I've been thinking for a few days about making a game. It's far from possible for me because i neither have the money nor the equipment or experience to do it. So maybe some one out there could do it. Let me know if you like it or not. Here's the idea:

This may sound a little like Resident Evil but oh well. You're a Cop. You specialize in tactics and survival. You are the best kind there is. You are trained for all sorts of combat. But, you're an insomniac. You can't sleep at night but when you do you have terrible nightmares. One day you are called to go investigate a mysterious mansion that is connected to a country club(there's one next to my house that look creepy as fuck from the backside) out in the woods. Another cop was asked to go investigate but hasn't been heard from. You enter the mansion with a pistol, a hunting knife and a flash light. As soon you enter everything seems to slow down and starts spinning. You pass out. You wake up. All the doors and windows are barred. Everything is dark. You turn your flashlight on and blood is everywhere. So far that's just the intro. But for the ending i was thinking that it was all a nightmare from when he passed out or something like that i dunno yet. Monsters will be zombies of course.

I was thinking about not just making it into some resident evil, point and shoot, puzzle game where around every corner there's ammo and health. I don't want it to be about finding out about the cop that disappeared. I want it to be about GETTING THE FUCK OUTTA THERE. Because, finding out what happened to the cop should be the LAST thing on any one's mind in a situation like that. I was thinking that the majority of fighting would be with your knife because there will be HARDLY any ammo. Because I mean seriously, who the fuck keeps enough artillery laying around to support a small army. I'm trying to go for Realism here. There may be a shotgun with a few shells lying around but that's it. And for health i was thinking about healing over time but with things like ripping up sheets to tie around your arm or whatever to help increase healing time or something else badasses would do. And for the flash light you have to find batteries for it. Like looking through electronics laying around for batteries.

The combat would be more along the lines of something from oblivion. I wont go into detail but there will be fatigue and what not, strong attacks, fast attacks etc. It will all be first person. You won't really get to see your face unless you're in a bathroom. Which brings me to the save points. Yeah the bathrooms. Why you ask? Because that would probably be the first place I would go after I pissed my pants.

That's really all I got. Like I said, I know it sounds a lot like Resident Evil but I thought I would give it a try because it would be a hell of a lot better if it was really realistic. Also I know it's very vague. Critics are welcome to tear this idea to shreds, because I'm sure I will never be able to create it.

Sounds interesting, but I think you'll have to work on the ending "It was all a nightmare" is too much of an anticlimax, you need something that will keep you on the edge of your seat, from the start to the end. That's my impression of what you need.

For me, story is the most important factor in a game, and this game would have to be short. You could always add a claustrophobic demeanour to "the mansion," such as all the doors in a room being locked, and you need to escape through an air vent with giant venomous spiders surrounding you, or the room closing in to crush you, and you need to find a way to stop it.

Those are my ideas. Happy thinking!

Conversly (SP?) to what Lord Kruk said, the whole "It was a nightmare" would work under certain cicumstances, like it was a repressed memory, which is why he had nightmares for so long (His mind trying to unlock this memory, so he had nightmares leading to this one, the true memory). It could even be a sign that somethng would happen, leading to a sequel. Or, perhaps neither, or even both. You game idea, your choice. Anyway, I like where you were heading with this. Keep working on it!

Personally, I'd tweak the ending, it sounds a bit cliché, the idea though is pretty damn sweet. What kind of enemies would there be? The only enemy could actually be himself, where he imagines everythings happening to him and is so convinced by it that he gets hurt by it, but its actually him doing it, one of Lord Krunks idea's would work for this, the one where the room closes in on him, except he's imagining it, went on a bit there, but those are my thoughts.

Sounds a bit like condemned, ie, attention to atmosphere, lack of ammo, use of a melee weapon, "get the fuck outta there" but I quite like the idea. I do agree with the above that the ending needs work. Otherwise the gamer will be like "i fought my ass off for a dream?". Other than that, sounds good.

Thanks for the help. If anyone else has any suggestions for the ending, combat, atmosphere, or enemies please don't hesitate to tell me. I really would like to make this a game. I plan on writing everything out sooner or later with all the details and I will probably just hold onto it.

the save point in the bathrooom is kind of interesting. he looks in mirror sees self then mirror does something freaky and goes to save options. just my little tiny idea

I was gonna suggest that the "dreams" he has happen on and off so he only fights monsters when in the dreams... but that is basically just a carbon copy of condemned right there. As far as endings go, it seems to be the new thing to try and shock people with an unexpected ending, which is ironic because now its more shocking to see a "cliched" ending in a video game.

the fifth:
the save point in the bathrooom is kind of interesting. he looks in mirror sees self then mirror does something freaky and goes to save options. just my little tiny idea

I like that. It's very different and really cool.

