intimidating atmosphere, environment changes day and night; during the day everything is normal but at night new objects/clues appear and out of the ordinary events occur. Crackdown 2, zombie freaks come out at night and hide in the day. Minecraft: All the monsters: creepers, zombies and spiders come out at night.
• Settings: Family mansion, modern home (suburbia), dungeon, castle, generic working class house (makes it realistic and relatable) to the audience.
• Investigation: Missing people, supernatural murder
• Crime is a setup for the detectives
• Character memory loss
• Player can choose gender/back story of their character (all back stories are pre made; like Mass Effect)
• Game's initial story perhaps isn't about solving the actual crime. Could be detective trying to find himself and start a fresh life. Makes player feel empathy for the character and have a personal/relatable connection (LA Noire; personal flashbacks).
• Back story is the same for either gender player chooses
• Family character
• Child kidnapped by cult family
• Personal vendetta
• Personal kidnapping linked to the case
• Dark, gritty, deep story - makes it scary
• Daemonic cult/supernatural
• Human Sacrifice (The Wicker man movie 2006)
•  Third/first person point and click (Amnesia game play)
• Detectives partner could be possessed by the cult, undercover cultist. Possible kidnapper
• South episode: City Sushi; character has multiple personalities. Partner could have multiple personalities and be behind the whole crime. The Walking Dead: Main characters best friend betrays him by sleeping with his wife.
• Detectives wife has a secret back story, she hides everything from him and their family lives in a false reality.
• Sin City: Has a series of short stories in a random order that interlink and come together at the end. Keeps the audience guessing. The art style is mostly black and white, only revealing the bright colours: greens, red, yellows.

As a sum up we were told to investigate in depth to cults, work on character profiles and work on a solid narrative, covering every aspect possible regarding characters back stories, plot twists, continuity and make it convincing in a realistic sense. Research into other supernatural crime films, games and TV shows. It is important to gain an understanding of how other games, TV shows and films were able to express the horror/crime genre so well and become successful. E.g. The X files, CSI, Alan Wake (examples of a film, TV show and game).