Adding horror to Halo

[PopeAK49]

Well i'm planning on making a sp mod with a survival horror theme. I'm currently trying to find movies or whatever that will give me ideas on making this mod scary. I watched the classic "The Thing" movie and it put some ideas in my head but i need to know from the community of what movies, games, or whatever i should play or watch to get ideas for this mod. I have heard Event Horrizon is a good movie too, maybe ill watch that.

[SnaFuBAR]

definately the aliens series (1-3, forget the others)

[dg]

Music is an integral part in horror, so pay very close attention to that. Other than that, look at any classic Sci-Fi horror film and you'll pick up cues on what to do.

[Con]

Like these guys have said, movies are a great place to start. Look for things that making a scene suspenseful, and try to translate that into a gameplay element. Keep the players guessing.

[legionaire45]

Aliens, some of the elements of Blair Witch had promise (movie was horrible, but the concept was cool), The Thing (the 1980's one - fucking amazing movie).

Remember, less monster = scarier monster. The less that you show of your enemy the more frightening they will be.

[FluffyDucky™]

As long as they are freaky! :)

[Heathen]

I like the less is more idea. Make it a mystery goulie.

[Gamerkd16]

Music is an integral part in horror, so pay very close attention to that. Other than that, look at any classic Sci-Fi horror film and you'll pick up cues on what to do.
Yeah, have the music really quiet and then a sudden jump in volume when something pops out. That really makes a horror movie.

[SnaFuBAR]

Remember, less monster = scarier monster. The less that you show of your enemy the more frightening they will be.

I have to disagree. A calculating, unrelenting, uncompromising, inexhaustible and gruesome and brutal monster is far scarier.

[Phopojijo]

I quasi-disagree with both... implementation is all that matters.

[KiLLa]

I say look at half-life and half-life 2 to draw some inspiration as well...
I dunno about you, but some parts of that game scared the shit outa me..

errie noises, music, setting all have roles in the "scare factor"

[dg]

Ravenholm...

*shiver*

Freaked the shit out of me.

[TheGhost]

The first time through I played FEAR there were one or two parts that had me pretty scared...

[n00b1n8R]

I have to disagree. A calculating, unrelenting, uncompromising, inexhaustible and gruesome and brutal monster is far scarier.
hahahahaha, no.

Go watch the shining.

SPOILERS:
1 axe wielding guy (also the father of the family) in a giant hotel in the mountains (snowed in no less), with people who aren't even there. Also chasing his son through a snow covered hedge maze.
/SPOILERS

Now that's fucking scary.

tl;dr if you want to scare (not to be confused with freak out) people, go with the less (and much more menacing) baddys. Make the baddys uber powerful, fast, teleporting, shocking, whatever but don't throw them at the player or else they'll get desensitised in no time.

[p0lar_bear]

Yeah, have the music really quiet and then a sudden jump in volume when something pops out. That really makes a horror movie.

No, that makes a thriller (see Signs). We're looking for actual fear, and not cheap moment-long fright dotted here and there.

There are many types of fear you can go for. To suggest a few...


Visual Fear - Enemies and environments that look creepy and just plain scary through and through (think Resident Evil [the GCN remake])
Mindfucking - What you see and expect isn't what always you get (think Silent Hill)
Helplessness - Outnumbered and outgunned; what saves the player is wit, skill, planning, and a bit of luck (think Dead Space, Resident Evil, and Aliens)

[Kornman00]

An inner goat, now that would sell your horror game like hot cakes.


To contribute to the thread: A nice survival theme from Halo that I thought worked nicely was how there were so few marines left to help you due to the flood eating their braaaaaains. Placing a few AI friendlies here and there at crucial (sp) parts would help. Sure, going commando againt a bunch of flood for instance can be fun...but with a few helping hands it changes gameplay up a little, and for some people (me anyway) gets them to stop thinking about themselves for a while and try to keep their friendlies alive to help them. IMO, a totally lone gun game just sound boring to me because it's just like...I'm the only one, whats the point? Save the world? What will I do after that?

[sevlag]

I agree and disagree on certain points, it IS your map so in the long run go with what you think is best. HOWEVER the unrelenting monster idea is a fitting thing for a horror theme.

as for music "devils...monsters..." seems like a good track to play durin certain parts, but thats just my opinion

[KiLLa]

I say being alone and hopeless adds even more to the fear factor, but that's my opinion..

[SnaFuBAR]

hahahahaha, no.

