I agree that mystery is a big part of horror. You don't need to explain it, or even reveal its scope. Maybe there are conspiratorial overtones, but the apparent conspirators are destroyed by their own creation. Mislead the player with conflicting facts. Have a few people who are sure of how it started and how to stop it, but let them be wrong.

Once you describe the zombie as a virus infected person, they're less scary. Once you describe the zombies as controlled by an evil wizard, they're less scary. I think some of the most important elements of zombie themed stories in general are panic, confusion, and futility. Don't lose those.

How about...

The player character picks up thier ringing phone. After a wierd tone, the voice on the other end says "The apocalypse! Its happening. Get yourself and any SURVIVORS to Alphaville in Washington state where you will recieve further orders...Do not haste, get there at all costs."

Player character drops the phone, races to the closet and pulls out a shotgun before heading to thier car...On the way, that pesky nosey neighbour is shuffleing about outside. As the player approches, the neighbour turns as if to say hello...but the most gawd awfull sounds come out of his mouth...clearly something is wrong, and the PC quickly blows the neigbour away, as our adventure begins.

The "Zombies" in this game look and act like normal people...but the world seems to have been turned inside out...the radio and noises of the infected are nausiateing to the players ears...Only the uneffected survivors can speak clearly and seem to understand the PC...meanwhile you and the few survivors you meet along the way are raceing to get to Alphaville with the entire infected police department after you.

However at the end of the game it is revieled that the world was normal the whole time...only the survivors were part of brainwashed religious cult under FBI/CIA investigation...


Scarey thing is this could really happen...Jonestown, Solar Temple, Heaven's Gate were all cults that ended in mass suicide...some cults have commited murder-suicide where members kill others before turning the gun on themselves, which is kinda what happens in the game described above.

As for the supposed change the world undergoes in the game (can't understand "infected" people) think of it this way...sometimes you loose your car keys, only to find them sitting right out in the open on the table. Our minds clearly can play tricks on us even without drugs and space aliens to muck things up.

I notice that this is abit old topic but I'll still add my input for a Zombie story line.

The game would be abit futuristic (it'd have time travel) but other than that, it's mostly based in our time era. The world has been dying slowly due to Zombie infestation. The world has been in this state for atleast 50 years now.

It is good to mention that the Zombies arent regular undead, but they are people infected with a Rage virus like in 28 Days later.

So anyways, the story begins like this. You are a 24 year old refugee who doesnt know much about the real world (humanity has retreated into underground bunkers and other safe havens and have lived in them for 50 years now.)
One day you find out that your mother (who is the only parent you have) reveals to you that she is infected by the rage virus (zombification can be a slow or fast process, depending on the person). You are shocked and terrified to hear this news, but keep it a secret from everyone else.

Out of the blue, a scientist comes to you and proposes to make you a deal. He tells you that it is your duty to travel back in time (he recently invented time travelling) and find the source of the rage virus. And then bring back samples of it to him so that he can make a cure for it. After some tests (he'll time travel is tricky business, you need to be ready for it) you are sent into different time eras, like the 60's, 70's 80's or maybe different eras that are somewhere in the future (but it still needs to be in the past from the current time line).

You have a time limit to complete the different scenarios you go to, because the goal of the game is to save your mother, and perhaps all that is left of humanity. The game itself could take place in cities with free roaming where you do investigative work, and fight zombies that are suddenly appearing out of nothing for the first time.

Through a series of missions and such, we get to the conclusion that'll throw everyone (atleast I hope) out of their seats. What had really happened, was the good willed scientist was infact a scientist from an enemy country who had come up with a new kind of war method. He had used a poor sap (you) to go through time, infecting people with the rage virus.
The testing before sending you to travel through time was just him implanting the virus within you. With everyone as mindless zombies, they could just bomb your country into oblivion and look like heroes to the rest of the world. And take it over after the "purging".

The game ends with the hero (still infected) killing the doctor in one last battle and then returning to his home to spend the last few days he has left before turning into a raging savage (or killing himself) along with the rest of the refugees who lived in the same bunker, bomb shelter or wherever you like.

I left out some parts vague so that you people could fill out the details with whatever you want.

