We are currently working on a escape room type horror game where the player needs to escape the monsters layer. We don’t really want to use a normal tutorial but teach the player everything they need to know with in game events and game design. But we are struggling with teaching some of the mechanics.
The enemy is blind so he reacts to sound. But we are wondering how we can teach the player that without a classic tutorial.
Showing the player something happening is a good way to teach things, as long as your really sure the player will notice the thing you’re showing them. For example, maybe when you open a door, it necessarily knocks a object onto the ground, making a loud bang. In the distance, you then hear a monster scream in anger. Soon after that, the players could be forced to make another loud noise (turning on a loud generator, kicking through a window). Another loud noise, another monster scream. Do this a certain number of times until the players start to realize making loud noises is a problem. Maybe even some writing on the wall, like some person figured this out earlier, and left a clue to help the next people.
Just be ready for some percentage of people not to pick up on the clues. If players keep dying because they didn’t figure out the clues, eventually give them a message like, “Shhh! The monster doesn’t like loud noises!”
Just some ideas.
something to bar monster from outright killing player, but triggering same reaction that normally would.
for instance, it’s dead quiet. player in narrow hallway, only thing can do is move forward. step on paper and it makes loud rustly noise. monster growls and comes for you, only a lock gate prevents it from getting you.
do it once or a couple times to make sure players know the rule before you start killing them for it.
you can probably do a lot with your artistic composition and sound design too. if we enter into a large room and monster is patrolling other side - we can see it’s silhouette stalking – and it is dead quiet, player is naturally probably going to move slow and careful. Some subtle stressful droning tones help build tension. I think by now people are trained to expect crouch/slow move = quiet.
A lot of games like to show you an enemy behavior while you are safely out of danger before putting them in real danger.
Perhaps you could put an enemy behind something that they can not attack you through, then force the player to walk through something that will always make noise and trigger it, letting players experiment with it.
You enter the haunted house. The door creaks closed behind you and bolts itself shut. The monster screams in the distance. Scene established.
You start to move around the foyer, stepping on dried leaves that blew in. The crunching is loud. The monster screams in the distance. Emphasis added.
Many games show it with a cutscene which shows the player watching an npc. The npc makes some noise and the monster goes after him.
An easier way is to place some notes or scary blood written messages in your environment with hints like “be quiet”.
Resident Evil did this really cool thing where the characters said things out loud, as if they were realizing stuff themselves. They use this system to provide info to the player. Something like “Oh, gosh, looks like he can’t see me. Maybe I should move quietly.”
I suck at writing but you get the point.
Half Life Alyx was very clever with their level called “Jeff”. Its about a monster thats blind but have good hearing. At the start of the level you are out of reach and a NPC throws a bottle that lands near Jeff and he reacts to it.
This would likely be effective. I still remember “SHOOT OFF THEIR LIMBS” smeared in blood in Dead Space despite not having played it for years.
You can always make a scene, where the player is forced to hide from the monster but able to see it, then have like a rock, a bottle or something else fall down and the monster react to it and it can keep happening a few times to reinforce that the monster reacts to the sounds happening around it, then force the player to have to use sounds to get past the monster should work as a lesson, it is the old monkey see, monkey do scenario