Working title: In The Dark
I've been jotting ideas for a hidden movement, spooky/horror game where players are mostly in the dark and silence is key. The goal is to escape alive. The monsters are completely blind but can hear. Players can either move, listen to reveal limited information about every space around them, strike a match to see around you, or use a flashlight to light up multiple spaces in a single direction.
Bumping into a wall would make noise and might alert adjacent monsters. Accidently stumbling into a monster and screaming like a little girl because you're too cheap to use your matches would alert everything in a large area.
The basic idea was partially inspired by the nurse scene in the first Silent Hill movie... which I don't recommend at all. Guh! Just watch the scene, not the movie. I'm open to the idea of making it so the monsters can see, making matches and flashlights not only expensive but really dangerous, but I haven't spent much time with that yet.
I've brainstormed a few versions of the game but I keep running into mechanical hurdles.
►Mechanic 1, Cards in a grid:
The top of every card in the grid shows an Eye (sight) and an Ear (sound) symbol on either half. The face-down side has a monster, wall, empty path, teammate, trap, water dripping into a puddle, etc. Players can peak under the Eye or Ear but only one at a time. If you peak under the "listen" side you'll see something like, *drip drip*, *skitter*, *silence*, or *heavy breathing*. If you peak at the "sight" side, you'll see an image of what's there, but matches and flashlights are expensive to use. Listening is cheaper, but gives less reliable information. Monsters can only listen but they can move faster if they hear something.
Problems: If it's a co-op vs AI, how do monsters move without revealing to players exactly where they are? Writing their movements down on a piece of paper doesn't change the contents of the cards on the table. A two-player or one vs many game still has the same problem. Which led me to...
►Mechanic 2, A gimmicky vertical grid:
Imagine a custom, large, vertical card sleeve. The Human player's side would have a full grid of sideways Sight/Sound cards described earlier. Each card can be slid an inch or so in either direction (left or right) to reveal part of the card in the sleeve behind it. The Monster's side of the wall is filled in with various monsters, empty paths, walls, etc with their hidden sight/sound information facing the Human player. This would allow the Monster to move monsters (by switching them with empty spaces, for example) without revealing exactly where they're moving to and from. Humans could light a match one turn and see a monster in front of them and have it be missing when they light a match next turn.
Problems: I don't know how easy something like that would be to produce. Also, I originally wanted this to be a co-op which flows into...
►Mechanic 3, A blind cooperative experience
I wanted the original design to be cooperative with players being able to warn each other what is around a corner ONLY if they had well-lit line-of-sight. If you can't see each other, tough luck. Why not just tell each other what you see? I guess... but real-world noise will alert monsters as well. If you have line of sight, you must use sign language, scared faces and wild gestures to communicate with your team.
I also want players to be able to lose each other. Is that breathing from right behind you your teammate? It was a minute ago...
Problems: Keeping information from teammates. You can hide WHAT you hear or see but not where you are based on what cards you're peaking at. It's less of a problem for sight because it makes sense that you might see light from their direction, but someone listening quietly in the dark shouldn't be obvious.
►Mechanic 4, Sleeved cards for each location
Two cards in a sleeve. The front card has the generic Sight/Sound face and the back card contains the contents of the location. Lift the front card to reveal the bottom of the back card, *drip drip* or lift the back card to reaveal it's top *Just a puddle*.
Problems: Similar to mechanic two but on the table instead of vertical... but brings back the problem of players being able to see which cards are being looked at or manipulated.
►I can't think of any games with the peaking/only seeing half of the card mechanic but I don't doubt that they exist. Have you seen it before? Any ideas for implementing it better or at all?
•Things I want to avoid:
-Memory. I want the board to change to keep players on their toes.
-Complete Knowledge.
-Writing movements on paper. I've just never really enjoyed that in games and it has seemed to create just as many problems as it solves when I've toyed with the idea. And I just like the thematic feel of peaking under a card.
•Other games that have similar themes/mechanics (that I've played/researched):
-Nuns On The Run
-Escape From Aliens In Outer Space
-Specter Ops
-Mord Im Arosa
•Other Mechanics to brainstorm:
-Monsters aren't blind?
-Entire game as a hand of sleeved cards that is passed around (w/ Mechanic 4). Might require a pad to keep track of positions and movements.
-Colored decoder lenses to hide info from different factions/players.
-Have the game actually revolve around sound as well as sight.
A moderator does seem like the easiest way to keep everything hidden but I don't know if requiring an extra player, who is only indirectly involved, is a good idea. But that never stopped D&D, so what do I know. I just don't want any player to feel disengaged.
czarcastic: My original design had the monster being blind. Light give only the human players temporary information about their surroundings. My idea was if you talk IRL then you've given away your position, at least to any monster than might be nearby. It would depend on how the scale of the board. I was thinking very close quarters, unable to skinny past someone blocking a hallway. As opposed to true hallways in a building.
As far as sleeves go... do they make ones that are open on both ends? Else I'm not sure how I would be able to choose which piece of information I revealed without potentially revealing too much.
McTeddy: I hadn't looked at AvP before. Thanks for the tip. :)
That splitting up mechanic sounds really cool although I'm not sure if fits for this game. I'll keep it in mind though.
Let-off: That sounds like it could be a lot fun! And it sounds like it has a similar tension to what I'm going for. So... the players never actually see the board? No cards or anything like that? Fascinating...
I wonder if it would work to have a large 3-sided shield that can surround the board so each player can look at the board and move around in privacy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uC2fSXbG0rg
The Dice Tower's review for Captain Sonar just came out which looks really interesting from a design standpoint. While my main takeaway for my game was the really big shields... the radio operator's role was by far the most interesting part.