Thrill of the Haunt
The game where you possess people, commit crimes, and run from the police
Basic starting gameplay:
When you start in a handful of preloaded scenes, you become a third person spectating ghost, that can float around, knock over small objects, and most importantly, when interacting with an NPC minding their business, can possess the bystander
Preloaded scenes?
There’s a handful of maps to choose from. You can choose between a convenience store, gas station, facility, neighborhood, or ally. Other maps should be able to be downloaded off of the steam workshop
Why the ghost?
The gameplay philosophy is that being a ghost can allow you to properly survey the scene and attempt to find routes. The gameplay should feel like an executable puzzle box, where you get placed in a sandbox environment, set up scenarios via interacting with minor elements, and then possess someone to execute said plan.
Possession:
The mechanic is simplistic, yet mechanically pretty deep. When possessing someone, the mission informally begins, and you cannot leave the possessed one until they die. Your goal as a ghost is to try to cause as much chaos as possible. You have an HP bar, stamina, and height all dependent on who you choose to possess. As a player, you can choose to stash items, push people and objects, yell at people with an in-game voice chat, and use weapons.
What’s the framework?
The framework is based on score attack, saving replays, and sandbox experimenting.
In-game voice chat?
The voice chat system will use parameters for determining intent. There’s the noise indicator, which can be used to either get attention by attracting people towards your location on the quiet side, or to cause distress on the louder side. There will also be voice recognition to detect key words, including mainly swears.
Committing Crimes:
Once possession has commenced, it’s time for the player to commit crime. The severity of which crimes can vary based on destruction caused, death count, people disturbed, along with a myriad of other unseen factors. Your score is to be indicated by a simple ranking system from F to S+, the more chaos you cause to ensue, the higher score you get. Once the player dies the score is locked in, you may survey the scene as a ghost, being able to edit the playback of the replay, and even optionally being able to drop back in at a previous point in time, however scores gotten will not be saved.
Why survey the scene?
The basic principle here is to allow the player to pick up on extrinsic behaviors of NPCs, learn how certain NPCs work, and test out “what if” scenarios. It can also be used as part of the replay system to be shared around and see the unintended consequences unfold from a different perspective. Basically, the butterfly effect in action.
Why a ranking system at all?
Simply put, ranking systems are fun. Complexly put, it’s a good visual indicator to show how the player is doing, it’s a great way to label the maps from the map selection based on completion, (ex: ULTRAKILL, Pizza tower) and it’s a good hallmark of score attack games. If it’s not this scoring system, it’d be something more unique and is open to change.
Running from the Police:
When the player reaches a certain threshold of destruction, is noticed by civilians and reported, or directly goes out of their way to piss off the police in some way, a police chase begins. When the player is caught, they are either to be arrested or killed. The player should have multiple tools in order to negate arrest, including being able to slide under objects, vault through windows, throw down shelves, and pull themselves up ledges. Most chases should remain dynamic, however their structuring can be put into 3 distinct categories that can change on the fly.
Running sections, which is when a chase is taking place on foot, usually around other pedestrians, and can evolve into other forms of chase or de-escalate quickly if the player chooses stealthier approaches.
Roof sections, which usually entails being chased by police helicopters that will try to spotlight you, heavily involve snipers, and are usually a lot more dangerous. The police helicopters will continue to pursue you even if you manage to get into another section
And lastly patrol car chases, which usually take place when a car gets involved. The player can steal and operate vehicles, including cars and helicopters, which can lead to races, collisions, and other forms of police road blocking including barricades, tire snares, street-wide tripwires, and shooting out of tires.
Arrested? Doesn’t the game end on death??
Basically, once the player gets apprehended, the ghost that’s possessing them will try to kill themselves by turning their head 180 degrees and snapping their neck, forcefully making the game end. Like the title suggests, it’s about police chases, not apprehensions. The neck snap should also be the stand in for a quick restart button.
Why even include vehicles?
Police chases usually involve vehicles, and I want that to be a prominent part of the game itself. It wouldn’t feel right if the perfectly good car sitting in front of you couldn’t be gotten into by anyone besides the police.
Other extrinsic factors:
Adding a workshop for custom maps and a map editor should be a pretty big part of replayability. There should be leaderboards in order to show how much better you’ve done than other people in your friends list and in general. I imagine multiplayer could be fun, but is in no way required or forcefully part of the gameplay loop. The game should be solo focused first. Sharing clips should be as simple as clicking a button, and should be presented through things such as body cam footage, security camera footage, or helicopter footage. It should feel diegetic and immersive to the game itself. In no way is this document a style guide, I shall present that later. There should be settings for things such as push to talk, and heavy emphasis should be put onto performance. Anything not stated in the document can be considered “common sense” (i.e: things that can be implied but not directly stated), and are subject to being added. If you have any fully original ideas regarding gameplay structure, please don’t be afraid to ask!