Eliatopia Forum

Amongususus wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 22, 2023 11:15 pm

plz

Whip_God wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 23, 2023 3:22 am

hmm, never played horror games, like hh or elia but with jumpscares? or the mosters looks more scarier. like how would this work?

cinos wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 23, 2023 8:11 am

I don't think that would work, and it's not as simple as "Robby shouldn't try new things," let me explain.

You know how Eliatopia's story is surprisingly well written? Part of that comes from being a subversion of our expectations. Robby's usual framework of an MMO expanding into a bigger narrative on a government conspiracy, and the evolution of humanity's hatred. It's not really THAT complicated but it's pretty well done.
What I believe makes you want a horror game is the Cyonic Organism, i.e. Alex. It was a pretty spooky character all things considered. The whole diary entry with a scientist being in denial about creating something living, it was pretty chilling, and very hype considering the boss's troubled development. It's mannerisms were creepy, mysterious, and left us wondering a lot about the lore for a year or so.
But having something scary in the narrative is not the exact same as making a horror game. The story of Eliatopia then went on to do some pretty crazy plot twists, and it revealed how it was less the creep factor that mattered, but moreso how well the mystery was kept and revealed. All the hints were right there (in fact I did predict it somewhat), but it was never borderline obvious or predictable. That is one of Robby's strengths as a writer, one you would not expect from the guy who made Helmet Heroes. The other strength is how he actually conditioned the player to view the family in the flashbacks. I think you know how it panned out.
I do not think Robby would make that great of a "horror" game, since knowledge on what is scary is actually not that simple. It's why even most survival horror games are not actually scary, but rather gripping thrillers with a spooky atmosphere. I have never heard someone play Silent Hill 2 exclusively for it's horror factor, they play it for the narrative. The horror comes from the narrative rather than our instinctive fears as humans.
That is how you avoid creating another generic "horror vhs" piece of media, generic slop that has been done to death, where most of it's tropes are now shown to us ad nauseum, and people have forgotten how their inspirations ACTUALLY worked (people have clearly forgotten how VHS tapes worked, which is pretty funny to me since even I'm supposedly to young to get it).

tl;dr I do not think Robby would even want to make a purely "horror" based experience. He does seem to love adding horror as part of the narrative, but not to the generic extent of making an exclusive "horror game." Plus, ontop of that, probably not profitable in the slightest. This is the guy who added global experience and essentially killed his second MMO because he really needed the money. He's now working on Helmet Heroes Reborn, and unless you want that game to not get updates for a year, having Robby work on another, less profitable release, is pretty unrealistic. I mean he hasn't even updated Eliatopia, game development is pretty tough, especially on games with players as contributing factors.

Iogan wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 28, 2023 10:23 pm

cinos wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 23, 2023 8:11 am

I don't think that would work, and it's not as simple as "Robby shouldn't try new things," let me explain.

You know how Eliatopia's story is surprisingly well written? Part of that comes from being a subversion of our expectations. Robby's usual framework of an MMO expanding into a bigger narrative on a government conspiracy, and the evolution of humanity's hatred. It's not really THAT complicated but it's pretty well done.
What I believe makes you want a horror game is the Cyonic Organism, i.e. Alex. It was a pretty spooky character all things considered. The whole diary entry with a scientist being in denial about creating something living, it was pretty chilling, and very hype considering the boss's troubled development. It's mannerisms were creepy, mysterious, and left us wondering a lot about the lore for a year or so.
But having something scary in the narrative is not the exact same as making a horror game. The story of Eliatopia then went on to do some pretty crazy plot twists, and it revealed how it was less the creep factor that mattered, but moreso how well the mystery was kept and revealed. All the hints were right there (in fact I did predict it somewhat), but it was never borderline obvious or predictable. That is one of Robby's strengths as a writer, one you would not expect from the guy who made Helmet Heroes. The other strength is how he actually conditioned the player to view the family in the flashbacks. I think you know how it panned out.
I do not think Robby would make that great of a "horror" game, since knowledge on what is scary is actually not that simple. It's why even most survival horror games are not actually scary, but rather gripping thrillers with a spooky atmosphere. I have never heard someone play Silent Hill 2 exclusively for it's horror factor, they play it for the narrative. The horror comes from the narrative rather than our instinctive fears as humans.
That is how you avoid creating another generic "horror vhs" piece of media, generic slop that has been done to death, where most of it's tropes are now shown to us ad nauseum, and people have forgotten how their inspirations ACTUALLY worked (people have clearly forgotten how VHS tapes worked, which is pretty funny to me since even I'm supposedly to young to get it).

tl;dr I do not think Robby would even want to make a purely "horror" based experience. He does seem to love adding horror as part of the narrative, but not to the generic extent of making an exclusive "horror game." Plus, ontop of that, probably not profitable in the slightest. This is the guy who added global experience and essentially killed his second MMO because he really needed the money. He's now working on Helmet Heroes Reborn, and unless you want that game to not get updates for a year, having Robby work on another, less profitable release, is pretty unrealistic. I mean he hasn't even updated Eliatopia, game development is pretty tough, especially on games with players as contributing factors.

Can you make a tldr for the tldr I’m lazy