For Horror games...

[Eschaton]

I want to ask about two subjects this time, both pertaining to a tentative horror game.

One, it's also a pretty old school RPG with lots of dice rolls and checks.  That said, just how acceptable are random outcomes and success of actions in a horror game?

Also, one of my favorite game series (before 3) ever, Resident Evil had limited saving.  That is, you could only save as long as you had a finite resource.  Again, thoughts?

 

[Berylstone]

I want to ask about two subjects this time, both pertaining to a tentative horror game.

One, it's also a pretty old school RPG with lots of dice rolls and checks.  That said, just how acceptable are random outcomes and success of actions in a horror game?

Also, one of my favorite game series (before 3) ever, Resident Evil had limited saving.  That is, you could only save as long as you had a finite resource.  Again, thoughts?

If it's a horror game I would say as long as it's horrifying the person playing it, it will be a success.  People who typically invest in the horror genre do so because they enjoy being grossed out or scared.  So as long as that is happening, I don't see anything wrong with random outcomes or limited saves.

 

[Espon]

I dunno if I'd want to play a horror game if my chances of survival are determined by the roll of the dice. 

 

[cabfe]

Limited saving can be a turn-down also.

I played one of these games, almost never saved because of it being very inconvenient (got to go a specific place, far from the "action", and back).

It happened that I died on an unforeseen encounter. I think I was supposed to be scared and run, but I didn't have the time because I was going to leave the room and was pressing the "move forward" key as usual. When the monster appeared, my key was still pressed... and I died.

And my last save was waaaayyyyy back.

I quit and never relaunched the game.

So, if you want to set limited saving, be careful about the balance between tension and frustration for the player.

Also, as Espon said, dying because of a dice roll is not really fun. And if it is combined to a last save from 1 hour ago it may ruin the game.

I'm not saying it will never work, but you have to master your gameplay to the finest level.

 

[Quigon]

I can tell you from experience that I don't know many people that like the idea of limited saving - my very first Blood Shard demo had that, and it didn't particularly fly well. I quite like the idea myself though, but I'm toying with it differently - rather than limited saves, I'm having limited restarts from checkpoints, and when you run out the necessary item you have to load a previous save. Saves are handled with save points to that effect.