What kind of tweaks could you make to the dark souls formula to make it into a horror game?
My suggestions
-Health items are finite save for when they can be farmed by rare and strong enemies like stones of ephemeral eyes from giant depraved ones
-Limited inventory slots for items and rings but pick ups automatically go to the bonfire inventory
-Rolling and sprinting cost much more stamina, typically more than a blocked attack
-One large continuous environment like in Dark Souls 1
-Weapons have durability and can only be regenerated if left in the bonfire inventory or by finite repair powders
-Instead of enemies resurrecting once resting at a bonfire, killing enemies will fill a meter that once filled will resurrect enemies thus making it desirable to go around certain enemies or avoid certain fights
-Dying causes enemies to become stronger and attain a randomized buff each time you die.
-Perhaps a day and night cycle to make certain pathways safer/worse? not sure on this one.
-Environment is varied but all one place similar to Dracula's castle in Castlevaina
I know the usual responses will be that my ideas suck and that's ok, I want to stir discussion on how souls mechanics can be repurposed into a horror game. Come on guys let's talk about games for once instead of waifus.
Game Design Discussion
You cannot have a horror game where your control over what happens is as precise as a souls game.
What made games like RE scary was the feeling of helplessness caused by stiff controls and a shitty camera. Helplessness is fundamental for a good horror game.
No matter how atmospheric you make it, a game like dark souls could never be scary if you can dunk the aslyumn demon and kill it in under 15 seconds.
Also the dying idea is terrible as it could lead to an end point in the game where enemies have like 70 buffs on them turning NG enemies into NG+++++. Unless you mean only 1 buff which is also bad because its easier to balance one entity( the players health) rather than all the other entities in the game.
The biggest issue here is that you're framing this discussion around Dark Souls which isn't that suited for a horror genre in my opinion. You'd either cripple the intended action-heavy gameplay or just end up with bland faux-horror since you can competently still fight back to enemies.
Further, making a thread for this is a bit much, you could take this to /dsg/ maybe?
I absolutely disagree about the lack of control being the reason for a horror game being good. Also souls is really not that precise at all with a lot of it's quarks coming from how clunky it is not to mention the awful input buffering. Just want to mention that because I get sick of souls dick suckery.
>I get sick of souls dick suckery
>but makes a thread about souls
Yeah I like the game I just don't think it's god's gift to man like so many of the fans. Plus I needed to point out just how clunky the game is when you mentioned how precise it is which is simply not true.
I think it's control is very tight but not at first. It takes commitment. Its like driving stick.
Also I just want to point out that the best horror franchises of all time are famous for clunky controls.
>RE
>Silent Hill
>Condemned
>Limited inventory slots for items and rings but pick ups automatically go to the bonfire inventory
So it's useless lol. Where's the fear of losing an important item ?
From should focus on more puzzle items and environments instead being bosses most of the time the only check needed to progress in the ""story"". Take resident evil 1, make it a castle with different environments. its not rocket science
perhaps when you die you have to restart from the last save point. Also maybe you can attack enemies to a point where they are fairly crippled so you can more easily move around them but still have to worry about them.