Using the bathroom as a save point is a good idea. But you should also make it a more integral part of gameplay other than just a designated save point. For instance, you mentioned that you were going to use fatigue as a part of combat. Now, you also mentioned that the main character is an insomniac, so he's probably going to get tired quickly. You should make the bathroom as much a save point as a place to sit down and take a breather. Calm down, heal your wounds, and such. You could also add a medicine cabinet in some of the bathrooms with items to help your character heal, like aspirin or gauze. You could also make the character fight for his right to save, like say, having his reflection try to kill him by coming out of the mirror when he tries to save, or the door locks and the toilet explodes and dingy sewage starts to fill the bathroom and you have to use your(insert token melee weapon here) to bash the door open, lest you drown in your own shit.

Also, because you're in a mansion, there won't be a whole lot of bathrooms to save in. So the rooms should move around. Where there was once a dining room, there is now a brick wall, or a door leading to a cellar.

You also mentioned something about ideas for enemies. I think the house itself should be an enemy, in the same way Silent Hill was for its series. You could also make the cop's mind an enemy, like give him insomnia-induced hallucinations in order to provide some "mind-fuck" moments a la Eternal Darkness.

You seem to have enough experience with games to build the dynamics of good game play. So here is my advice on story line.

Always.... repeat always explain why some thing is the way its.

For example you say that your protagonist (assumed) is an insomniac.... why?
He is also a special weapons, tactics, survivalist, etc... whatever .... why?
Think carefuly about the circumstances that cause the character to be called to the mansion in the first place; personaly i think random fate is a cop-out.

Never leave these dominant character traits unanswered. Your audience will think that these are major themes and be disapointed when they are not explained. Even if the explanation is a mystery itself.

Also the great thing about tieing off loose ends is that you can create anything from interesting side story's too massive plot twists, with out bringing in complicated new elements.

Hope you find the balance man... Good luck :)

Lord Krunk:
Sounds interesting, but I think you'll have to work on the ending "It was all a nightmare" is too much of an anticlimax, you need something that will keep you on the edge of your seat, from the start to the end. That's my impression of what you need.

yeah the "it was a nightmare" type ending is an ending that deserves a kick in the groin with a pair of steel toed boots for the developer or film maker, i've only seen it pulled off in a good way once in the past little while and that was by the show regenesis, they had a whole show that seemed like a dream sequence at the end but that itself turned out to be a dream and the show really did happen

it also sounds like a david cronenberg film eXistenZ, which i felt like kicking him in the groin for the ending. although it did have a good wtf moment, still deserved a groin kick

I like the bathroom for safe/save point but please DON'T pull an Assasin's Creed with this one.

And give us the ability to store ammo somewhere other then the actual gun. You are playing with a special weapon person, you should atleast have enough common sense to stuff a full pistol clip in your belt when you find a hunting rifle. I realy hated having my game constantly being interupted by theorycrafting sections in Condemned about which gun would be more effective to bring along.

IMO the story needs a little more depth then "you are dreaming that you investigate a house and kill a metric crapton of zombies to escape, then you wake up." Perhaps some urban legend style story about why the house is so scary.
"Listen, they say that the landlord who lived there cheated on his wife so she bolted the door to their bedroom shut and let him and his mistress starve to death there"
"No way, my grandmother told me that some of the maids were witches and when they were discovered and burnt they put a curse on the place with their last breath"
"Where do you hear all this nonsense? The germans used it torture chamber in WWII that's why it's haunted."
"There were never any germans here. A satanic cult however, was."

Leave it ambigous at the start but uncover it as the game progresses. Extra points for making some of the theories a refferences to the plot of other horror games.

Firearms and ammo should be found in sufficient ammounts to keep you stocked for most of the time if you manage your ammo well. Not the RE style where boxes full of 120mm grenades are more plentiful then enemies but also no "10 bullets in each level, period" a la Condemned.

This entire point could be circumvented by having you operate as a regular SWAT unit during day with some tactical elements and mostly gun based combat. At night(or day, depending on your working hours) you re-live the previous or future shooting sessions in a twisted, nightmarish way and you always end up at the manor for some reason. You are trying to figure out why it appears in your dreams all the time and eventualy the "light" and "dark" realms start bleeding over into eachother until it's impossible to distinguish between them. Subtlety is key here not the
*bzzzzt, your screen is now monochrome and covered by static, kill the ghost enemies to continue*
fight fight fight
*bzzzzt all normal again*
condemned did.

For example you start recognizing some zombies in the house as your squad members or criminals you killed, you encounter scenes from the manor when chasing terrorists through a building etc. Whatever you do don't make a clearly distict "You are now in mindfuck mode, don't waste ammo on things storming at you untill they do damage" warning signs.

