Shut in Panic: a Strange Horror Co-Op

Hi there. I'm a Finnish university student who loves horror and games. I've been learning game programming on my own for about ten years now, and three years ago I started using Unity. My new Unity project seems promising, so I decided to create this blog.

Here, I'll start giving updates on my new indie game project Shut in Panic, which I started working on two months ago. On this post, I'll try to explain what the game is about. (Progress-wise, I'm nearly done with the game engine.)

What is it?

Shut in Panic is quite a weird mix of genres. In just one sentence, I would describe it as an online co-op retro first-person Lovecraftian real-time text adventure survival horror game. I'm sure that there are genres that would describe the game better, but this will have to do for now.
Here's a (cropped) screenshot to assure you that the game is indeed retro and first-person:

Yeah, these are the game's graphics. And I probably won't change them either (not much anyway). But a game is more than graphics, right?

Setting

Let me explain the game's setting first. As you can see from the screenshot, the players are in a house in the middle of the woods. They've locked themselves in to escape from something out there. But they know that whatever it is, it's going to break in soon. It's going to indiscriminately grab one of them, not to kill them, but to drag them outside, and to leave them there. Leave them waiting for something indiscribable in the night to gather them, to strip them of their humanity...

Unless, a friend pulls them back inside. Unless, they run and hide, in the bedroom, in the bathroom, in the basement. Unless they work together to find a weapon. But the hunter can hide as well, and paralyze you with fear, and make you weak from panic...

Panic

Now that you kinda know that the players are trying to kill an alien that is trying to abduct them (breaking the mood here a bit, sorry), here's a cool feature of the game. You might find yourself panicking when typing commands in a hurry. To open a door, for example, you need to face it and type "open". If you misspell commands, or enter the wrong command, you'll gradually start panicking in the game. There's a panic meter, that rises a bit when you fail a command or see the alien (some items can alter panic as well). In this way, the game actually tries to measure the player's own panic, and applies proper consequences, such as loud movement, failing certain actions, dropping wielded items, and finally, breaking down and needing other player's help to regain your wits.

I know that some people might have an advantage by being faster or more accurate at typing, but the commands are usually just single words interpreted according to context. You could think of them as combos that many games already use. It's just that this time there's a penalty for failing a combo.

Items!

Another, actually a lot more important part of the game, is the item system. (The weapon you need to find is an item for example.) There are lots of different items that you can use in pretty much any way you want. Found a hammer and an orange? Then you know what to do. The game's graphics are pretty abstract for the very reason of me being able to make tons of items without spending much time on modeling them, but on making item interactions interesting and seemingly free. At this point, I have a solid command- and parser system in place, which handles everything from movement to specific actions in an online environment.

Moreover, items have physical simulation, which adds to the fun of doing weird stuff while an alien is in the other room. There's also a speech synthesizer in place, which players can use to say stuff in the game. This obviously includes weird stuff.

Tactical Gameplay Against an AI

The gameplay itself consists of moving from room to room and trying to avoid the alien while searching for the weapon among other items. While items are scattered all around and can be picked up, the main way of searching is done by beginning a search at a cupboard or other such container. This search takes about 30 seconds and reveals items as it progresses. And because there's only a couple large containers per room, it makes sense for the players to split up in order to search efficiently. This, in turn, encourages barricading in order to buy more time for searching before the alien gets in.

Splitting up is encouraged, but when the alien gets you, you obviously need the help of other players. The alien doesn't kill anyone, but drags them outside, where they can get back in only by receiving help from others. You can't climb through a window on your own for example. Somebody needs to pull you back up. Therefore, you should stick together when in danger. But you shouldn't try to outnumber your foe either, as it has the ability to paralyze players, and could easily stop the whole group. So, the players must be able to work both together and on their own.

In conclusion, it's the job of the AI to make the players act in a certain way, to make the game come together, and to create interesting and panic-inducing situations while being completely fair. It can't, for instance, just rush into a room when the game is only beginning. It's more of a predator that lurks around, and slowly turns the door handle to give you time to hide. It makes noises and bumps stuff around to let you occasionally know where it is. And it searches everywhere until it finds you.

The progress so far

As I mentioned in the beginning, I'm nearly done with the game engine, including the basic map-, player-, object-, and item systems (they all use the same underlying system really). And the AI is already able to independently pathfind, search rooms, chase players, and drag them outside.

Why haven't I released any games before?

Well, I work on my own, and my projects have been too ambitious for that. Also, properly learning Unity took a couple of years. This is the first time I think I could actually finish a project and release it. So, unsurprisingly, I'm planning on releasing Shut in Panic on Steam when it's ready. But that might take some time as I'm currently studying as well.