magerette
Hedgewitch
- Joined
- October 18, 2006
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- 7,834
Gamebanshee links to the RPGCodex forums where a post from former Fallout Tactics artist Gareth "Section8" Davies announces his plans to develop a new indie horror-themed RPG, Synaesthesia, and decribes it as follows:
More information.
He stresses however that as yet this is in it's conceptual stages:...The world you've woken into is the gameworld of Synaesthesia. What is Synaesthesia? It's a ...word that makes for a cumbersome game title that will inevitably be colloquialised into something much shorter. Literally, it's a condition where your senses get their wires crossed, with effects ranging from perceiving letters or numbers as colours, to being able to taste or see music. It's a common theme throughout the game itself, and marries with the interface to form a numberless RPG, with colours and shapes taking their place.
So how best to talk about it? Answer questions nobody has even asked yet!
What is the game?
Synaesthesia is a horror-themed RPG focused on an ensemble cast and the evolution of a narrative created through the player's actions and the supporting cast's reactions. It's Lost meets Silent Hill, with thirteen strangers imprisoned inside a twisted nightmare world, and relying on each other to survive and possibly escape. The game is presented as a digital graphic novel, and focuses only on significant/enjoyable content, keeping downtime "out of frame".
Why create this game?
This is the game I was born to make. It's the outlet for my passion of game development, with the freedom that being an indie developer can provide. It is born out of over twenty years of gaming “research” and countless discussions of design. That and a very big part of me wants to prove that a game can take advantage of the strengths of the CRPG medium without straying from P&P roots, and without insulting the intelligence of the end user. Synaesthesia is an attempt to be a CRPG done right - nothing too wildly unfamiliar, just a collection and evolution of the high points of the genre....
...What’s different?
A lot. Synaesthesia is intended to fly in the face of mainstream RPG offerings, but not to the point of being inaccessible for most gamers. Rather than opting for the expansive world that is current en vogue with today's RPGs, Synaesthesia keeps the scope to a minimum, and focuses on exploring characters and possibilities as opposed to locations.
Synaesthesia also moves away from the tradition of stat crunching that is prevalent in all RPGs. The player still develops their character, but through different methods, generally directly tied to the narrative. Other statistical information is conveyed through visual cues and textual descriptions.
The setting moves far, far away from the typical. High fantasy and space opera are nowhere to be seen, instead, replaced with haunted mansions, albeit fucked-up, broken imitations of haunted mansions. The synaesthetic elements alter the perception of the world.
Also, the key element of an ensemble cast removes the annoyance of shallow NPCs who either repeat themselves, others, or serve merely as quest dispensing automatic tellers. Instead, the limited number of NPCs allows players to explore personalities in depth, in the manner of traditional "party NPCs", but without rigidly defined personae, and a linear narrative script. In reality, a person spends most of their social time with the people they choose to have around them, so it seems strange that most CRPGs have the character spending more social time with complete strangers in need of an adventurer.
The game also features a fresh twist on turn based combat. Each "turn" is framed as graphic novel "strips" (typically of around 2-3 panels) - showing any significant actions, and their outcome. This keeps turns short and keeps the gameplay flowing. It also addresses the stylistic issues the abstraction of turn-based systems present. There are no drawn out periods of non-interactivity, and the sequential nature is a necessity of the storyboard style presentation.
The AI does not necessarily attempt to be “smart”, but instead strives toward interesting behaviours. For instance, creatures may be hostile toward a certain colour, or thirst for blood. They may be deaf, blind or numb. AI may respond to other AI shouts, actions or vocals of characters. A broad range of variables encourage differing behaviours, rather than an attempt at displaying “intelligence”.
There's quite a bit more detail to the post than I've quoted so head over via the link above for the whole story.Why am I telling you? Why am I talking about a game that is at this point, nothing more than a concept and an insignificant handful of art assets? For a couple of reasons:
First of all, I've got a heap of design that makes sense to me, but I want to explain and expound the concept, both as a whole and with lower level detail. With a bit of curiosity from you guys, I can better nail down the design docs.
Second of all, I want to sanity check some ideas and bounce them around inside more than just my own head. I think I have a lot of good ideas and a solid concept, but I'm also aware that I'm overly ambitious with the whole thing, and possibly quite mad.
Last of all, I'm looking to get a programmer on board. I can find my way around code, but it takes me a long time and the end results are usually horribly inefficient. So I need some help, and it would also be good to have a second head to nut out various concepts and designs.
More information.
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2006
- Messages
- 7,834