Quote: Original post by Sulphix
The biggest flaws of the Resident Evil stories is that they over-explain everything. By doing this, the writers give us unnecessary details that feel superfluous and don't enrich the experience much; they only distract from it.

hey you need to know...
you migh not know some physics ...
but your brain hawe much of them on your brain...
this is why you feell ill when you see stupid physics on fx...

and resident-evil-3 is realy technical on much reasons...
for example...

zombies can stay alive just when their body allready supports this...

peoples deads effectively when their brain stops=sleeps
but they can stand up if their brain can say sthis...
but the brain gives up when energy is not enough...
it isn't trys to continue before realy ewery data or resources lost.

this means also standard dead peoples can turn alive if enough tecnology is exists...or may be just some data on their brain will usefull...
but also with data recowery technics like standard disc recowery...
it may be possible for all data/completely return to life...
it can be stupid for some ones but thats just real worlds physics...

the story of zombies on R.E. is realy technical or theorically possible.

excluding giant things like big bugs. or animals...

First off, is this in the future, the past, or the present?

I like the quarentine idea that was proposed earlier, but i think you should expand on it. Here's my 2 cents:

The setting would be around isreal. For an unknown reason, the isreali military quarentines bay area (over there). only a few people get left in the quarentine, and the main character is one of them.
Later on, "zombies" start coming up through the ground. no one knows where they came from or how they got there.

later on, the main character (somehow) figures out that the zombies are in fact the people who got drownded around noahs ark (in that time period, or whatever).
since god could not kill them (since he cannot sin, and killing them would demonstrate wrath) he simply messed them up and made them dorment.

the main character has to figure out what made them wake up and how to revert the process.

thats the best i can do. hope your game goes well.

Think about how important "Horror" actually is, I think what you want to impress is fear (with immersion). Not so much this story creeps me out.. or the cover of this game is creepy, I'll buy it.

I think about how important killing should be in survival, you have this tool in between you and the one who threatens your survival, and I'm incredibly fascinated with the relationship between you and this tool. I'm thinking about more detailed weapons.. but maybe only two actual guns in the game. Maybe you start in your house and you have a shotgun in your bedroom closet for self protection or a rifle for hunting. How many shells do you have?

and while monsters could be a frightening prospect you need to be immersed before your ready to fight for your life. You can begin to build this atmosphere around engaging details.

Here's an idea - through your own first person sight, you found your shotgun and it's one of those single shell shotguns that folds.. But you can't reload in a single press of the button. (it's not one motion) you have to press one button to open the barrel (g) then to load a shell you press another button (n) now to close it you press the same button as opening. After you observe how long it may actually take to fire you find this dilemma "what could go wrong?" playing in your head (you may even find yourself practicing loading quickly).. what if you cant reload quickly enough in conflict or what if you accidentally release your barrel and the gun ejects your shell. - - now you have to find way's into other peoples houses and search them in the places that most importantly serve your survival. You find another shotgun in someones bedroom under their bed, of the exact same kind but a different manufacturer, and you find that one has a smoother more quiet action.. you find yourself forming preferences. How many guns can you carry at the same time, how useful will it be to have two shotguns on hand, and decide whether or not just to drop one in an encounter. so you see these guns are more than just limbs. you accidentally bump them into lamps making loud noises. If you ran gun first into a wall, you probably wouldn't still be holding that gun-

im not saying that fantastic storytelling isn't a valuable form, and realism is the only way to relate and therefore engage, I'm just saying I (and many others) need an immediate atmosphere for anything to really work. some seem to want a video game thats a flat tool for minor illusionary accomplishment and not for a real experience or expression.

anyway i like giving away ideas.

I think first person is valuable method. I often never wanted to hear a characters personalized description of what they're seeing in video games. If i'm to be directly immersed, I want to make this observation by looking through a t.v. set into this setting - I don't want press an observe button at the shotgun I just found and read or hear " this is my hunting shotgun, it looks a little rusty " I want to find my shotgun in the closet by opening the closet door and seeing it, and then to guess why it's in the closet behind the clothes, or why let's say it's in a camouflage gun case. There needs to be room for your mind to move in these things.

forget about history.. your thinking about advancement in a survival situation. Your getting hungrier and more exhausted untill you satisfy those needs.

Personalizing the experience is what will make the urgency to survive.

Quote: Original post by Nth
Now possession! thats a genre of horror that rarely gets touched. You never see a game where people become all crazed and "zombie-ish" (for you undead lovahs) because of spiritual means. Doom kinda played on it, but that's a FPS and was the story REALLY all that important? no, you just wanted the big gun.

