Castle Red, or: I made a horror game

So I like to dabble in RPG Maker, and I recently released a survival horror game called Castle Red.

I admit, it's not perfect. A lot of the design process was a learning experience for me and the RPG Maker graphics aren't super-conducive to horror, but over all I think it could have turned out worse.

Anyway, what do you guys think? You can download and play it for free. A single playthrough takes 1-3 hours, depending on which of the 6 endings you get.

RPG Maker isn't the best program for horror, but it's entirely possible (see: Crooked Man, Hello? and whatnot). I'll have to try it out.

It's practically its own sub-genre at this point. There're dozens of RPG Maker horror titles, particularly from Japan.

I'll check this one out, I guess.

I'm interested! However, before I try it out, if I may I'd like to check on something: is the horror based on jump-scares?

(I'm not a huge fan of jump-scares in horror: they're not the sort of scare that I'm looking for, and not one that I enjoy.)

My Games & Writing

There are a couple jump scares, but it's not the focus.

My intention with the horror in this game was for it to be built around immersion and tension. I put the protagonist's dialogue in the player's control specifically so that you can define your relationships with the other characters and interact with the world on your terms (leading to the game having six possible endings, all of which are quite different from one another). I also used a Stealth system script for the enemies, so you have to sneak past dangers (I've found that stealth games naturally build tension, simply because you find yourself in situations where you're praying this one character won't turn around). As the game progresses, it also starts to dabble in the surreal as well. The handful of jump scares in the game were put in mostly to keep players on their toes.

Of course, the game's only about two days old and no one's reviewed it yet, so I have no idea if I actually succeeded in my scare tactics.

edited 29th Nov '14 2:59:56 PM by LizardBite

... I'll confess that the presence of jump-scares is a little off-putting, but the rest does sound appealing.

I'll probably download it at some stage soon-ish, then—thank you for clarifying. ^_^

My Games & Writing

Well, you got me interested, I'm downloading it now.

I will take a look! :D

The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable

RMN is currently down, so no new downloads for a while.

In the meantime, anyone get a chance to download and play? Comments or criticisms?

I started playing it just recently, and I'm enjoying it thus far. ^_^

For reference, I've just re-found Agnes, Hellen and Howard (if I'm remembering their names correctly ^^; ) after losing Cecelia and going through the rooftop section.

The stealth aspects are decent, and a nice change from what I've previously experienced in RPG-Maker horror games. That said, I have had a few occasions in which it seemed that there was little chance of evading an enemy, and enemies seem, somewhat frustratingly, to be able to detect me to some degree when they're sufficiently close, even when I'm behind cover.

Speaking of the rooftop, I found the code to be a little obscure: while I guessed pretty quickly that the blood was a clue, and that I should light the lamp, and indeed did the latter, I still found the clue to be very difficult to actually read; indeed, it took a few looks at the thing to actually be confident that it did compose digits, and even then managed to see only three at first.

By the way, it seems that one can collect lighting-sticks ad infinitum—is that intentional?

One final criticism, if I may: the walking speed feels rather slow when exploring. I can understand the appeal of moving slowly during the stealth segments, but as it is I'm holding down the "sprint" button for most of my explorations just to have a "walking" speed that doesn't feel annoyingly slow.

The story thus far is interesting, and I like your use of Worm that Walks horror thus far. I'm currently rather suspicious of both Cecelia and Howard as potential villains in plain sight.

Overall, once I get past the current (slightly frustrating) stealth section, I'm looking forward to seeing where things go! ^_^

My Games & Writing

Heh. Thanks for the comments.

That puzzle is actually an improved version of the original one— at first you needed to wait for lightning to strike to read it. I added in the extra puzzle detail later because I felt that that would be too frustrating. ...and since it was a last minute addition, that would be why the lighting stick is bugged by that. Thank you for bringing that to my attention!

If you're talking about the stealth section I think you're talking about, then that is indeed the longest and most difficult stealth section in the game. I even had trouble getting through it during playtests— and I designed the thing!

The issues with the stealth system appear to be a bug with the script I used. I am not a coder (I just used scripts that other people wrote), so I can't really fix that. Sorry.

The speed issue has been brought to my attention, and I'll post what I wrote about on RMN:

I apologize for the walking speed. I lowered it to make the player feel vulnerable, and then balanced all the enemy speeds around it. I kind of recall that at first I was also unsure about it, but since playtests of this were the only RPG Maker games I played for about two or three months during development, I quickly got used to it. I admit, I kind of forgot about the speed until people brought it up.

edited 10th Jan '15 4:59:57 PM by LizardBite

It's my pleasure; thank you for making an enjoyable game. ^_^

Regarding the lighting sticks, I've collected thirty-odd of them already (at least), and there's nothing you can do about it now! >:D

"If you're talking about the stealth section I think you're talking about, then that is indeed the longest and most difficult stealth section in the game. I even had trouble getting through it during playtests— and I designed the thing! "

Ouch! Well, in that case at least I can hope for things to get a little easier afterwards. :P

A question, then: is there any penalty for attacking a few enemies, other than loss of health (which I can cure using elixirs)? Does it affect the story in any way? I've been tending to avoid killing where feasible, in part with the thought that it may affect the ending that I get, or events along the way. (Aside from potentially leaving me weaponless if I over-do it, of course.)

Regarding the walking speed, heh, I've had experience of that effect—not noticing issues in one's own games due to being familiar with them—myself. That's one of the reasons that it can really help to get external feedback before release, whether from friends or via prototypes posted on developer forums.

edited 11th Jan '15 5:21:55 AM by ArsThaumaturgis

My Games & Writing

No penalty storywise, no. The plot is only really effected by your dialogue choices.

