Game Idea: Mattie & the Evil House of Evil

[salstadt]

Hey all,

 

Here's the idea of my next game. It's a stealth/puzzle/horror title. The plot is that Mattie, a creepy little girl wakes up one night to find her house empty...except for monsters wandering around trying to find her! She lives in a mansion and must move from floor to floor, downward, to escape her house.

 

 

Two things. 1) It's planned for 2600. And 2) Yes, I know it's far too complex right now. But I plan to boil everything down as I develop it. Basically you have to guide Mattie through each floor and destroy all the monsters, without getting seen by them as you do so. If they do see you, they'll run at you and make Mattie's health go down before they dissapear. After a certain number of attacks per level, she loses a life and has to start over.

 

Mattie can just walk the level, or she can use her shadow (as seen above). Her shadow is the only way to kill monsters. For this, she sits quietly as her shadow trails about the level. Any monster it touches instantly dies (at which point the shadow also vanishes). The problem is that once you let your shadow out, you HAVE to touch an enemy to regain control of Mattie. If you get cornered and can't get to a monster, you can always call the shadow back, but this will HURT Mattie as much as if a monster touched her.

 

Your shadow also leaves a trail behind it, which the shadow CANNOT pass over while moving (so you hafta think while you move around; don't get stuck in corners). And lastly, the shadow trails are permanent and any enemy who touches one of them SLIDES along it to the end. So if an enemy crosses the path as Mattie controls her shadow, it'll slide right into her. And if it later crosses the path, it'll still slide the distance, most likely coming a lot closer to her. As the player kills each monster, more and more shadow path will be left on the floor, making it harder and harder to walk around unseen (as the level eventually looks like a bunch of monsters ice-skating

 

Anywho, this is all just very basic ideas at this point. Everything in the screenshot can be toned down, and I think we could make the shadow trail blockier and just display it by swapping large chunks of the background. But I'm wondering what's the maximum number of enemies we could have wandering around (any ideas)? I can shrink everyone to 8x8 if needs be, but I don't think the game would really work without at least 2 to 3 monsters at any time. It's all basic ideas at this point, so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated (and if the sprite limit is just overwhelming, I might have to work it up for something other than 2600 too, unfortunately).

 

- Adam

 

EDIT: Level object revised - much better now. Also, here's a slightly more plausible look at how the shadow paths might look:

 

 

Obviously in the working version, a LOT more care will have to be taken regarding level layout, alley widths, etc.

[pmartin252]

This game sounds and looks great! - The main problem (I believe) would probably be the use of so many colours horizontally across the screen. If I understand it correctly you cannot change the background colour easily in this direction, only vertically (unless you use Andrew's Chronocolour) which I believe may use up processing time/power. Also the shadow blocking effect is an excellent idea but is probably very difficult to implement on the 2600

Despite all my doom and gloom, I'm sure it can be manipulated into something that can be achieved on the VCS!

 

Good luck with it!

[Tennis]

what?! i can't believe you did another game without me hehe

hmm i quess i have to do one myself then

 

looks great, and the concept sounds pretty cool aswell.

best of luck bud.