Quote: Original post by trapdoor
There's the infested, parasite, kind that can pretty much be anything. They can get their infestation from aliens, viruses, or the occult... or anything really if you start going into the fantasy world.

This made me have an idea. The "occult" word particularly.

Quote: Original post by Nth
Also, the zombie games never actually place you in the point where all the crap went wrong, but just shove you in to a place where hell has already broken loose. How did it get that bad? Hell if you know...just grab a shotgun and fire away. gets old doesnt it.

You'll like this.

Quote: Original post by Nth
Now possession! thats a genre of horror that rarely gets touched. You never see a game where people become all crazed and "zombie-ish" (for you undead lovahs) because of spiritual means. Doom kinda played on it, but that's a FPS and was the story REALLY all that important? no, you just wanted the big gun.

You'll also like this, well, maybe.

Here's my idea:

You start out with a normal life, you're a guy (because the next part I think is scarier if you're a guy), and you're about 17 years old.

Therefore you start in your house. You meet your mother, your father, your sister. Then you go to school, talk to most classmates you have, have a grip of what's going on there. On the way to school and back, you talk to a few neighbors. You live in an almost rich area of the city, in a friendly neighborhood with no high buildings, just houses and little shops and things like that, except this big warehouse.

At the school, you and your friends had a little talk during break, and agreed that you'd spend the night doing a ritual at the warehouse. None of you are actually fanatics nor anything, you're doing it just for fun. And it happens to be on new year's night.

At around eleven o'clock, you sneak out of your place, and go to the warehouse. Everything's quiet because all the people are at downtown to celebrate new year.

When you get to the warehouse, your friend whose dad owns the place (he remembered you about it during school) opens up for you and you go in. Everybody gets set to do the ritual, with small sacks of herbs and other things. The warehouse is empty - you've never been there - and when you ask about it, the girl says it's because her father is afraid of the place because he hears voices when he spends too long in it.

Then, it's when you all start doing the ritual. Mainly your girlfriend (that's why you need to be a guy, but more about it soon) coordinates things, throws small quantities of herbs and some other creepy stuff. She asks the others to cut one of they're fingertips so a drop of blood goes in the fire (yes, it's a small fire with wood right in the middle of the warehouse - which is empty, by the way, except for a car that looks like it's from the 60's). You all do it.

One of your friends say it's not enough, because nothing happened, and throws a bunch of herbs kind of frustrated they all went there for nothing.

Suddenly the fire increases enormeously (secretly, what the fire really needed after all the ingredients was anger) and just as suddenly, is reduce to a fire an three inches in height.

What seems to be a ghostly spirit barely appears - the ghost of Apocalypse, and the game's called Phantom Apocalypse or something - and you all see it and look scared. It then moves towards everyone of you, and finally stops at your girlfriend. Then it bites her on the neck, part of the spirit seems to enter her while she's biting. It fades when it's done, while your girlfriend passes out.

You all look worried and gather around her, but she wakes up very fast. She looks fine, and doesn't seem to remember it, so you all decide to pretend it never happened, though you really can't, and go home.

The next morning, new year's eve, you follow your routine. You go to school. Yes, on new year's eve, because you and your classmates are all genius and go to a private genius school, which has classes every day of the year. But your girlfriend seems to be acting a little strange. She doesn't seem to know anybody but those who were at the ritual (in fact "it" only knows it because "it" overheard you saying it at the goodbye last night), but she is compelled to follow her routine and studies even striclier than usual (that is the inner fight).

The days follows, and on the newspaper there's always a brutal attack that almost kills the victims with bites and leaves them alive, but they don't remember anything, and yet they still go to the hospital and back to their houses and follow their routine, without recognizing anyone. It follows so for an entire week.

On the eighth day, the newspaper talks about a murder, an actual murder. It's somebody you know - a classmate.

On the ninth day, two murders.
On the tenth day, three murders
On the eleventh day, four murders.
On the twelth day, five murders.
On the thirteenth day, six murders.
And on the fourteenth day, seven murders.