Of course, there's only a finite amount of weapons and elixirs in the game, so stealth is still required if you want to actually make any progress.

But I can at least use one of my accumulation of daggers and elixirs to get rid of the occasional problem enemy. :P

That's good to read—thank you. ^_^

Thinking of which, is there any way to avoid the killing of the jumpy fellow in the tower near the start of the game? If I had skipped the dagger just before that, would we both have survived?

edited 11th Jan '15 7:28:48 AM by ArsThaumaturgis

My Games & Writing

No. The door to the library doesn't open until after you've obtained the dagger and gone through the following fake-out scare, so there's no way to reach that point without having the dagger in your inventory. Your only real choice is what you tell the other characters, which influences certain scenes much later on

Aah, fair enough—I feel a little better about that now. Thank you for the clarification. ^_^

My Games & Writing

Well, I've completed the game, or achieved two endings, at least: the "D" and "F" ones, I think it was ( Ruling beside Cecilia and helping Margaery to defeat Howard). I may go back and attempt the ending in which the character takes the lordship of the castle for himself, since the trope page seems to suggest that there may be some more gameplay if I do.

Overall, I liked the game. I'm glad that you didn't include (as far as I found) any examples of the type of jump-scare that I was concerned about previously (the sort that throws something in the player's face along with a a loud audio cue). What scares there were seemed largely fine to me.

I'm not quite clear on the significant of the strange images in some of the later areas—teddy bears, what looked like a faerie, etc. For a while I was concerned that there would be a twist indicating that all of this was happening in the protagonist's mind—thank you for not doing that!—but as it stands I'm not at all sure of where they fit in.

Aside from what I've said before, I do have a few additional criticisms, if I may:

First of all, the maze. I daresay that there are those who enjoy having this sort of maze in a game, but I'm not one of them. Unless I can see rather more of the maze, and navigation is much easier, I tend to find mazes frustrating rather than anything else.

Second, when the character gets hurt beyond a certain point, the screen starts to pulse redly; since the threshold for this is fairly high (it happens when you still have a fair bit of health), I found that I tended to leave my character slightly hurt rather than stop to administer elixirs (despite having plenty of them). On the other hand, the full-screen red pulse was somewhat irritating.

Offhand, perhaps it might have been better to have either reduced the player's health or increased the enemies' damage, and to have made elixirs restore the player to full health. My thought is that any damage is then serious, and the warning pulse urgent, but (hopefully) with a fairly minimal impact on the difficulty of the game.

Thirdly, I felt that the endings (those two that I saw, at least) could have used a bit more content—even if it was just a static image or two showing what became of the characters. As it was they felt a little unfulfilling to me.

Finally, it might have been nice—presuming a faster walking speed or a different control mechanic (point-and-click, perhaps?)—to have had a bit more interactivity. As it was the castle felt a little flat to me. That said, given the current movement speed and control mechanic, I do confess that additional interactivity might have the effect of obscuring which areas are actually important, making the game more frustrating.

[edit] A simpler suggestion for the "damage pulse" effect—and one that involves rather less reworking of the damage systems—might be to replace the full-screen pulse with a red edging on the screen, perhaps pulsing somewhat; as the player loses health, this edging becomes larger, more opaque, and perhaps pulses faster.

edited 16th Jan '15 2:30:59 PM by ArsThaumaturgis

My Games & Writing

Bumping this thread because looky, looky.

Well, you have my interest!

The story sounds very interesting, based on the brief description given.

The description mentioned keeping to one's assigned role as a servant in the castle while covertly searching for one's daughter—how is this handled? Specifically, is it under player control—perhaps having the player watch for opportunities to search, and do so without being caught where they shouldn't be or missed from where they should—or is it event-driven, with the player being given opportunities to search specific areas before another event closes those areas? (I'm hoping for the former, personally. ;))

My Games & Writing

It's more event driven. There are servants in the castle who are sympathetic to your plight and will give you what you need to explore the castle after you've worked with them a bit (the story takes place over the course of a week and is divided into different days). Most of the enemies this time around are Guardians; living suits of armor that mindlessly attack anyone who's not supposed to be in the area.

I've also redone health and weapons. You are protected by a Pentacle (another gift from sympathetic coworkers) which holds a set number of charges which protect you and banish Guardians. You can see the Pentacle in a few screenshots on the RMN page. However, the more you use it, the less effective it becomes, so every day the maximum number of charges it can hold decreases by 1.

Gotta love that nice comment in the section of the game, So Bad, It's Good

edited 29th Apr '15 9:32:25 AM by YoKab

Ah, I see—thank you for the clarification. Still, this seems like an interesting scenario, and I'm looking forward to the game's release. ^_^

Ah, that sounds good. I look forward to seeing it in play! ^_^

So do I take it then that the character doesn't become "hurt", they simply use up a charge, and are killed outright when attacked without defensive charges?

And no more full-screen red pulse, I hope? :P

... What. >_<

I mean, I can guess at the reasoning behind that comment, I just object to it.

My Games & Writing

Yes to both!

I know right? That was such a baffling comment.

Your game has a tv tropes page:https://www.google.com/url?q=https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/CastleRed&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwj9vd_Lu6_OAhXH2R4KHXDuDoI4ChAWCAowAw&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNFr_HOPfwCXngwmWIEZUhLMybTPTw

edited 7th Aug '16 7:02:32 AM by Griffonmender

https://griffonmender.newgrounds.com/