There should be a link between some of the "reality" baddies and the nightmare story but no Da Vinci Code size cospiracy including everybody other then you.

Asehujiko:
I like the bathroom for safe/save point but please DON'T pull an Assasin's Creed with this one.

that was another ending that deserved a swift kick to the groin as well. i won't say more if ppl haven't played it but it was deserving of a kick to the groin

tho since both jade and david are canadian maybe it should be a boot to the head

Lord Krunk:
Sounds interesting, but I think you'll have to work on the ending "It was all a nightmare" is too much of an anticlimax, you need something that will keep you on the edge of your seat, from the start to the end. That's my impression of what you need.

I agree the whole idea of a nightmare at the end of the game has been used to many times before in most lines of media and once you've seen it once you've seen it all.

hollow-soull:

Lord Krunk:
Sounds interesting, but I think you'll have to work on the ending "It was all a nightmare" is too much of an anticlimax, you need something that will keep you on the edge of your seat, from the start to the end. That's my impression of what you need.

I agree the whole idea of a nightmare at the end of the game has been used to many times before in most lines of media and once you've seen it once you've seen it all.

See Monkey Island 2.

"It was all a bad dream" is the biggest cop out in story writing.

Maybe it appears it was a dream, but you show evidence in the ending that not all that you experienced was a fantasy. Or maybe scrap that ending.

How about: You exit the mansion, but you find the whole rest of the world ravaged and void of life.

You are a DMV branch manager who can only speak in literary references. While waiting on line to get a copy of her limo drivers permit she casts a curse on the entire office and its staff. The building becomes a philosophical representation of the world(in her eyes) today. You are only unaffected because you have an IQ over 92. You must battle your way past thousands of bad pop culture references with your witty literary ones. Since this is a philosophical representation of reality the references of you and your enemies come to life(think JRR Tolkien versus the Griffins) and do battle with what ever weapons they have at their medium's disposal.

I think I came up with an idea rather than it just being a nightmare. i want it to lead you to think that it was all a nightmare at the end, but instead the main character is actually dead. He died as soon as he got in and everything started spinning. I would think that he could have died from like a monster killing him...thus the blood everywhere. I want the whole thing to be like him in Purgatory. And if he dies, he goes to hell, if he escapes he goes to heaven. I was also thinking about the courtyard. Yes you can go out there but all there is a infinite nothing-ness. You cant go any where without going in circles. But then again that would take the point outta being trapped and trying to get out so I dunno about the courtyard thing. Also I was thinking about have like a storage crate that you would have to find and transport to the bathroom or something along the lines of that. It still needs a lot of work. I would really like to send this idea to a gaming company. If anyone has an idea of who i should send it to let me know. I was thinking Rockstar...but I'm sure they are probably too busy with GTA4 either that or they would totally change it. I want the game to be exactly as i say with little corrections ya know?

Thanks

mechsword42:
Using the bathroom as a save point is a good idea. But you should also make it a more integral part of gameplay other than just a designated save point. For instance, you mentioned that you were going to use fatigue as a part of combat. Now, you also mentioned that the main character is an insomniac, so he's probably going to get tired quickly. You should make the bathroom as much a save point as a place to sit down and take a breather. Calm down, heal your wounds, and such. You could also add a medicine cabinet in some of the bathrooms with items to help your character heal, like aspirin or gauze. You could also make the character fight for his right to save, like say, having his reflection try to kill him by coming out of the mirror when he tries to save, or the door locks and the toilet explodes and dingy sewage starts to fill the bathroom and you have to use your(insert token melee weapon here) to bash the door open, lest you drown in your own shit.

Also, because you're in a mansion, there won't be a whole lot of bathrooms to save in. So the rooms should move around. Where there was once a dining room, there is now a brick wall, or a door leading to a cellar.

You also mentioned something about ideas for enemies. I think the house itself should be an enemy, in the same way Silent Hill was for its series. You could also make the cop's mind an enemy, like give him insomnia-induced hallucinations in order to provide some "mind-fuck" moments a la Eternal Darkness.

I really like the idea of everytime you come out of a room everything changes up

well about the purgatory and that stuff, sounds really interesting, and the infinite courtyard could be a good plot twist, the protagonist works a lot to find the exit, but then after of run in circles he has no other option than go back to the mansion, and then investigate the misteries about it and after of a couple of twists, like realizing that his courage will be the only thing that set him free, realize that he is dead.

sorry if i didnt expresed very well the english isnt my native languaje.

broadband:
well about the purgatory and that stuff, sounds really interesting, and the infinite courtyard could be a good plot twist, the protagonist works a lot to find the exit, but then after of run in circles he has no other option than go back to the mansion, and then investigate the misteries about it and after of a couple of twists, like realizing that his courage will be the only thing that set him free, realize that he is dead.

sorry if i didnt expresed very well the english isnt my native languaje.