Go watch the shining.

SPOILERS:
1 axe wielding guy (also the father of the family) in a giant hotel in the mountains (snowed in no less), with people who aren't even there. Also chasing his son through a snow covered hedge maze.
/SPOILERS

Now that's fucking scary.

tl;dr if you want to scare (not to be confused with freak out) people, go with the less (and much more menacing) baddys. Make the baddys uber powerful, fast, teleporting, shocking, whatever but don't throw them at the player or else they'll get desensitised in no time.

Fail. That won't work the same in a game. L2Gamedesign or gtfo.

[bobbysoon]

I say being alone and hopeless adds even more to the fear factor, but that's my opinion..
and when you make friends, and then lose them in horrible accidents

[FluffyDucky™]

Wut? That sounds gay... unless you can add more to that?

[Alwin Roth]

Make if somewhat like deadspace!

like certain areas you enter you should turn off the volume, except create a sound of only heavy breathing, maybe add gunshot sounds, but make them very quite, like the first level in halo 2, only when your in outer space that is...

[Inferno]

Heres a idea I came up with a long time ago but never actually got around to working on.

Lost in a extremely dark forerunner structure deep underground (AKA c10.map Guilty Spark) You have your flash light but you motion tracker is damaged (Either it doesn't work at all or shows things that aren't there etc) so you can't completely rely on it. What would make this fun is the fear factor of hearing things in the dark and having to guess where they came from to find you enemy's. (mostly flood I would guess) Also the suspense of being lost and trying to find your way out of a labyrinth. Maybe have a puzzle you have to figure out to get out of the hell hole alive.

I can go into more detail maybe.

[n00b1n8R]

Fail. That won't work the same in a game. L2Gamedesign or gtfo.
err, no?

F.E.A.R.

The little girl was the scariest part of that game.

[Heathen]

I like wankstas idea

[PopeAK49]

Okay well i was planing it last night and got some great concepts. The idea of a deadspace halo was running through my mind and i was thinking on how i could combined deadspace to halo. I was thinking of doing the underground forerunner facility idea and making the facility very large. Maybe adding 12 tiny levels just like in deadspace. So far you are a marine so you dont seem safe and you are and easy target of being infected by the flood. The story starts out as you slowly descend down a cave to the forerunner facility and you are with a handful of marines. The only one whos of high rank is the sargent. You are a very smart soldier who is used to open locked forerunner doors. Your also doing the mission with your brother who's name is Adrian. As you are dropped off you admire the beauty of the forerunner facility but you soon enter it. As you open the door and see that blood is all over the walls and you pick up the camera of a missing marine body a quarintine is activated. You are then seperated by the rest of the marines and you have to find a way to regroup with them. Along the way of your fight an AI who controls the facility talks too you a few times intending that you will not make it out at all. Seems like the AI is corrupted some how and went crazy as the forerunner-flood war started but the structure was never founded until the human-covenant war made its way to halo. I have ideas of diffrent creepy looking rooms you walk into. Such as the Flood lab where specimens are floating dead in experiment tubes. Or are they alive? The idea of a crazy AI came from system shock.

Some questions i want to ask are:
- Is it possible to make a scene where a flood infection form can mutate a host like in halo 3?
-Is it possible to make a gravemind boss fight since it requires some amount of animation?

[Heathen]

1. I doubt it. The biped would have to change and that would be very hard if I know anything (which I dont...I'm just talking out of my ass atm)
2. I doubt it because that would be incredibly hard to make it look anything near good.

[LinkandKvel]

I dunno, I thought bioshock was fucking scary. That's why I didn't play it too much.

[SnaFuBAR]

err, no?

F.E.A.R.

The little girl was the scariest part of that game.
that little girl was not scary, she was a pain in the ass.

[flibitijibibo]

Has anyone suggested the first Condemned or the first 2 Silent Hill games? If not, try those to get the proper atmosphere for a (good) horror game. Tips from a horror game fan:

- Avoid having a shitload of enemies. Then it becomes zombie survival. The crazed monkey should only come once in a while to further emphasize uncertainty.
- Because of the above tip, a lot of work is best put into making the maps look like you're going to be destroyed at any moment.
- Feel free to mindfuck. This is something FEAR did in a very unique way, because rather than just having monsters pop up, they would make weird shit happen just to mess with your head. Of course, they didn't do this as often as they should have, but if you remember those moments you'll know what I'm talking about.
- Don't forget to give the character a reason to be there. This is one thing that's very important not just to give the game a reason to exist, but because it's an important part of characterization (if you choose to make the character special). For some reason, games forget this, and when they try to make us have feelings other than fear, it awkwardly falls on its face and ruins the immersion.

