DarkSpyda04 Posted May 1, 2014 Share Posted May 1, 2014 (edited) Sup, guys. I'm just throwing ideas around but this one has been coming back to me a lot lately (doesn't necessarily mean I'm interested in working on it) and I want to see what everyone thinks and whether or not the idea can be developed into something more. Right, well I'm sure everyone has heard of the "creepy haunted mansion on a hill" cliche which is a favorite of point & click games where the player is a detective that has to take a look around, solve puzzles, uncover hidden passages, and find clues that explain about the mansion and its previous inhabitants. "Exmortis" is one among many on Newgrounds which is a perfect example of this. I was thinking what if something like this was done for Oblivion? What if there was this decaying mansion with boarded-up windows in the middle of a dense forest full of various secrets left to be uncovered - a creepy house of mysteries that slowly unlocks itself as the player progresses? I can imagine the natural ambience of a grandfather clock ticking and the crackling of a fireplace; the howling of wind as it blows through a missing brick in the wall and in a few rooms over, the sound of an aging chandelier finally crashing down from years of decay. But wait, why was the clock still ticking? Is someone here? I've also been thinking that the point & click approach that Shadowrose Manor took might not be enough. That mod was horror-adventure, a kind of game about exploring, puzzle-solving, and solving mysteries. The reason I don't like the horror-adventure approach is because Resident Evil one-upped this type of experience with a subgenre of action-adventure called "survival horror" which rather than just testing quick reflexes in real-time situations or puzzles and exploration, created an inventory system and inventory management - sort of adding a level of strategy to the genre. You see, when you encounter a zombie in Resident Evil you don't just kill it and move on, you have time to pause and ponder if it's worth spending a few bullets from that oh-so-rare ammo magazine that you just happened to find. Should you kill this zombie or avoid it and save these bullets for later? Is killing an enemy more dangerous than letting it live? By combining the puzzles and exploration of the adventure genre with the real-time confrontations of the action genre and an extra hint of some all new mechanics, it created an interesting an addicting formula that could be replayed many times. But the horror-adventure game can be played only once or twice before you experienced everything. Are you starting to see what I'm getting at? It's not just the spooky mansion full of ghosts or the mystery-solving, it's about how the game plays once it's all done and ready. In short - systems design. Edited May 15, 2014 by DarkSpyda04 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draconity Posted May 1, 2014 Share Posted May 1, 2014 This sounds like FUN. I'd play the heck out of that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSpyda04 Posted May 1, 2014 Author Share Posted May 1, 2014 Too bad I don't know much about modding Oblivion. Again, this is more of an idea I'm tossing out there in case maybe someone wants to make something like it or start a discussion of the possible implementation of such a mod. I might even contribute to the planning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergio1992 Posted May 2, 2014 Share Posted May 2, 2014 Check http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/13699/?I never played it and I can't vouch for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSpyda04 Posted May 2, 2014 Author Share Posted May 2, 2014 (edited) Check http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/13699/? I never played it and I can't vouch for it. Just tried it out. It's essentially a fast rollercoaster ride with spooky scary skeletons. You walk in the door, encounter ghosts and skeletons and zombies, kill them, look for the key to the next room, and move on. Occasionally you'll get random sound effects playing such as werewolves howling, evil laughing, the works. Although all of this said, it's FAR from a good example of horror. In fact, I'd say it demonstrates a complete and total incompetence to proper horror atmosphere. There are a lot of details involved in what makes horror work but let me give you a scenario depicting a man who finds out about a haunted house, ventures there, sneaks in through the basement, and finds something strange that brings up a few questions. A man named... oh I dunno... Bob! Bob visits a bookstore and finds a book that details an old abandoned house that [insert backstory here] and he's intrigued. After plenty of preparation, he heads off for the creepy manor uncertain of what to expect as he's only heard about it in text. When he arrives, he sees an innocent-looking building weathered over the years and half-hidden by unkempt vegetation. Bob walks around the house a bit, scoping out its external structure and notes that the backyard is inaccessible due to a locked gate. He sees that there's a hole in the side of the building leading to the basement that he might be able to fit through. Does he really want to, though? He takes another look up at the house. Well it looks innocent enough. Bob heads on through feet-first and drops to the basement floor. There's nothing here but dust and old things that the owner left behind. He takes a look around the room for a bit and discovers nothing out of the ordinary other than a fine collection of fancy pants stuff. Bob decides to head up the basement stairs to the first floor and check around up there. However, there's something strange. There's a bar on the door preventing it from being opened from the other side. Why would there be a bar on the door? Was someone trying to trap themselves in the basement? Were they trying to escape something that was in the house? Would this explain the hole in the wall that you went through to get down here? Is it a good idea to check around upstairs knowing this? What's up there? And this is just one room. There isn't going to be any skeletons and zombies when he gets upstairs or spooky sound effects. The horror is created in the the person's own imagination. Curiosity only helps us get there. Edited May 3, 2014 by DarkSpyda04 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergio1992 Posted May 3, 2014 Share Posted May 3, 2014 Thank you for your review. I'm sorry the mod I've linked didn't satisfy you.By the way, have you tried gates to aesgard? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSpyda04 Posted May 4, 2014 Author Share Posted May 4, 2014 Thank you for your review. I'm sorry the mod I've linked didn't satisfy you. By the way, have you tried gates to aesgard? *laughs* Gates to Aesgard episode 1 was the first mod I tried and I wasn't satisfied with that one either. All I know is it was a cheap dungeon crawl through a bunch of places and maybe your goal is to fight your way back in time to defeat an evil army or something; I have no idea, it lost me right from the beginning with poorly explained story. At first I think I'm exploring strange ruins and wonder what the ruins are or where they came from, then I'm fighting evil generals, then the game spits my back out in Cyrodil and tells me I completed the quest. It really didn't seem to make any attempt to clarify things and I thought this evil general guy was just some random baddie I had to fight to learn about the ruins. And why am I traveling back in the past? Back to see what, exactly? What the hell is going on? Normally horror games withhold information from the player to create mystery. HOWEVER, it also answers these questions in a clear and concise way in little bits and pieces along the way. When that doesn't happen, the player walks away thinking it was stupid. I'm not looking for good horror mods, Sergio, I'm just discussing the idea I posted about. However, I'll also reply to posts I get so it might seem like I'm going off-topic. Do you have any input to this haunted mansion stuff? I haven't gotten much talk about it yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergio1992 Posted May 13, 2014 Share Posted May 13, 2014 (edited) Ehi Darkspyda4, saw just now your post.Would you kindly try this mod?http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/42923/?tab=2&navtag=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nexusmods.com%2Foblivion%2Fajax%2Fmodfiles%2F%3Fid%3D42923&pUp=1 Edited May 15, 2014 by Sergio1992 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSpyda04 Posted May 14, 2014 Author Share Posted May 14, 2014 (edited) Just finished playing Shadowrose Manor. Story-focused and very atmospheric. It reminds me of point & click horror adventure, actually. The mod takes you away from Cyrodil and places you in a much stranger place - on an island, as it appears to be. You wonder where you are and what awaits you. This island... it looks a bit lonely... like, there's no one else around. I guess it's just me. Better set one foot in front of the other and see where it goes. Oh and speaking of setting one foot in front of the other, it's all entirely your decision. You see - the house on the hill isn't the only place you can visit. There are other trails laid out for you to follow and it's up to you to explore. Either you'll find some answers or something horrible. Best hoping it's answers you find, right? Slowly as you explore you find notes with backstory and keys to other areas, exploring and investigating in repeated succession until the ultimate conclusion. Gotta love it. THIMONGS THDE DOENGS WRO I dunno, I just felt like rearranging the letters in the sentence. It looks cool though, don't it? Anyway, now for things the mod does wrong. For one, the lag. My low-end computer can't handle much so I had to run on 640x480 screen resolution and small textures. However, I can't help but get the feeling that while the mod's environments were designed to look beautiful, they were not designed with performance in mind at all. I strongly believe that the mod could have performed just as well on 1600x900 with large textures if a few strings were pulled to optimize scene assets and maybe join books in the book cases to save a whole butt load of processing power. I really, really do not get why people think 999,999,999 polys on-screen will make the game better. All it does is eat up processing power and demand higher specs that your wallet has to dish out for very little reward. Don't get me wrong, visuals are important in immersing you in the game but how the hell am I going to be immersed in the game if my computer runs like it's drunk? Secondly, the story was just awful. I'd even have to compare it to Gates of Aesgard. While the player picks up notes and reads backstory, the story is very poorly communicated and mostly consists of some guy talking about what it's like turning into a monster. Yet, it would be nice if we knew things like how he turned into a monster. Like is there some kind of curse on the island? Was he pocessed? Or was there a race of sentient machines that plugged him into an artificial reality so they can use him as a power source? Furthermore, why did he purchase this house so far away from civilization? Did he murder his wife? We simply don't know these things because the story never answers them. If the author put more time into plotting these things out, this would not be a complaint. Edited May 14, 2014 by DarkSpyda04 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrakeTheDragon Posted May 15, 2014 Share Posted May 15, 2014 Now, now, let's not let this derail into a mod bashing party. Too many colorful words used so far and too many personal opinions presented as facts in here.I don't know what it started as, but the way it's heading now it's heading towards ToS violation and a lock. Mod reviews are one thing, what's been written in here so far is not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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