Finally, on the fifteenth day, the town is on full alert. "Who could be doing those things," you ask yourself. Then you presentiate something weird at school - in the boys bathroom at school, a classmate murders someone from another class. The classmate seems to be decaying. That classmate was also acting weirdly, but now he seems to not think at all, so aggressively he attacks (this is not shown, only the sounds and stuff can be heard, the camera obviously faces the player character instead). After done, he passes out. The other one is obviously dead from the attack.

You run away, and tell others what you saw. Your girlfriend smiles, while all others are terrified. Everyone's sent home for a week.

During that time, you decide to visit your girlfriend, but noone's home. You think of the worse, she might be dead. The player character decides that it's best to go back home and grab his father's gun just in case, but on the way back you encounter something terrible - another classmate, barely with his head on his neck. You run away.

Noone's at your place, neither. Once again, you fear the worst (they were actually taken by the cops to a safe place, which is another town, but the cops couldn't move everyone at the same time, because that could cause mass histeria).

From then on you grab a gun and find out the following, which I'm too lazy to think about right now how you do it: your girlfriend's possessed by the Phantom of the Apocalypse, she bites those the hose is familiar with (the classmates, her parents), and those turn into zombies after a week, and all is written down on the book you were using for the ritual. The main hint for that is that you see your girlfriend biting someone and something flowing from her to that person.

Also, eventually, the whole town is either dead or a zombie, because the "afflicted" with the soul that your girlfriend passes to them also makes them "bite" the ones the host is familiar with besides murdering those they don't know.

If on easy difficulty, all you have to do is escape, and then the ending is a bunch of cops come in and rescue the survivors, killing every "afflicted". But some escape and eventually the entire world is dominated.

On normal difficulty and hard although, the player character feels compeled to putting a stop to it, either by killing the girlfriend or, the best ending of all, you have to collect a series of items to make a counter-spell and apply to your girlfriend instead of killing her, when she's knocked out, hm, weak.

This is a story of suspense, survival and horror.

Feedback, please.

Quote: Original post by Nth
Now possession! thats a genre of horror that rarely gets touched. You never see a game where people become all crazed and "zombie-ish" (for you undead lovahs) because of spiritual means. Doom kinda played on it, but that's a FPS and was the story REALLY all that important? no, you just wanted the big gun.

Quote: Original post by trapdoor
There's the infested, parasite, kind that can pretty much be anything. They can get their infestation from aliens, viruses, or the occult... or anything really if you start going into the fantasy world.

This made me have an idea. The "occult" word particularly.

Quote: Original post by Nth
Also, the zombie games never actually place you in the point where all the crap went wrong, but just shove you in to a place where hell has already broken loose. How did it get that bad? Hell if you know...just grab a shotgun and fire away. gets old doesnt it.

You'll like this.

Quote: Original post by Nth
Now possession! thats a genre of horror that rarely gets touched. You never see a game where people become all crazed and "zombie-ish" (for you undead lovahs) because of spiritual means. Doom kinda played on it, but that's a FPS and was the story REALLY all that important? no, you just wanted the big gun.

You'll also like this, well, maybe.

Here's my idea:

You start out with a normal life, you're a guy (because the next part I think is scarier if you're a guy), and you're about 17 years old.

Therefore you start in your house. You meet your mother, your father, your sister. Then you go to school, talk to most classmates you have, have a grip of what's going on there. On the way to school and back, you talk to a few neighbors. You live in an almost rich area of the city, in a friendly neighborhood with no high buildings, just houses and little shops and things like that, except this big warehouse.

At the school, you and your friends had a little talk during break, and agreed that you'd spend the night doing a ritual at the warehouse. None of you are actually fanatics nor anything, you're doing it just for fun. And it happens to be on new year's night.

At around eleven o'clock, you sneak out of your place, and go to the warehouse. Everything's quiet because all the people are at downtown to celebrate new year.

When you get to the warehouse, your friend whose dad owns the place (he remembered you about it during school) opens up for you and you go in. Everybody gets set to do the ritual, with small sacks of herbs and other things. The warehouse is empty - you've never been there - and when you ask about it, the girl says it's because her father is afraid of the place because he hears voices when he spends too long in it.

Then, it's when you all start doing the ritual. Mainly your girlfriend (that's why you need to be a guy, but more about it soon) coordinates things, throws small quantities of herbs and some other creepy stuff. She asks the others to cut one of they're fingertips so a drop of blood goes in the fire (yes, it's a small fire with wood right in the middle of the warehouse - which is empty, by the way, except for a car that looks like it's from the 60's). You all do it.