That's about all I can think of. I noticed someone talking about a soundtrack, so if you need help with that, I'm around to compose.

[dark57]

a dark map would do good. also maybe use that enhaced blood...dam i cant find the link.

[Corndogman]

that little girl was not scary, she was a pain in the ass.

In your opinion

[TeeKup]

Dead space nailed it with the ambient noises and the "fear emitters" they had on the monster. The closer it got, the creepier the music.

In the engineering level I'd be slowly walking along and out of no where I heard a pipe land on the floor, it freaked me out and I began scanning the area. The entire time I was on edge.

[PopeAK49]

Well I've got the layout of the first part of the whole mod done on paper. I got some ideas on when certain things should freak people out, and wrote down some details on the diffrent rooms you enter. Since, there is going to be a crazed A.I in the system i'm going to have some crazy crap that seems simular to Resident Evil but not too simular. Such, as a room you enter which has a cold looking environement and then a quarintine is activated and all the doors lock, and then you have to kill all the flood in the room or else you will freeze to death. The longer you fight the more the tempature drops in the room. Thus, you will die if you take too long. Another idea im trying to think of is have a long hallway you walk down and out of no where you hear the alarms go off and you hear "Weapon System Activated." I need to think of something else then lasers though cause then that will copy off resident evil. I'm going to rent a game tonight possibly one of the Silent Hill games to get ideas. I already got alot from deadspace.

[bobbysoon]

Another idea im trying to think of is have a long hallway you walk down and out of no where you hear the alarms go off and you hear "Weapon System Activated."
Reminds me of The Cube:
01hUyIrubWE

[mech]

I've said this a billion times, video games are not scary.

[Bastinka]

Mechs moustache, now thats true horror.

[Apoc4lypse]

I have to disagree. A calculating, unrelenting, uncompromising, inexhaustible and gruesome and brutal monster is far scarier.

but the same monster with "stealth then pop into your face" (for lack of a better term) capabilities is even scarrier.

Aliens even used this quite a bit, its just not as obvious because of the environments. (that thing that runs around and then jumps on you, that one scene where there trapped in the room with it) or the other scene where theres that lady on the wall and one of those fuken heads rips open her stomach from the inside.

E: whoops that was a little late in the thread to quote.

E2: whats that game for the PS3 that takes place on a space craft or something, the trailers for that in thetres looked pretty scarry to me, I'd play that for some ideas.

[ThePlague]

Dead Space? If so, that game is pretty damn scarry at night with the lights off and you're all alone...

[Bastinka]

Try FEAR as a scary game, creepiest I've yet to come by.

[t3h m00kz]

I'm not sure how capable the Halo engine is of flashing lights, but I've got this image in mind of MC walking down a long, repeating hallway with dead bodies and sharp 90 degree turns with a grainy, scratchy white noise.

Can't really describe the sound I'm thinking of in words, but here's a vague example. Skip to about 1:45
wPhutjWzI34

[Inferno]

Try FEAR as a scary game, creepiest I've yet to come by.

I beat FEAR in the dark at my cousins house at around 3:00 in the morning. Talk about scaring the shit out of someone.

[PopeAK49]

Okay i watched some movies and played some games over the week.

The Thing: Kinda scary gave me some good ideas to put in the mod besides fears but trust between your squad.

Resident Evil 4(Game): Not scary at all i was dissapointed.

Silent Hill(game): I jumped a few times as several things popped up.

Dead Space(game): The grotesque creature reminded me so much of the flood. It scared me a few times and gave me a few more chills as new creatures popped up in every level. This game is probably going to give me lots of inspiration.

One more question....Should this be based on Halo or in an underground government lab on Earth. Forerunner vs Human Architecture.

[Inferno]

I vote Forerunner being as you already have a wide variety of textures and models to use.

Human architecture is really a more halo 2 type thing.

[English Mobster]

I vote Forerunner.

I think your ideas are good. You're part of a team of marines infiltrating a Forerunner facility. You get separated, you're all alone, etc.

