Aghast: Lost in Shadows Project Idea

Community Showcases
1

Hello, My name is Justin Naylor. I have been working on a game I call “Aghast: Lost in Shadows”, a first person horror game. I am posting on the unity forums because I would like to see what you guys think about it, and to hear any suggestions or advice you may have. While I will not post the actual GDD for the game, there is a link at the bottom of this post for the overview of the game demo, which doesn’t really reveal much about the actual story, but describes the gameplay that will be used in the demo and the game. The reason for the demo is to show the potential this game has, and to also get the community interested. This game is still in the very early stages of development, and we are still recruiting, so there isn’t any gameplay to show at the current time. Without further delay, I will give a better description of the game.

Synopsis: Try to survive as you and your friends are hunted by a lone killer at an old abandoned mining town. Armed only with your flashlight and the will to live, you must navigate through the town and surrounding areas to escape before you and your friends fall victim to the killer.

Gameplay Survive in an old 1970’s mining town as you try to recover your friends that were separated from you. You have no real weapon. You have your flashlight, a will to live and save your friends, and a knife you found, but that is to dull to kill anything. You are alone…or are you? But you are not being hunted, you are being toyed with. You hear him as he speak to you, laughing at you. His presence seems overpowering, but you will not give in, you will resist, and you will run.
Characters

Main Character
The main character is in his last year of study as a medical student in hopes of becoming a surgeon.

Curt
One of the Main Characters friends who travels with the main character. Curt has a big ego, and thinks he can handle things that he sometimes just can’t. He is one of The main characters friends, but does not attend college.

Mark
Mark is one of the main characters friends who attends the same college as the main character. He is very bright and is going to school to become a lawyer.

Ashley
Ashley is one or the Main Characters friends that did not attend college. The main character first got to know Ashley because she was friends with Curt.

Enemies: For this game, other than various traps you may fall into, there will only be two enemies. The identity of the second will remain hidden now. I will give a brief description of the enemy that will be shown in the demo. This enemy is the main enemy of the game, and the only enemy in the demo. He is human, and looks similar to a scarecrow. Here is a picture of the antagonist made by the talented Larc: http://lizardfoundry.carbonmade.com/

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Here is a link to the demo overview if you would like to check it out: http://www.mediafire.com/download/m6df1hw0t5py925/Proof_of_Concept_Overveiw.odt

Contact Information: If you would like to contact me to give me advice or suggestions, or you just really want to see the Aghast GDD (I might make exceptions) You can post below, pm me, or contact me through skype: comicaljusty@hotmail.com

Thank you for your time. I am looking forward to seeing what you guys have to say.

2

Ideas are nothing, execution is everything.

3

Execution is huge, and obviously the most important part of a game, which is why most teams fail to release even a single decent game, but I believe the story behind the game is a very important aspect in development.

4

The concept art is really good, I like it. But I think you should come back when you have an actual demo. I mean it sounds interesting and all, but without a demo or in-game screenshots, there’s really not all that much we can say other than “sounds cool bro”. Most people on these forums are working on their own games and without some gameplay or in-game screenshots, there’s just not much to talk about. Most people can come up with an interesting concept, but until it’s an actual game it’s basically all just ideas (sorry don’t mean to be harsh or anything, just being honest here, friendly advice).

5

I understand completely. The reason why I posted this is not to showcase, but just to see what people thought about it, and to see if anybody had suggestions.

6

Added more information regarding the game.

7

A few thoughts on this post…

  1. If you want to gain a game developer’s interest in your game, talk about gameplay, not story. It’s fine to be excited about your story and share it, but you have to realize that story and environments and characters are the type of thing that only you can understand well enough to be excited by. I could describe my current project as “a game where you’re a hacker and try to download data in a TRON type of environment”, but instead I describe it as “a real time tactics game based on capturing units and buildings rather than destroying them”. The latter tells you far more about what the game experience is going to be like.

  2. I went out of my way to look at the document you posted that actually describes the gameplay. Sorry, dude, you’re making Slender, I don’t care that you say it’s not a clone. I do have to give kudos for not actually using Slenderman as the enemy and for making your own story (complete with some mighty fine concept art) - that shows a lot more creativity than the Unity forums usually get to see :slight_smile:

2 1/2. You appear to be unable to distinguish between an aesthetically unique mechanic and a truly unique mechanic. Case in point: the cell phone. You claim that it’s a “unique function”, and then go on to describe a pause menu, which is not unique in any way. Yeah, I get it, it’s part of the game world instead of UI, so it’s super immersive and stuff. (I’ll save my rant about the common fallacies of “immersion” for another day) But as a “unique function”, it falls woefully short.

  1. You should stop trying to not make a Slender clone. Remember: bad artists copy, but great artists steal. If you convince yourself that you’re not making a Slender clone, you’re not only going to waste all your time trying (and failing) to differentiate it, but you rob yourself of a fantastic source of inspiration. Instead, you should look at what Slender did right, and what Slender did wrong, and build on that design. Wear the “Slender ripoff” label with pride.
8

What story?

All I’ve seen so far is a rough premise and a few character descriptions. That’s not a story.

9

@DallonF Thanks, for the feedback, I appreciate it.

10

@superpig I understand that a few character descriptions is not a story. Did you take a look at the Demo overview though?

11

You mean the demo Overveiw?

I scanned through it, yeah. Skipped the gigantic wall of text titled ‘Enemy Behavior’ but read the rest.

There’s still nothing even approaching a story there: There’s next to no character motivation, no information about the relationships between the characters, barely any setting, and nothing suggesting that the characters have any thoughts or actions of their own. I don’t come away with any sensation of what your game world is like, or with any feeling of caring about the characters.

Also, the phrase ‘the player is prompted to X’ should never appear in a section titled ‘story’ - it’s the equivalent of writing a film script and at certain places saying “at this point the film should be paused, and I’ll stand up in front of the audience and explain what’s happening and what the characters have to do next.”

12

I appreciate the feedback. The reason why any description on story is brief for this is because this is a demo, or proof of concept, meant to show gameplay.

13

But there’s almost none of that either.

Anyway, if you want to keep the story brief because you’re only designing a demo, the way to do that is to only tell a small part of the story - not to tell a larger part of it badly. A demo doesn’t need to illustrate length (otherwise it’d be the full game) but it does need to demonstrate quality.

14

I understand. I didn’t focus much on the actual story of the demo, because I am trying to demonstrate quality like you said.