Hello,
Question is in the title, simple and straight forward. I’d love to hear your thoughts as I’ve been making a horror game for some time now and the last thing I’d want is for my future players to feel like they had a “tedious” or “frustrating” experience. Lately I’ve even seen the biggest of titles being labeled as this by their players, but what exactly does it mean (to you personally)?
When I lose immersion because I’m too busy working out your game mechanics (or simply because it’s a bad storyline to begin with), that’s tedious.
don’t value the story over the gameplay. Whilst a good story is nice to have, it’s completely useless when the game isn’t fun. I’d say play a bit of Eternal Insolence [MEMENTO MORI] - Roblox, as it has a lot of boring gameplay in my opinion, despite its popularity. Then look at Us Are Toys [CHAPTER 2] - Roblox. I believe Us Are Toys is 100x better than eternal insolence just because it was actually fun to play. When I played insolence, the most fun I had was insulting the game with my friends.
tl;dr: you need fun gameplay before a good story, but it’s not impossible to have both. another thing that both these games have that I like is multiple lives(no, not gamepass extra lives. you’re just given more lives for free, then the option to buy more)
Yeah I just played it and can see why you’d use it as an example of what not to do haha.
With this I’m assuming you mean more engagement or action to the game instead of endless walking with nothing going on?
Yes. Spending a few minutes collecting a key just to open a door is less fun than being stuck in a trash pit where you have to avoid a monster hidden in the trash.
for me, most horror games become tedious when you get to a level where its a maze, and you need to find a key in the maze while avoiding monsters. Most people usually have to restart multiple times, and it becomes even more worse when you have to reset the entire game when you die.
Oh that’s a good question. What I am immediately thinking of is Judy Chapter One . When my friend and I played it we got extremely lost. The map was so large and we were not instructed on what to do well enough. We were forced to search for a tutorial on YouTube to complete the chapter, completely ruining the immersion of the game. Gameplay was very repetitive too. Search for something, use it, run away. Search for something, use it, run away. Search for something, use it, run away. Over and over until the boss fight.
So to answer your question, a good way of making it not feel tedious or frustrating is mixing it up and making it clear as to what you need to do. Maybe have a trail of blood that is shown in the light to help direct players while keeping them immersed. Lastly, try to stay away from using a maze. As @RealOfficialTimothy said, they are very repetitive in games and not too interesting. This searching for something you need to progress within a space that you are meant to be lost in is bad. It tends to direct people off of your game. Whether that is finding a tutorial or flat out leaving. I sure do hope this helps, it turned out a lot longer than I anticipated.
So the thing that you found frustrating the most about their game is how there’s items scattered all around a huge map and on top of that very little instructions on what to do next thus becoming tedious/irritating eventually? Asking as chapter 1 of my game just so happens to take place in an amusement park as well with similar gameplay here and there but the difference with mine is that I’m trying to avoid it from becoming tedious and remain enjoyable.
I’ll make sure to keep this in mind haha, thanks.
Yeah, searching for items is fine as long as you don’t have too many things that would either be distracting or confusing to the player. Try and keep the zone that it could be within obvious and make clear what the player is supposed to look for. Roblox’s primary audience is younger children, I’m not super sure as to how many young children play horror games though. A lot of kids don’t have the greatest of patience, so be sure to keep these things in mind.
In my opinion most horror games on roblox become boring because:
A) You have to wait 10 years for slow NPCs to leave specific areas
B) Items are extremely scattered and you have walking speed set to 2
C) Lack of direction. What I mean by this is the fact that the game doesn’t help you enough to the point where you have to search a tutorial on what to do.
D) Lack of checkpoints. It’s a pain when you die and have to redo EVERYTHING.
E) I’m not sure how others feel but I absolutely hate an environment where I have to constantly go back and forth to do things. Example: Go upstairs to turn on powerbox, go downstairs and turn on lights, (powerbox shuts down) go back upstairs to turn on powerbox. This type of cycle just becomes a pain and makes me not want to play.
few things i can think of are …
-Being spooky too frequently. Becomes saturated and meaningless
-Stupid level/puzzle design where progression rests on some small inconsequential
task especially when its one that doesnt fit the scenario. Like finding a hidden button
when theres nothing hunting you. Or finding a hidden button but the thing hunting
you is waay to fast.
-Mazes … obviously theres creative ways to use them but its not easy imo and most
ofthe time, its a garbage experience. Firstly because you basically have no control ina
maze meaning youre just walking randomly hoping for a W which is boring. Second
because if you know the maze hax to beat every maze then youre basically just
following a very long path.
-Last one is obvious but when theres an unclear objective. Not knowing what to do is
the mose annoying feeling especially when the answer could have been relayed via
visual or audible cues.
Could you elaborate a bit more just on this part? Curious to know what being spooky too frequently means for ya.
So like when the things that you have to do within the objective are made SOOOO far apart from each other?
Having things faraway from each other isn’t inherently bad, it can just be annoying if you’re really damn slow.
My point was the constant going back and forth, back and forth is just not enjoyable.
Its hard to lay out a specific rule for measuring that but the best way i can describe it is that some devs try alittle to hard to give players a scare and resort to cheap trick like jump-scares or dark hallways / corners. Of course every game is different and some will result in more jump-scares naturally but id say that jump scares fit in a game like Alien Isolation because you really dont want to even see a xenomorph and the second you do its trouble. Jump-scares are established in the atmosphere ig. In contrast, you dont have to look far in roblox to find a horror game with a bunch of jump-scares that dont really have any consequences and are just there to catch you off guard.
TLDR (i guess) just be creative with how you scare players
If ever I have to do something OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER it completely breaks the flow of a game. If it’s difficult to the point where I have to google a solution or simply annoying to complete then it’ll instantly break immersion.
having to go from point A to point B then back to A all while avoiding creature C with nothing interesting occurring along the way then that’s usually not the most engaging thing
I’m being honest , every horror games looks rushed. A real game is a year of work for me , Not just 2 months.