Here's a concept for how a single section should be:
When you're underground, it should be almost totally dark and you have to rely on your flashlight. You are armed only with an Assault Rifle and a Pistol. You hear a creepy noise and a pipe or something falls down right in front of you, followed by your motion tracker breaking a circuit and there appearing to be enemies everywhere. In reality, there is nothing, but it should freak you out.
You continue advancing until you reach a certain trigger volume, and then all the lights come on at once. You are in a fairly large room. There are Flood contained in tubes (Think Cold Storage), and Flood on a dissecting table. The lights last long enough for you to see your surroundings, then you see a grate fall from the ceiling with Infection forms coming out of both it and the exit. The lights go dark. Glass smashes and you hear the roar of a Combat form. Your motion tracker goes shows tons of enemies streaming towards you for real this time as Flood approach you, totally in the dark. 2 more smashings of glass and 2 more Combat form roars. You hold out for maybe 2-3 minutes against 3 Elite Combat forms and multiple infection forms, and, just as it all seems hopeless, the Flood start to retreat.
The lights come back on long enough for you to see Infection forms retreating back through the grate and your exit. As the Infection forms pull out of the exit... You see your sergeant's body, horribly mangled and disfigured. His body wasn't there before. The lights spark and go out one last time as one last wave of Infection forms come from the grate in the celing and go towards not you, but your sergeant. They pass without harming you, and then the lights come on just long enough for you to see a single human Flood combat form where your Sergeant just was. It roars, the screen shakes as the lights go out, and then it retreats with the others.

Another concept for a different part of the level:
You are inside a slightly large room. In this one, the lights are on by default. There's the roar of an Elite Flood Combat form, and you see faint movement out of the corner of your eye, corresponding with a movement on your motion tracker. You look and see nothing. Suddenly, there is the igniting of an Energy Sword as an invisible Elite Zealot Flood Combat Form jumps towards you. The lights spark and go out as you are left to face an Invisible Flood with an Energy Sword in the dark. This Flood could have the stealth-then-pop-into-your-face thing someone a couple pages back was mentioning. When the encounter is over, the lights stay off and you have to find your way to the exit. Your flashlight falls upon some gruesome sights if you look around.
Once you find the exit, you continue down the dark and cramped hallway when there is a roar as a pipe falls down and your motion tracker goes haywire. Your flashlight fizzles and goes out, forcing the player to continue in complete darkness. Despite what appear to be enemies on your motion tracker and the noises of multiple Flood, there are no actual enemies in this corridor. This is only designed to fuck with them and make them shit their pants. As you venture down the hallway, all music stops. You hear gunshots, followed by a squadmate screaming, "No! No! You won't have me! No!", or something to that effect, followed by a blood-chilling scream. The music then resumes.
Once you round a corner, a fire at the end of the hallway is your only guide to the the end of the hallway. By the fire's light, you can make out the body of one of your squadmates, who was standing by a fire he made when something happened to him. He was nice enough to clear the entire next room of enemies for you before he was killed, as you can see dead flood and dead flood body parts from his shotgun littering the next couple rooms. Blood can be seen splattered all over near his body. You pick up the ammo next to him, possibly switching your pistol for his shotgun. Once you pick up the ammo he has, you evidently pick up new batteries for your flashlight as well, as it begins to work again as you carry on.

It would be possible, I believe, to have a Gravemind boss. You have to fight to the center of the structure, with your remaining Squadmates backing you up. You are in a Library-type facility, by a narrow bridge above the Gravemind. Despite protests from the other Marines, your brother runs out onto the bridge and opens fire on the Gravemind's center. There is a roar followed by the shaking of your screen, and a tentacle smashes the bridge, killing your brother. Other tentacles attack the other Marines, grabbing quite a few and pulling them into the abyss below. You are left with 1 Marine. From here, you have to destroy the 7 tentacles of the Gravemind which attack you before you launch an assault on its core. When you kill it, an elevator, similar to the one found in the Library, arrives, which you and your marine use to hitch a ride out of the structure. Your other Marine radios the Pelican for evac. Flood Combat forms come at you from all directions on the way up, and, right as you are about to get to the top floor, the Gravemind attacks with 3 more tentacles. Evedently, he was hurt, but not defeated. One of the tentacles kills the final Marine as you reach the top floor and run for your life, finally reaching the outside of the structure as the tentacles pull away. Among assaults by various Flood forms, you reach the Pelican which lands for you and you pull out of the facility.

