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An idea for a horror story game, you are a "control subject" in a mad scientists lab. After 5 months of being stuck in a cage, you and your cell mates' cages get opened and you have to:

1) Escape the lab
2) Rescue your wife who has been experimented on, you don't know if she's one of the failed experiments (who are the likes of zombies and monsters) or one of the successful experiments (enhanced or superhuman in some way)
3) Kill the scientist (gets you extra points)

Over the course of the game, you're going to have to balance immoral decisions with morality, else you will lose your sanity. If your sanity reaches 0, you become insane and one of the monsters in the lab. 

Depending on how many survivors there are at the end, whether you kill the scientist, and how much sanity you have at the end, you will be awarded a certain amount of points.

Sounds neat and fairly original, if not linear.

I hope not, I'm trying to make there 5 endings.

Spoilers: one of them is what happens when your sanity reaches zero.

I think it might be more interesting if there wasn't a clear-cut line between 'successful' and 'failed' experiments...

Some of the "successful" experiments are batshit insane.

That helps! Bonus points if some of the monstrous-looking ones are still mentally human, and more-or-less sane...

I hadn't thought of that, but it would be great if you unthinkingly kill a zombie looking thing and then it starts talking to you while it's dying and you realize it's good and it asks you to give a note to his son. That would be a good side quest and semi-psycological horror.

Nice!

Interesting idea. I like. I can't help but wonder about the threats, though. I'm assuming the scientist and the "failed" experiments will be obstacles, and most challenges have to do with moral choices. Is it safe to assume there will be more threats outside of a scientist or zombie/monsters? Is there also a chance that there is more than the scientist involved with these experiments?

Yes for moral although some moral decisions won't affect anything at all in game, but hopefully will make the reader think. But yes for your first question, some of the other "control subjects" aren't concerned with anything but their own survival. And there will be a lot of feral experiments who aren't too much physically.

You will be able to ally with some of the experiments, that will be the hardest thing to script. 

And for your second question, shhhhhh...

I had a feeling I was going to ask something that would wind up in spoiler territory. I'll shut up now and just wait and see.

It's interesting that not all moral decisions won't affect the game. Somehow, that feels more real and natural but nevertheless still has weight. Glad to hear about the different types of subjects. It sounds like there will undoubtedly be a good variety of different types in-game. That makes it all the better. Wish you luck on the allies part, though, sounds like it would be hard to script.

Sounds nice!  Good luck!

This sounds like a great idea.

After reading through the thread though, I'd like to suggest something. It would be neat if, according to the number of sanity points you have, could alter the writing slightly to show the rapid/not so rapid decline of your sanity. I mean, having (lets just say that it's a scale from 0-10 with 0 being insane and 10 the opposite) 10 sanity points would be completely different thought process/view then if the character only has one sanity point. And maybe with different thought process would mean that the character only sees some ways to do things but not things that someone completely sane would do.

Just an interesting idea to make the story more interesting.

What I was planning on.

Sounds like a lot of scripting and variable work. Hope it goes well for ya.

Nothing Nobel Prize worthy, I'll just use a lot of basic code instead of fancy coding. Less bugs tht way.

Come on, even the president was able to get a Nobel Prize, so it's still in the realm of possibility.

...

Even the president? inb4 #obamapride

Obama, the world record holder for the most cruise missiles fired by a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

I love this idea, it just sounds a little cliche.

How so? There aren't many horror games with mad scientists, even less horror ones.

I like your ideas so far, especially the sanity variable. Depending on how quickly the protagonist's wife gets found, could she vary between being relatively normal or a monstrosity?

That...

is actually a really good idea. I'll add in a time variable now. 

Does anyone have an opinion on there being a psychic with the ability took break the 4th wall? 

4th wall?

Breaking the 4th wall = Acknowledging the real world and the existence of the reader.

Okay. Interesting........

Like with Deadpool, who is always addressing the reader, even though most other Marvel characters are oblivious to the fact that they are in a comic book.

Deadpool? I don't read comics much. This is the only one I've ever read. (no, it's not to a google site. It's the first page of the prolouge)

If it's not what your game is about, then I think breaking the fourth wall is an unnecessary distraction. Just my personal opinion, though... some people might love the idea.

Perhaps, depending on the sanity, the character could claim to be hearing voices in his head (the reader telling him what to do) and then gets obsessed on trying to figure out why/how and comes to hate the 'voice' in his head to the point where he starts addressing the 'voice' directly, and with your reply (links at the bottom of the page) you could add to his madness. That would be interesting.

Hmmm, maybe. Again, sanity changing text will be really hard to code, but if I find a simple way to do it, I'm all for that idea.