Building Alliances pt2

Various Game Research and Inspiration

In our group, we had collectively decided what kind of game it was that we had wanted to create. We shared our interests and favourite types of games with each other in order to narrow down where I should look for game Inspiration and what sort of themes we would like to focus our game on.

Left 4 Dead

https://left4dead.fandom.com/wiki/Left_4_Dead_Wiki

Left 4 Dead is a game series where you play in a team as one of the characters within a group of survivalists stuck in an apocalyptic world. You venture together through different areas and levels using guns and resources you have collected to force through waves of zombies and creatures that want you as their next meal. Different levels contain different objectives. Some levels, your focus is to simply navigate through the map and keep yourself and your team alive while making it to a destination. Through gameplay, character interactions and map elements, you uncover different stories from the landscape and universe your in as well as the fates of the people who were once there. Other levels, you are faced with an objective to progress. This could be locating gas canisters around the building you and your team are at in order to fuel a car to use as your escape. All while battling through zombies to keep yourselves alive. 

Resident Evil

https://residentevil.fandom.com/wiki/Resident_Evil_games

Resident Evil is an action horror story game series and live action movie series that usually is constructed of a survivor type character or interchangeable survivors playing different perspectives that are playing through a story campaign. A large amount of the games released within the series focus on the Umbrella Corporation, an international pharmaceutical company that creates and manufactures mutagenic viruses that can disfigure people into mutant zombies and monsters. The efforts of Umbrella are being fought against by agents of STARS, an elite police force looking to stop these outbreaks. Resident Evil also pushes their story lines into other directions and plotlines away from this one, but this is the most iconic and identifiable to the series. A lot of the series takes place in a large police station called the Raccoon Police department and various puzzles, locks and items are located around the map. it is part of the players objective to work through the map to find things and unlock areas and collectables in order to progress and keep the story going.

Dead By Daylight

https://deadbydaylight.fandom.com/wiki/Dead_by_Daylight_Wiki

Dead By Daylight is an asymmetrical horror game where 4 survivors face off against 1 killer to complete 5 objectives to power their escape route and escape their trial. the survivors must work as a team to help each other and repair the objectives while also distracting the killer to buy time for their teammates to open the path for their escape. The killer must use their various powers and abilities to locate and hunt down survivors, throwing them onto meat hooks to offer them as a sacrifice to the realm and trials overseer the entity. They must put pressure onto the survivors and prevent them from helping each other and completing the objectives towards their escape. Successfully landing a survivor onto a meat hook 3 times will satisfy the entity and the survivor will be accepted as a sacrifice. This game is different to the others on the list as it doesn't follow a story campaign approach. The game takes place through multiple vast locations as the entity snatches things away from the real world. This includes monstrous entities and horrors for it to use as killers within its games, various people for it to subject to torment within its games as well as locations these characters came from for it to use as arenas for the trials to take place within. 

World War Z: Aftermath

https://worldwarz.fandom.com/wiki/World_War_Z_Wiki

World War Z: Aftermath is a zombie campaign game that lets you and a team of other survivors play through the experiences of people from different parts of the world after a zombie infection has broken out. The game is split up into sections and each section contains multiple levels. Each section takes place in a different part of the world and the characters you get to play as change with each section to characters from that area when the outbreak began. You move through places like Japan, Russia, France and more exploring landscapes from those places while working as a team to get to safety. You work through areas taking out hoards of zombies while learning more about the location through the map and the vast amount of conversation happening between the playable characters providing an insight into life before the outbreak as well as the downfall of the current location. You work together to complete different tasks, such as reinforcing an area and calling for help or fighting with the army outside the gates of a safe camp to ensure you get the characters to safety. This game also uses collectables to add lore and increase your fight power. You can find documents throughout the map to provide more details on the area you are in as well as fill in some of the blanks about what happened. 

Fatal Frame

https://fatalframe.fandom.com/wiki/Fatal_Frame_Wiki

Fatal Frame is a Japanese horror franchise that focuses on the supernatural, myths and folklore of Japan. Its set in older 1986+ Japan and is played through the perspective of multiple characters at different intervals with usually one main character the player spends most of their time playing as. You start out the game by visiting a haunted location with a special camera that has the ability to reveal things that otherwise cannot. This camera is your lifeline and can be used to find collectables, necessities, secrets as well as being used as a mechanic to progress and defend yourself against harmful vengeful spirits and curses. The story progresses as the player makes their choices. The setting alternates depending on where the story goes. Sometimes you're in a house, other times following a dimly lit path up the side of a waterfall to reach a sacred shrine. You progress the story through character interactions and objects you find around the game both with and without your camera. 

After doing this deep dive into various games that have similar themes to the direction we want to take our game for the brief, I have created these mood boards that cover a few areas of the upcoming design work we will have to do. Using the games researched as well as more for ideas, I made a mood board for Environment, Characters and Weapons/Gear. These will also help us when considering artistic choices such as style, design and colour scheming. I big thing that I hate within games is that horror means dark colours, gloom and dull materials. While this is definitely a good approach sometimes, I think an effective design within horror also mixes in colours and fun so a lot of the inspirations I took from within these games bring these elements with them. 

References

Fatal Frame Wiki. (n.d.). Fandom.com. Retrieved 6 February 2025, from https://fatalframe.fandom.com/wiki/Fatal_Frame_Wiki

Left 4 Dead Wiki. (n.d.). Fandom.com. Retrieved 6 February 2025, from https://left4dead.fandom.com/wiki/Left_4_Dead_Wiki

Official dead by daylight wiki. (n.d.). Fandom.com. Retrieved 6 February 2025, from https://deadbydaylight.fandom.com/wiki/Dead_by_Daylight_Wiki

Resident Evil games. (n.d.). Resident Evil Wiki; Fandom, Inc. Retrieved 6 February 2025, from https://residentevil.fandom.com/wiki/Resident_Evil_games

World war Z wiki. (n.d.). Fandom.com. Retrieved 6 February 2025, from https://worldwarz.fandom.com/wiki/World_War_Z_Wiki