Sorry this is kind of a giant wall of text, but I had a lot of notes about this game
First of all, I think it was a decently made horror game for a beginning game, the scripting was sturdy and there weren’t many instances that the game broke. The build was nice and didn’t have a feeling of a blank, empty room that a lot of horror games have. It was nicely detailed.
However, I did notice a lot of things about the game. As someone who has played a LOT of horror games, this one is fairly generic and very much has the same “roblox horror game” feel. The “find X to unlock Y” and constant mazes are overused in almost every other roblox horror game out there. There isn’t much of a unique style to it, especially since its almost entirely free models, and there isn’t actually any gameplay aside from finding things.
The story was very confusing and not exactly intriguing or immersive, and honestly the only time the story was really explained was at the end where it gave you a splash in the face of all the lore all at once, instead of drawn out throughout the game and implemented into the game itself instead of just a note. A lot of horror games will just give you notes around the map to read, which isn’t a good way to share the story. You should look more into environmental storytelling.
The blood was kind of cheesy and I never really felt that “horror” feeling, and a lot of the jumpscares felt too forced and unnatural(random noise and a picture shaking on the screen) and weren’t very scary. The player was only in danger in one part of the game(that I know of), and a huge part of the “horror” feeling is not knowing if you’re going to survive or not, there has to be a level of uncertainty and on-edgeness, like you’re walking on eggshells, not sure if you’re about to run into something or not.
This is the end of my main comments about the game, the rest will be some tips for future games
(I’m gonna ramble for a bit here so don’t mind me)
There’s a lot of ways to make a really good horror game! I can add a few notes, but research will really get you a long ways. I believe there are three main aspects to a great horror game: Storytelling, the visual style, and the gameplay.
Like I mentioned before, environmental storytelling is a huge aspect of a great horror game. Just giving the player notes to read isn’t going to interest them. If you want a player fascinated with your story, you have to keep them on the edge of their seats, leave spots on a cliffhanger, make them want to know more. But the most important part of creating a great story isn’t just the creation of the story itself, you can’t just be in it for the mere creation of a game. YOU should be interested in the story. If you aren’t passionate about your work, your players aren’t going to be, either.
As for the visual style, it should be unique! I think a lot of horror games lately have really based themselves off of the typical “The Mimic” style, and they’re afraid to stray from that style and be creative. This means creating your own models and cool Gui, AND can also mean creating a unique- or at least uncommon- way that your game physically LOOKS. Not just texture-wise, but also other aspects, like mimicking the way early playstation game camera angles were, or making your game have a pixelated effect. It doesn’t have to look like a roblox game! I like to look at some posts on the forum for inspiration for stuff like this.
The last bit is pretty self explanatory- the gameplay. Gameplay can be literally anything. A lot of popular games have not just their main gameplay, but also have a lot of side aspects as well, like minigames, which can really pull a game together and make it feel a lot less repetitive. You can look into some of these other games to get inspiration. If a game is going to get popular, its because its gameplay is unique, like phasmophobia or I’m on observation duty. Even mashing together gameplay from other games is a great way to come up with a fun and unique horror game.
Not every game has to be fully unique though, there can also still be some really good games created if they have just one of these three things done really well. If the game is really fun and has great gameplay, it doesn’t matter how bad the build is. All it really comes down to is having fun with creating a game and branching out to try things other people haven’t done.
