Enemies and Balancing Player's Resources

The Player's Resources

      Resource management is a staple of the survival horror genre. This creates a lot of meaningful decisions for the player to make and implements a sense of strategy to satisfy the player's mind. These constant meaningful decisions further the feeling of pressure and threat that the player feels, which is an important part of the intended experience. 

In Caislean: Paranormal, the player's resources are as follows:

• Equipment 
  • (The equipment the player has. They come in three types: visual, auditory, and sensory. They provide the player with information, evidence, or security.)
• Equipment Batteries
  • (Batteries that are universal to all equipment. Must be purchased and will lose power throughout progression of the game and through spirit attacks.)
• Flashlight Battery
  • (Battery for the solar flashlight. Limited battery through the night, but recharges in sunlight.)
• Information
  • (Information is obtained or taken away based on the player's actions, and effects their odds of survival.)
• Money
  • (Earned or lost through the player's actions. Earned by recording evidence and used to purchase equipment and batteries.)
• Sanity
  • (The player's health. Less of a resource to manage, but I still wanted to mention it here as the amount of sanity enemies take away from the player will create weights in the decision making process.)

As the nights get more difficult, the player's goal is to capture evidence so they can have enough money to purchase more equipment to increase their information or security. Though the game was never finished to a state where all of these resources had meaningful decisions tied to them, many of them still did or had early implementations of.  

Enemy Variants and Effects on Resources

     There are 5 enemy types in the game. I will go through them all and explain their effects on the player's resources. 

Spirit

Resources Lost: Equipment Battery, Proximity Information

     The spirit will never directly harm the player, and they are not hostile towards humans. They do however steal the battery life from the players equipment if left unchecked. It must be startled with a sound to scare it away. 

     As the spirit drains the camera, it will make a noise that is audible if the player has the cameras open. This sound gets louds as the player gets closer to the correct camera being drained. If the player is unable to open the cameras, they will be unable to prevent the draining. At the same time, as the player locates and deals with the spirit, they lose the ability to properly hear sounds in their immediate proximity (camera closed.)

Phantom

Resources Lost: Sanity(low), Flashlight Battery, Camera Information

     The phantom will move towards the player and attempt to harm them. As the phantom approaches, the player shines their flashlight at them to prevent an attack. It takes a short bit of time to do this, and will cause the player to lose flashlight battery and be unable to view their cameras. If the phantom attacks the player, they will take low damage. Three hits from low damage, and they player will be out. I was planning to eventually have stronger variants that do more damage in later areas of the game, allowing the player to make less mistakes. The current phantom was meant to be the first enemy, and act as a learning tool for the player.  

Possessed Armor

Resources Lost: Sanity(medium), Flashlight Battery, Camera Information

     The armor affects the same resources as the phantom, but can not be detected through the cameras. The armor will occasionally progress towards the player through the darkness. There are two ways to detect it. Firstly, the player can shine their light in front of them to see if the armor is closer. Secondly, if the player has the cameras down, they will hear a small audio cue of armor squeaking to signal that the armor has moved. This sound is difficult to hear with the cameras up, and near impossible to hear if a spirit is draining a camera.

Poltergeist

Resources Lost: Sanity(medium), Proximity Information, Camera Information

     The poltergeist will choose a random camera and silently manifest itself into your proximity by jumping through the screen. The player can only detect the poltergeist by diligently checking all of their cameras. If the player has more equipment placed, it will take more time to check everything. 

     To prevent the poltergeist's attack, they must disable the camera for a short duration. This causes the player to lose that camera feed for a moment.

Revenant

Resources Lost: Sanity(medium)

     The revenant is unique in the way that is doesn't actively take resources away from the player, but rather draws the player's attention away from the other enemy types. The revenant is angered by light, and will immediately attack the player if the flashlight is shined in it's eyes. The method of attack is the same as the phantoms as it will move directly to the player's proximity. 

     The player must keep track of whether or not the entity in the doorway is a phantom or a revenant by watching the cameras and paying attention to the order of attacks (as only one entity will be in a doorway at a time).

     All of the enemies work together to create situations in which the player must make a decision about what to prioritize and what to keep track of at any given time. While I don't believe I completely nailed the balance between time spent in proximity and camera space, I feel like I was able to make interesting decisions for players when all enemies are in play at the same time.

     Next time I design resource management, I will be more careful about documenting and charting out every detail about it so that I may more properly analyze the systems balances.