One of your friends say it's not enough, because nothing happened, and throws a bunch of herbs kind of frustrated they all went there for nothing.

Suddenly the fire increases enormeously (secretly, what the fire really needed after all the ingredients was anger) and just as suddenly, is reduce to a fire an three inches in height.

What seems to be a ghostly spirit barely appears - the ghost of Apocalypse, and the game's called Phantom Apocalypse or something - and you all see it and look scared. It then moves towards everyone of you, and finally stops at your girlfriend. Then it bites her on the neck, part of the spirit seems to enter her while she's biting. It fades when it's done, while your girlfriend passes out.

You all look worried and gather around her, but she wakes up very fast. She looks fine, and doesn't seem to remember it, so you all decide to pretend it never happened, though you really can't, and go home.

The next morning, new year's eve, you follow your routine. You go to school. Yes, on new year's eve, because you and your classmates are all genius and go to a private genius school, which has classes every day of the year. But your girlfriend seems to be acting a little strange. She doesn't seem to know anybody but those who were at the ritual (in fact "it" only knows it because "it" overheard you saying it at the goodbye last night), but she is compelled to follow her routine and studies even striclier than usual (that is the inner fight).

The days follows, and on the newspaper there's always a brutal attack that almost kills the victims with bites and leaves them alive, but they don't remember anything, and yet they still go to the hospital and back to their houses and follow their routine, without recognizing anyone. It follows so for an entire week.

On the eighth day, the newspaper talks about a murder, an actual murder. It's somebody you know - a classmate.

On the ninth day, two murders.
On the tenth day, three murders
On the eleventh day, four murders.
On the twelth day, five murders.
On the thirteenth day, six murders.
And on the fourteenth day, seven murders.

Finally, on the fifteenth day, the town is on full alert. "Who could be doing those things," you ask yourself. Then you presentiate something weird at school - in the boys bathroom at school, a classmate murders someone from another class. The classmate seems to be decaying. That classmate was also acting weirdly, but now he seems to not think at all, so aggressively he attacks (this is not shown, only the sounds and stuff can be heard, the camera obviously faces the player character instead). After done, he passes out. The other one is obviously dead from the attack.

You run away, and tell others what you saw. Your girlfriend smiles, while all others are terrified. Everyone's sent home for a week.

During that time, you decide to visit your girlfriend, but noone's home. You think of the worse, she might be dead. The player character decides that it's best to go back home and grab his father's gun just in case, but on the way back you encounter something terrible - another classmate, barely with his head on his neck. You run away.

Noone's at your place, neither. Once again, you fear the worst (they were actually taken by the cops to a safe place, which is another town, but the cops couldn't move everyone at the same time, because that could cause mass histeria).

From then on you grab a gun and find out the following, which I'm too lazy to think about right now how you do it: your girlfriend's possessed by the Phantom of the Apocalypse, she bites those the hose is familiar with (the classmates, her parents), and those turn into zombies after a week, and all is written down on the book you were using for the ritual. The main hint for that is that you see your girlfriend biting someone and something flowing from her to that person.

Also, eventually, the whole town is either dead or a zombie, because the "afflicted" with the soul that your girlfriend passes to them also makes them "bite" the ones the host is familiar with besides murdering those they don't know.

If on easy difficulty, all you have to do is escape, and then the ending is a bunch of cops come in and rescue the survivors, killing every "afflicted". But some escape and eventually the entire world is dominated.

On normal difficulty and hard although, the player character feels compeled to putting a stop to it, either by killing the girlfriend or, the best ending of all, you have to collect a series of items to make a counter-spell and apply to your girlfriend instead of killing her, when she's knocked out, hm, weak.

This is a story of suspense, survival and horror, with a religious touch added to it.

Feedback, please.

EDIT: Oh, and when your girlfriend afflicts someone, she gets a tiny bit stronger, and everytime an afflicted afflicts someone else as well. And that is a little noticeable, and when you see her doing it she's ghostly and arua like, and you can see it gets worse until then and afterwards, since you may have to fight her every once in a while to get something at the warehouse or information about it or if you try facing her early on. So by the end of the game, she's like the girl from The Calling.

[Edited by - Kin the Pumpkin King on June 18, 2007 2:47:42 PM]