I have an idea for a 3rd year Psychology Project...

[sonarkhemist]

:biggrin: hey guys, new here. Been a fallout 3 fan since I was 12 years old.

 

Anyway, I approached a potential supervisor about a project idea concerning the future, with either 'utopian' or 'dystopian' stimuli showing images or media with positive or negative connotations (ie: a future with bioterrorism, nuke weapons or a utopia with renewable energy and technology that improves wellbeing). Long story short, we began talking about possible project ideas (as I wasn't sure) and I found out that this supervisor had done a study involving a virtual relaxing island designed to elicit relaxation and low anxiety (no surprises). I suggested it could be possible to mod this relaxation island to be an island of hell (gun shots in the distance, night skies, dark ambience, dead things etc). This was before I even heard about GECK, so I may not use his material for the anxiety condition (but attempt to replicate it, with scary additions). My supervisor heard of fallout 3, so I'm going to see his relaxation island demo this tuesday, and present a possible case for the other stimuli.

 

I would like to know if it would be possible to create a kind of 'zombie island' and mutant creatures with a decrepid house and the goal of the player was to get to the boat and escape. I don't want a long quest, just one that can be completed within 30 minutes.

 

Because I've only just heard about G.e.c.k, I was wondering how long it would take in the summer (5 months free after exams) to create a short scenario designed to maximise anxiety. I have novice experience with game design but I'm good at visualisation because I've designed levels using the old school marathon engine. Some following specifications would be...

 

1) make sure the player is in a threatening, anxious environment. Becuase I suspect that some, if not most of the participants may be 'game naive' I do not want them dying off suddenly (sustained threat is key!).

2) very lo-tech, if any weapons.

3) slower zombies, or at least, zones where the player is untouched (ie: places where monsters are, but they can't get to you or something).

4) generally very creepy vibe.

 

Is this a feasible idea? Would anyone like to chime in advice?

 

thank you

[Deleted1084753User]

Yep, all doable and shouldn't really take long, other than actually creating the world itself.

 

1) Shouldn't be difficult, FO3 has plenty of atmosphere in this department already, it'd just need a spot of heavy duty tweaking to really make it threatening (obviously it's less of a threat when you're packing assault rifles and lasers and nukes hehe). Sustained threat should be easy enough too, judicious usage of creepy ambient sounds, low-level lighting, sudden sharp sound effects (screams, loud bangs etc.), a ghoul (zombie) suddenly rattling a nearby fence that looks like it could give way any second, etc. etc..

2) No problem at all, there are plenty of hand-held weapons in the game (police batons, pool cues, baseball bats etc.), and there are low-power pistols too that could be tweaked to be even less powerful with no fuss if necessary. You can also fight bare-handed, so even if the player has no weapon they wouldn't be 'completely' defenceless.

3) Also easy enough to do, you've got Ghouls in the game already, they can easily be tweaked to be slow and relatively passive. Though I personally think fast zombies are way more worrying ;)

4) There are TONS of mutilated corpses in the game you can use to generally make things dark and bloody, lighting and sound as mentioned above can be used to creepify things nicely, it shouldn't be overly difficult to make ghosts (go check out the nexus downloads section and search for ghosts, someone already did this, you could check that out for ideas) that are non-threatening but would make unwary players need a change of underwear, all of the trees in the game are basically deadwood with no leaves, perfect for that spooky atmosphere, and you can use low-level ground fog to really spook things up too.

 

There are plenty of other options in this game that could work towards your goals of course, this is just the stuff that springs to mind immediately. So in answer to your question, yes this is entirely feasible and technically shouldn't be too hard either (the GECK is pretty easy to get into and use, though you'd probably want to look into the scripting language a bit as well so you can script events like the fence-rattling ghoul/zombie and so on).

 

Good place to start would be the GECK wiki My First Vault tutorial, which will get you up and running with level design with minimal fuss: GECK Wiki. Also, the Scripting page will be of interest too.

[sonarkhemist]

Yep, all doable and shouldn't really take long, other than actually creating the world itself.

 

1) Shouldn't be difficult, FO3 has plenty of atmosphere in this department already, it'd just need a spot of heavy duty tweaking to really make it threatening (obviously it's less of a threat when you're packing assault rifles and lasers and nukes hehe). Sustained threat should be easy enough too, judicious usage of creepy ambient sounds, low-level lighting, sudden sharp sound effects (screams, loud bangs etc.), a ghoul (zombie) suddenly rattling a nearby fence that looks like it could give way any second, etc. etc..

2) No problem at all, there are plenty of hand-held weapons in the game (police batons, pool cues, baseball bats etc.), and there are low-power pistols too that could be tweaked to be even less powerful with no fuss if necessary. You can also fight bare-handed, so even if the player has no weapon they wouldn't be 'completely' defenceless.

3) Also easy enough to do, you've got Ghouls in the game already, they can easily be tweaked to be slow and relatively passive. Though I personally think fast zombies are way more worrying ;)

4) There are TONS of mutilated corpses in the game you can use to generally make things dark and bloody, lighting and sound as mentioned above can be used to creepify things nicely, it shouldn't be overly difficult to make ghosts (go check out the nexus downloads section and search for ghosts, someone already did this, you could check that out for ideas) that are non-threatening but would make unwary players need a change of underwear, all of the trees in the game are basically deadwood with no leaves, perfect for that spooky atmosphere, and you can use low-level ground fog to really spook things up too.

 

There are plenty of other options in this game that could work towards your goals of course, this is just the stuff that springs to mind immediately. So in answer to your question, yes this is entirely feasible and technically shouldn't be too hard either (the GECK is pretty easy to get into and use, though you'd probably want to look into the scripting language a bit as well so you can script events like the fence-rattling ghoul/zombie and so on).

 

Good place to start would be the GECK wiki My First Vault tutorial, which will get you up and running with level design with minimal fuss: GECK Wiki. Also, the Scripting page will be of interest too.

 

Thank you for the reply,

 

I had a talk with the supervisor and he was worried that I could possibly fall behind as the writing up of the report is more important then the details of the stimuli. With this in mind, even though It would have possibly been fun to create my own world, I've had to rethink my project design.

 

it could be 4 conditions...

 

1 - watch the movie 'manufactured landscapes' - dystopic industrialisation movie

2 - watch the movie '(to be decided) - but it will be all earthy and natural beautiful images.

3 - Play either relaxation island (lecturer's own VR-environment he made) or modify Oblivion to have no NPCs, weapons, quests, gui etc

4- same as 3 but with fallout, but no quests, npcs, items, wwapons etc... JUST TOTAL ALONENESS.

 

My question is...

 

Has there been a mod, or is it possible to make a mod (without bugging the game) to play for 15 minutes in the complete vastness of these worlds

 

and secondly what is a quite an earthy, natural landscape in Olbivion?

 

I would then test the participants on concerns for the environment and positive/negative mood. Many thanks for your help.

[Holty07]

There is a mod for Fallout that sets you up in a bunker and forces you to prepare for the oncoming onslaught of Ghouls (Zombies). You start with one weapon and a few helpers. You have to survive seven days to escape. Each night the ghouls come and once you defeat them you have a day (ended by sleeping) to prepare by purchasing new weapons, air strikes etc. Check it out here

 

This shows that you can totally remove quests etc.