I’m currently working on a backrooms style game. A large, generated maze with a somewhat large variety of rooms. I’m trying to make the game be more of “Psychological Horror”, so I’m trying to really make use of liminal feels.
The game doesn’t have too much in terms of a gameplay. Mostly walking around and looking for water bottles to stay alive. Now in case you didn’t know, just walking and clicking gets boring pretty quick. I almost fell asleep while playtesting. Because of this, I want to add features that keep the feeling of isolation, but still make the game interesting to play. (This means I don’t want to fill the game with generic monsters) I’ve thought of puzzles, but I’m not sure how to make puzzles that are hard enough to be entertaining, but not so hard that they drive players away.
I have a few special rooms but they serve little to no purpose, other than possibly a badge in the future for finding them. All of the people I’ve asked so far agree that the game is lacking something. As I mentioned earlier, I’m somewhat against the idea of monsters, seeing as it would remove the feeling of isolation. Also should mention that I’m not the best at scripting pathfinding.
I remember playing Portal and coming across one of Rattman’s secret rooms with drawings and feeling really creeped out, in the game, I was seemingly the only human in this vast facility and the thought that there might be another person watching me this whole time really spooked me.
If it were up to me, I would create a character that was stuck in the liminal space before the player arrives, and as the player progresses they find notes and clues left by this character, let’s call this character bob. Bob could leave marks on walls and drawings that help the player advance but also warns the player of a monster. Instead of creating an AI for the monster, you could just have it make noises and peek around corners, just make the player feel like there is a monster. Throughout the game, the player would learn more and more about Bob and would gain hope of finding him. Maybe at the end of the game, you learn bob’s fate by finding him, that’s up to you.
At the end of the day, it will be hard to keep players interested without actual monsters, psychological horrors only work if the player immerses themselves in them. I picture kids just trying to speedrun to the end of the game, without jumpscares they won’t find it fun. But the players who care for lore would enjoy it.
If you really want to stray away from getting chased by a png, I would maybe create puzzles as you mentioned. You could make the puzzles fairly simple, but I would create fear in tension in the player by creating an impending doom. Maybe you could make a long hallway, and a creature slowly crawls towards you as you match colors and see it out of the corner of your eye, or the walls start slowly moving in while you try and find the right order some shapes should be in. Just some ideas.
I really like the idea of lore. Unfortunately though, lore wouldn’t be enough on it’s own to make it interesting. Portal also has 3 advantages over my game:
Lore isn’t the only part, but instead a side focus. The game mainly focuses on it’s main feature, using lore as a garnish.
Portal has a second game series that also compliments it extremely well (Half Life), and just the knowledge of what’s going on outside is enough to make the game entertaining.
Portal is built on the Source engine. There’s something about source games that is just so unnerving. I’ve even tried to capture the effect in my game by making similar movement systems and GUI, but it isn’t the same.
I like the idea of a stalking monster, but like I said in the topic, the technical part is my issue. I’m just getting into scripting and struggled just with creating the generation script (Which I had to get help with).
I do like the idea of the suspense puzzles as well, but I know it likely won’t appeal to the type of players this game could attract. When a young kid joins a backrooms game, they expect scary monsters and tons of levels, not puzzles and story.
The whole problem comes down to the age of roblox players. The vast majority are young kids on mobile devices, while this game is being designed for older players on computers. I get the feeling the only way I could make the game appealing to the Roblox player base is by doing everything I’m against, but then I know I won’t enjoy working on the game anymore.
I feel like I also have the problem of not being scared by most horror games I’ve played. It’s difficult to try to make something scary when it’s all the same to you.
I basically have two options:
High player counts at the cost of quality and originality.
OR
Quality and originality at the cost of players, and with the risk of the game dying (if it even takes off in the first place).
I see where you’re coming from with this. Personally, I think having intricate and detailed environment design is a great way to instantly make it more entertaining. Without sacrificing the lost feeling being in a maze offers, you can treat it similarly to how Kane Pixels treats the Backrooms, where everything is interconnected yet different. You still can’t find your way around, but everything is still somewhat different looking. In terms of gameplay, I don’t really know. You could potentially incorporate different types of special rooms that require you to complete puzzles to leave.