The Haunted Night
Planning
Planning:
The first step is of course, to plan what you want for your game. With this in mind, I had to think what my main aim was, as well as what I wanted to do with the game. I opened up Notepad and typed whatever came to my mind at the time.
The first thing that came to mind was that I wanted to make a horror game. I've always loved all forms of horror, from the subtle ghostly tales to the more gruesome and violent stuff like zombie movies. For this text adventure game, I knew that the only way to express my ideas was through writing. I chose to go with something that would make the player want to find out what's going to happen next. I chose to write a story about a ghost haunting a young girl.
General Idea:
After figuring out that I wanted a horror game involving a ghost and a young girl, it was time to think about a general concept for how the game would work.
The main driving force behind the game is that the player will have to help the girl reach home to find a protective charm to fight off the ghost that's haunting her by picking the correct choices. Choosing the wrong ones will either penalize the player or even lead to a horrible death which would let the character restart the game to try again.
Gameplay:
Since the game is a text adventure game, I had to decide on a system to use by which the player will pick the next course of action. Two versions were in my head at the time: Type Command or Type Letter.
The Type Command system is where the player will have to type an action word to do something, like "Get", "Move", "Run", "Hide", and even "Cry". The Type Letter system is where the player will just type the letter of the choice he wants, like "A". I decided that I didn't want to tire out the player by typing everything all the time, so I chose the Type Letter system.
The next thing to think about were game rules. There needs to be a way for the player to win and lose the game. This is when I thought about implementing a "Ghost Curse" status. Basically, the Ghost Curse increases each time you do something, whether it is right or wrong. The idea behind it is that the more time you spend doing things, the stronger the curse becomes until the ghost finally becomes evil enough to just take your soul. Later in the development of the game, this idea changed, which we will talk about later.
Heads Up Display:
This is one of the most basic features of any game, the Heads Up Display also known as HUD. The best way to describe this is that this is what the player sees on the screen. In 3D First Person Shooter (FPS) games, you usually see a Health Indicator, the Weapon Type you are carrying, and the number of Ammo you have left. In 2D games like Super Mario Brothers, the HUD shows you information like the Time remaining for you to complete the level, the amount of Lives you have left, the score you have earned so far, and sometimes even the Level number itself.
In this text adventure game, the HUD is simply comprised of the narrative at the beginning of the screen, followed by a list of choices you can make, and then the place where the player can type in their choice. I also added a "Curse Status" section so that the player will know how strong the curse has gotten.
