I totally agree with you there. I think survival horrors have to find another way around relying on combat. If it weren’t so terribly hard, I would say that Forbidden Siren is one of the best for this as you really have to pick your way around a location – avoiding attacks and finding the right bits of scenery to interact with. Amnesia does it wonderfully well where you pretty much never outright fight the big bads.

[…] had so much fun designing our imaginary Stealth Survival Horror game that I want to do it again. Here is my new idea: Space Trading Sim + FPS style RPG. Let me give you […]

You know, it strikes me that we always look at “survival horror” in light of the human need for safety and security. What if you turned the genre on its head and had to survive as the infectious agent? The player still needs to hide, but the time-biding aspects are now taken up with remaining hidden until your viral mutations are done, then needing to “vector out” to a new host in order to progress.

I envision a system in which the player is “the disease”, but a disease along the lines of the aware recombinant cells from Greg Bear’s novel Blood Music. You must find some way to survive in a host long enough to alter your own characteristics so that you might move from host to host. Mutation characteristics might be beneficial to your spread in some situations (greatly reduced respiration needs, for example, make crossing water or staying submerged easier), and be detrimental in others (the massive bleeding sores all over you make it tough to come close to potential carriers). Each host is a temporary vessel, and the virus must protect it during mutation. A mutation timer indicates how much longer until the next change, then one selected trait or one random trait is added to the player’s “arsenal” of abilities. Perhaps they are some of the common zombie tropes:

* resistance to impact
* susceptability to fire
* immunity to cold
* echolocation
* speed

Whatever the change, you have to keep the host alive while the mutation takes place. When the mutation is done, the host (which was so useful before) is now hostile to your new form, being full of the old infectious agent. A new clock is ticking, and you must hunt, locate, and infect a new host. If you have the time, uninterrupted, to fully infect a new host, your ‘cellular memory’ moves to the new host, battles it internally for a few moments, and then takes control of most of the nervous system. Many memories remain out of reach, but body memory (climbing, working common devices, swimming) may all be available. At higher levels of functionality, access to memories such as facility routines (passwords, keycodes, repair or sabotage methods) might also be unlocked. If you lack the time to complete the infection, the cellular memory remains behind and the target host is just infected, and will not impede you in the future, but is not suitable as a host.

Sitting in a host for too long after mutation would not necessarily lead right to the “game over” screen, of course. Better by far to take away beneficial abilities gradually. Maybe the virus’ ability to draw nourishment from spoiled food begins to slow, or perhaps the old resistance to fire and heat begin to provide less and less protection. When the super-speed begins to falter, is shambling mindlessly that far away?

A virus with the right mutations could use the host’s body beyond its normal tolerances, eliminating the pain response, increasing metabolism or explosive muscle force, shutting down systems to ignore trauma. These actions would ‘burn up’ the host body, killing the host from within, but might allow the virus to survive a tough spot. Some security guard gets your infected electrician in a headlock? Use the host burn ability to gain greater strength, but now you have used up half an hour of the host’s effective survival clock. Better look for a new vector of infection!

The player might start out in a secret laboratory, having mutated inside a rat test subject. The rat has a few abilities, but the infection means the virus knows it must jump to a human host or perish. The rat works to escape the lab by chewing, climbing, and sneaking, and ends up outside, above ground, in the wilderness. It bites a camper who has been suffering through the rainstorm and wondering how to get back across the flooded river…

Where to next, virus? Your host is a hideous, mumbling shambles of a body with some survival skills that you have access to, but the best you can do for a weapon is a 4-D-cell flashlight.

Oh, did I mention that the security apparatus of the lab knows you escaped? And have you heard the helicopters yet? How about the other virus that also got out, the one that’s trying to assimilate you?

No, no, no! :) Zombies don’t eat dead meat! They only eat living things, and then stop once their victim is dead…that’s why there are more zombies…otherwise the only ones who would be zombies are those that get scratched/bitten then escape :) Zombies won’t eat other zombies, even if they’ve been chopped up.

@Matt` – well, I figured that just throwing a random object into another room would make enough noise to send bunch of zombies there to investigate. Cutting them up would probably not be necessary.

Perhaps one area could have a walk in freezer with fresh meet hanging from the ceiling from hooks. Player could possibly drag those out into the open to attract monsters who would then spend some time devouring it? Seems like a less gruesome way to set up a trap than cutting up a zombie.

@Ambience 327 – Condemned had ammo management that worked like that. You could hit a button and you would see the character pop up the revolver cylinder to show how much ammo is left in it, or pull out the magazine from the automatic weapon so that you could count the bullets. It worked very nice, but the firearms were incredibly scarce in that game.

The game did have really silly door puzzles though. For example, a padlock on a chain fence could only be smashed with a hammer, and an electronic lock could only be disabled with a shovel and etc.

Continuing with the HUD-less display, I suggest no ammo counters. The player would have to use a hotkey to manually check the ammo in whatever gun he is carrying (which would, of course, take time).

Let’s say you are walking along and find a severed arm holding a revolver. You press a key to pick it up – and are treated to an animation of the character’s hands prying the gun from the cold, dead fingers, and flipping it open – revealing three bullets in the magazine, before closing it again. Now the player has to keep track of their ammo, or check it again as the progress. If they happen to come upon another bullet or two, they would have to take the time to load it – with shaky fingers caused by nerves – a random chance of dropping a bullet perhaps? (tink, tink – “aww crap”.) Then you’d have to pick it up and try again. A key press for each bullet on the ground would be a great mechanic – assuming the ammo is very limited. It would help increase the tension as ever precious second could bring that ugly zombie/moster you keep hearing into view.

I am definately liking the camper idea – what with being competent with tools, knots, fires, basic firearms, etc., you’d give the player enough options on how to go about things without being the uber-solder that takes away the fear factor.

Oh, another idea I was toying with – cut up dead zombies to get something to distract the others with. If you manage to kill one and have the time to sit down and hack off a chunk of meat, then you can toss it into a corner to lure other zombies away.

Would also have some penalty… maybe you get covered in gore and are yourself more attractive to zombies, or only the ones that hunt by smell… or something.

Something came up in the comments over at Twenty Sided that I think is a good idea – we’re naturally scared by things that aren’t orderly or logical, if things don’t work the same way every time you try them then it makes it a lot less reliable. Guns jam, some zombies are randomly more robust and take more bullets/beating to take down, other things have a small chance of random failure.

Done too much, it would be hellishly annoying, but as an occasional thing it’d up the tension and make you feel less safe.

Another thing that crossed my mind after reading about the outdoors survival idea is the actual survival part, shelter, food and water. If the game is going to take even only 5 hours, the character has to at least use the washroom, any longer, he’ll need food and eventually he’ll need real sleep instead of sitting down to rest fatigue. Finding a safe place to sleep (a lockable room?) within a certain time period, and the longer the character stay up past his bed time, the fatigue meter fills up until he either encounters a monster (adrenaline) or passes out (and gets eaten).

This game would be awesome.

I’m a big fan of the first-person, no HUD or iventory idea. It would contribute greatly to a feeling of immersion and paranoia. Use just visual and sound cues, and perhaps wobbly controls) to give an idea of your condition. (Several games have vision become blurry when badly injured or exhausted, which would really ramp of the immersion and fear.)