Survival Horror on a Cruise Ship

[Monty]

Hello everyone,

I've been working for some years now on a Doom 3 mod, set in an abandoned cruise liner in the semi-near future. The idea, inspired by the Extra Punctuation article Survival Horror on a Cruise Ship, presents a character who is made blind by an electrical explosion and must use feeds from security cameras for navigation, and activate other devices for self-defense.

After a great deal of engine programming, scripting, modelling, etc., I reached the point of environment design. Unfortunately, I've been having a lot of trouble coming up with appropriate environment puzzles that fit the mechanics well, and have decided to seek out ideas and comments.

The player can open an interface displaying available cameras, lights and interactive objects in a given area, which may include multiple rooms (listed at the left of the interface). The following video shows many of the available mechanics (some of the text is in French, as I haven't translated everything yet):

In essence:

   
• selecting a camera will make the main view switch to that camera;
• selecting an object will trigger it -- a platform will start moving, an electrical panel will explode, and a door will lock or unlock;
• selecting a light will turn it on or off.

List items that are red are locked, and must be unlocked via a simple hacking minigame: the hint shows four letters in the set A, B, C, D, which correspond respectively to D, C, B, A.

It's also possible to bind number keys to unlocked objects by highlighting a list item in the interface, and pressing the key. This makes it possible, for example, to quickly change the view from one room to another.

To those interested in contributing, I would greatly appreciate suggestions and ideas for environment puzzles that make use of these available mechanics. I already have some sketched out, but puzzle ideas have proven annoyingly sparse. Additionally, if any users know of any relevant, conceptually similar puzzles from other games, these could prove very inspiring.

This project has been in development for quite a long time, and I do aim to finish it. I believe these mechanics have good potential for compelling and challenging level design, even if I haven't quite been able to realise it yet.

Thank you.

Monty

[argoon]

Nice work, i remember your thread from doom3World days, good knowing you are still working on your game, it also shows that idtech 4 can be used to other games than FPS.

[VGames]

This looks good and very interesting. I too remember this from d3w. Keep it up.

[Monty]

Nice work, i remember your thread from doom3World days, good knowing you are still working on your game, it also shows that idtech 4 can be used to other games than FPS.

This looks good and very interesting. I too remember this from d3w. Keep it up.

Thank you, yes it's been awhile. Surprisingly, the camera system was relatively easy to implement.

But the level design problem turned out much harder to solve than I anticipated. I left it for last because I figured it would be the easiest part, which on the technical side I suppose it is, but creating a good level is much harder than creating a test level.

If anyone thinks of interesting interactions, be they broad level-wide machinations or just neat gimmicks, feel free to share them!

[argoon]

To better help you we need to know a bit better about the lore (story) of your game, trying not to spoil too much tho,  for example can you give clues of why is the cruise liner abandoned? Is it sinking? Is there flooded compartments? I take for granted that zombies and monsters will be a giving, so some supernatural force is to blame, what kind of power does it have, can it manipulate the ship mechanics or only its organic occupants? Where the ship stop, in a hot or cold place? If hot should the player be careful with fire and heat, if cold should the player try to maintain body heat? (think of cryostasis)

I hope this questions also give you some ideas.   

[VGames]

Yeah and does the main character have any kind of combat system or this a run away kind of game.

[Monty]

To better help you we need to know a bit better about the lore (story) of your game

I decided to use the basic plot in the article, but if you wish to avoid spoilers, here is an intro to my version:

The story is set in 2036. Many people, including the main character, have a small computer in their brain, similar to a smartphone. It grants instant access to all their personal data, allows them to communicate online (assuming there is a wireless network nearby) and can make use of augmented reality, displaying a gui over their vision.

The interface to this computer, called a personal profile, is what allows the player to connect to the security system and use the cameras. The game is technically in first person; the player is seeing the same thing as the main character at all times (except in the Pause menu), and sounds are still heard in first person.

The player will have no way to communicate with the outside world. I somehow forgot to mention this before, but the main goal of the game will be to find and restore power to the communications room, which will allow the player to get back online and send a distress message.

why is the cruise liner abandoned? Is it sinking? Is there flooded compartments? I take for granted that zombies and monsters will be a giving, so some supernatural force is to blame, what kind of power does it have, can it manipulate the ship mechanics or only its organic occupants? Where the ship stop, in a hot or cold place? If hot should the player be careful with fire and heat, if cold should the player try to maintain body heat? (think of cryostasis)

Early on, it will be clear that many people died on the cruise liner after the security network was compromised. There is no supernatural element, but there is more to the enemies than the player might first think. Because the main character is connected to a compromised network, their experience will be affected to some extent by whatever it is that wiped out the people on board.

The ship is not sinking, and some emergency systems have been activated. There will be no visually flooded areas because vanilla id Tech 4 has no water support (despite some liquid-related code in the engine). Still, in some dark rooms, I may place speakers with watery sounds if I can find any in Doom 3's resource files.

Both the main character and the (initially unknown) antagonist can manipulate objects in potentially any part of the ship, from doors to exploding panels, but because many of the ship's areas have no power and many objects aren't connected, neither has total control. And since AI scripting in id Tech 4 is rather unpleasant, right now I'd rather not try to give regular enemies more complex behaviour.

I pictured the ship somewhere in North-West Europe, close to Norway perhaps (the electrical panels tentatively show the Norwegian word "Sikkerhet", which means "Security", though I don't know much about Norwegian so I'll probably change it). I chose the name "Klara" for the main character, as it hints at a Nordic or otherwise Germanic origin.

Because I gave Klara winter clothes, I hadn't thought much about needing to keep warm...but that might not be a bad way to keep the player moving forward.

Yeah and does the main character have any kind of combat system or this a run away kind of game.

It's a strict survival horror experience, so direct confrontation is not an option. There are multiple ways to deal with enemies:

   
• sneaking behind it or in the dark
• trapping it in a room by locking a door or moving a platform
• killing it by exploding a nearby electrical panel with a power surge

Thank you for the questions, they have already helped me visualise things a bit better.

[argoon]

No problem, about water exists a water (and other stuff) mod for vanilla doom 3 here, also are you familiar with the DarkMod ? If you don't know they implemented a nice swimmable water system on their game, you could see their source code or contact them for info. 

[Monty]

I've had the Dark Mod installed for years; it's really an amazing project, both creatively and technically. In fact, trying out a level with water in Doom 3 was how I found out it wasn't supported.

I wouldn't mind having liquid physics in my codebase, but I would expect it to be a significant time investment to get everything properly linked and working. Moreover, the addition would be purely esthetic unless I also added swimming code and animations, and then story-wise there's the question of how a character could survive after swimming or wading in frigid water.

It's not impossible, but without a real concrete use for it, it could be an inefficient use of time, and I hope to be able to communicate the water theme in other ways. It could be mentioned in e-mails, which the player will get, along with new cameras and interactive objects, whenever they connect to a new terminal.