The game I am currently making deals with ideas that have no definite meaning. It’s kind of a horror game, but more of an experience. The focus of the game is to have the player feel and think, rather than do. There are multiple ways you could describe the game, and its all up to how you perceive the messages it presents.
Does this sound like a good idea?
Here are some screenshots of the first level:
Screenie1
Screenie2
Depends on the execution…
Couldn’t you say that for just about any game?
That’s kinda the point of statements like that.
Yep.
Sorry for being a little slow today, but what?
Is there something I’m not catching?
What he means is if it’s pulled off right, then it could work. Could you elaborate on your game a little more? Like what it’s about specifically?
Could work, but for me, if I don’t have a reason to go into the scary-ass prison, I won’t.
It might be a hard sell. I think having a unkillable monster that chases you, and you having to find keys/items to open doors might be a good start. Trick is: the game doesn’t tell you more than once which key/item to get. You just pickup pretty shiny things off the ground, because they’re shiny. You have to figure out if they’re of some worth or not to your “quest.”
I’ll tell it as its seen by the player:
There are these zombie like people (slow moving, kinda dumb, but not REALLY zombies) with eyes stitched shut. Everyone is trying to find the way to “The Light”, and these people claim to know the way. The thing is, instead of actually looking for this light, they spend their time spreading their tales and killing those who won’t join them. The game revolves around the player’s journey to find what “The Light” actually is. The player must avoid falling captive to the zombie like people and find the way to the light.
The game also has a fair number of dream like sequences.
Almost everything in this game has a deeper meaning.
The story is still hard to explain and is still being worked on. (Can you tell I’m not a writer?)
Hm. That’s good food for thought. Thanks for the input.
That sounds like it has a story to me. Does it have a beginning and end or is it one of those infinite gameplay games?
I guess what I meant is that is has no definite meaning. And it will have a beginning and end, but maybe I could make it somewhat random so everyone’s “journey” is a little different though.
There are tons of good games with no real story: pretty much the entire genres of puzzle, sports, racing, casual-sim, etc. And there are tons of genres that are usually very story-lite: FPS, arcade shooters, fighters, etc. The only genres that really tend to focus on story are RPG’s and action/adventure, which would generally include horror. But even within those genres, there are games that focus much more on gameplay than story.
With regards to the horror genre specifically, I think a lack of story might hurt, but it wouldn’t necessarily be a dealbreaker. To me, horror works best when there is rising tension, mystery, and empathy with the characters, things that might not be possible with no plot. If the game is just scary looking things jumping out at you every time you turn a corner for no reason, without any goal or plot to motivate exploration, then it might get boring fast.
You replied while I was typing the above post… after seeing your summary, I’d agree with rab236; your game does have a story. When you say it has no “meaning”, it sounds like maybe you mean there’s not a real overarching moral to the story or that there’s not a solid conclusion where everything is nicely wrapped up, and that’s fine. In fact, stories like that are often the most interesting. Besides, even if you as the author say there’s not a deeper meaning, people who watch/play it are still going to find their own meaning in it. That’s how art works. 
The game will definitely NOT have random crap popping out for no reason. I’m focusing on fear being brought mostly by the unknown. I’ve been studying games and indirectly getting input from my friends to find out what scares people. Not the kind of scare that makes you jump, but the kind that lingers and slowly eats away at you.
Thank goodness. Jump scares are ok, but they just give you a jump and make me cry for an hour But games that mentally destroy you make it so much more fun and make me shut off my computer, never to touch it again.
If you have multiple party members why not implement something like in The Thing video game, based off the movie. Each NPC has a trust meter to the player(and possibly each other, but the coding horror, ugh, lol) that will determine whether they will follow you or not.
hahahaha!!!
Actually I was thinking of having 9 pages you have to find throughout the game. (guise its not a slendr ripoff slendr had 8 pages…)
JUST KIDDING.
I don’t know if I’ll have multiple party members, as I suck at making characters, but mostly animating them.
Well, at least making them move like a normal human being lol
Luckily, if you mess up the animation badly enough, it will look horrific and you can say you did it on purpose. I had a failed mecanim import that caused my character’s head to move into his chest and fused his hands to his feet, and I had to look at pictures of kittens for an hour before I could sleep that night.