I was thinking about that but i thought that i might just be pointless i dont know yet.

well i dont know, i havent played a lot of survival horrors and stuff like that, i havent seen a game where the protagonist is dead besides grim fandango and you know, somehow the Shinning and 1408 came to my mind after of reading some stuff.

and you know, it would be nice if in the mansion there would some character to interact with, the lost cop, the original owner, de gardener, the house keeper that kind of stuff, the spirits that still trapped there or something like that.

broadband:
well i dont know, i havent played a lot of survival horrors and stuff like that, i havent seen a game where the protagonist is dead besides grim fandango and you know, somehow the Shinning and 1408 came to my mind after of reading some stuff.

and you know, tit would be nice if in the mansion there would some character to interact with, the lost cop, the original owner, that kind of stuff, the spirits that stiff trapped there.

I was thinkin that too, but i think it would be creepier if there was just some writing on the walls and stuff. Or after killin a monster it could get up and give some information then die agian.

Throw in a plot twist for good measure. And make sure that if it's going to be an FPS, make it so there's a camera mounted into the face of a human, not like all FPSs where it's a Camera mounted on a tripod with a gun mounted on the bottom right. I want to see motion and you look down when you reload, not hold it in front of your face.

thats what i was going for actually. i want it to be as realistic as possible. i want it to be like it was you ya know? im not worried about graphics as much as i am realism

Eh remove the whole "im a kick ass everything expert who can kill shit with my pinky" angle and id be in. I much prefer the average guy just stuck in a bad situation storyline.

it does seem a bit cliche....

Make a surprising end thingy (Play "The White Chamber." It gives LOTS of horror inspiration), an Idea could be that some creature is mentally distorting the world inside, and it's up to you to destroy him before he decides to "distort" you. At the end, you can see the door, light shining outside, as you run towards the light, suddenly a silhouette appears. The world seems to go hallucinogenic and wavy, and some part of the environment you need to use to escape before you're turned into 3 different varieties of bean.

Okay, I got a bit weird there. But it's an idea!

Yeah I agree with the comment about not making him an expert with weapons and 'kill everything with my pinky' stuff...

Perhaps if instead you start off with token melee weapon (he plays amateur baseball so has a baseball bat?) when he gets a gun you could make his confidance with the weapon -crap- as he doesnt know how to use it, then as he uses a particular weapon more and more he grows in confidance using the weapon..

Example: Pistol, starts off waving hands unable to aim straight, doing the 'cop' stance (which will have added effects of slowing him down in fight or flight situations) and as he grows in confidance and amateur proficiency, he will be at the end of the game calmly walking around [gunslinger mode] blowing off ears at 20 paces [/gunslinger mode] or mabe even the option of dual wield...

Sort of a more realistic version of GTA: San Andreas' weapons experience system....

You get what I mean?

EDIT: I dont condone plagarism unless you disguise it really, REALLY well :D

Then why use my "token melee weapon" phrase?

Anyway, I'm being nitpicky. You should stick with the survival specialist thing. You could make the character into a sort of MacGyver-like persona. This could open up a whole slew of possibilities in the weapons department. The character could use a lighter and some hair spray or spray paint and make a flamethrower out of it. You could also have him take pieces of the ripped up bedsheet that you mentioned earlier, take some whiskey he might find lying around the mansion and make impromptu molotov cocktails.

Also, if you're gonna make this as realistic as possible, you should have as few item bars and menus as possible. Like to measure health, you do that vision-fades-to-red-thing like in Call of Duty. And you could measure fatigue by how hard the character is breathing. If he is breathing normally, he's at full, he's at half when he breathes heavily, and when he's empty on fatigue he's wheezing and stumbling. You could make his vision fade a little when he's running on empty.

you know i suddenly had a idea where at the end of the game there could be a scene where the character enters to a hallway of the mansion, then it starts to distorsionate, it looks endless, the woodwork starts to desintegrate showing a really dark night, something like that.

mechsword42:
Then why use my "token melee weapon" phrase?

Anyway, I'm being nitpicky. You should stick with the survival specialist thing. You could make the character into a sort of MacGyver-like persona. This could open up a whole slew of possibilities in the weapons department. The character could use a lighter and some hair spray or spray paint and make a flamethrower out of it. You could also have him take pieces of the ripped up bedsheet that you mentioned earlier, take some whiskey he might find lying around the mansion and make impromptu molotov cocktails.
Also, if you're gonna make this as realistic as possible, you should have as few item bars and menus as possible. Like to measure health, you do that vision-fades-to-red-thing like in Call of Duty. And you could measure fatigue by how hard the character is breathing. If he is breathing normally, he's at full, he's at half when he breathes heavily, and when he's empty on fatig