Ideas for how to make some of this stuff possible:
Add a non-accessible corridor running just outside of the playable level. From here, when you want the Motion tracker to start to malfunction, simply tell enemies to spawn in this corridor. Since they can't reach the player, they can't hurt him, but they do show up on the motion tracker.
Its possible to write a script so you can't use your flashlight, I believe. I would have to check, but I believe so.
For the Gravemind, simply make each tentacle + the core a different AI.
Maybe you should make the setting for this level on Delta Halo, as Alpha Halo didn't have a Gravemind, and this will tie better into Halo canon. Somewhere someone released Delta Halo textures, I think I saw them on Halomaps a while back.

These are just concepts, take 'em or leave 'em, I don't really care.

Also, for the weapons systems you mentioned, maybe the room could fill with Sentinels or the auto-turrets from Halo 3? Idk, just a thought.

[dark57]

2 things i would sugest is no motion trackers (so you dont know were there coming from) and make them come up behind you every now and then. also idk if you can do this in ce but maye when you walk into a room you see a dead flood and right when your infront of the flood it come back to life.

also play dead space you can get alot of ideaad from there.

[PopeAK49]

Nice ideas Mudkipz ill be sure to use them.

[Inferno]

Fucking wall of text. I need a TLDR version.

[English Mobster]

tl;dr: Ideas on how to implement a darkened room encounter, death of your Sergeant, haywire motion tracker, stealth Flood encounter, fizzled-out flashlight, and Gravemind boss battle. E: Plus
also banging noises, clincking noises, foot stepts, voices :O

[Inferno]

Similar to what I said earlier. Except really dark, Motion tracker that shows shit that isn't there and you use your flashlight constantly trying to find your enemy's in the pitch black environment.

[dark57]

also banging noises, clincking noises, foot stepts, voices :O

[L0d3x]

Didn't read the past pages, but how about:

Having whatever enemy you fight run straight at you, and then disappear by destroying the biped. And perhaps let it reappear behind you =o

[dark57]

Hax? that might get annoying

[LinkandKvel]

Not sure if you can do this but I'll say it anyway. Can you make a trigger where you pass a certain point in a dark room, and your flashlight, and ammo indicator (AR) Is disabled until to the next checkpoint. I was thinking of having those fizz out, AND DOES NOBODY HERE THINK BIOSHOCK WAS SCARY? MY GOD!!!

[dark57]

NOOOOOOOOOOO dead space was....i went through 3 pairs of pants :saddowns:

Can you make the screen turn off a a certain paint though?

[Inferno]

Bioshock was a little scary in some places. The rosie scared me the first time.

[Apoc4lypse]

Better idea, basically mudkipz idea, except your motion tracker isn't broken... the lights flash and you see flood contained behind some sort of "holding cells" surrounding you in some sort of disgusting forerunner corridor coated with "flood blood" and remains of aliens, then the lights go out and you hear a crash and all those red blips on your radar start actually moving in on you then in ur flashlight you see what can only be described as imminent death if you don't think quickly... I'd leave it up to you to come up with how the player finds a way out of that mess tho and dont share it with anyone except maybe beta testers if this ever actually gets made.

I'd place this at some point kind of far into the campaign/level where it should be difficult and frustrating (something u'll probably have to do a few times before actually figuring it out) I'd also make the player have a shotgun, but not with a lot of ammo, itd be fun tryin to hold off a ton of infection forms while guiding yourself with nothing but a flashlight and your shotgun lighting up the corridor every few seconds.

E: Also did you watch/see the alien movies yet?

E: The man posting below me is correct...

[Inferno]

Too much flood = Computer death though. So you would have to spawn them properly. :eng101:

[kid908]

definately play FEAR sp. you'll prob get some ideas =P

[Haloking365]

Pretty much what everyone else said.

You could try hinting at something, i.e. catch a glimpse of something out of the corner of your eye, or hear something in the ceiling or walls, make the character feel helpless in their current situation.

Also, broken flashlight needed.

[Huero]

Not sure if you can do this but I'll say it anyway. Can you make a trigger where you pass a certain point in a dark room, and your flashlight, and ammo indicator (AR) Is disabled until to the next checkpoint. I was thinking of having those fizz out, AND DOES NOBODY HERE THINK BIOSHOCK WAS SCARY? MY GOD!!!

It wasn't :E
Anyway, just make sure you only do 90% of these suggestion once or twice; repitition in a horror game is bad.
Very.

[.Wolf™]

Not sure if you can do this but I'll say it anyway. Can you make a trigger where you pass a certain point in a dark room, and your flashlight, and ammo indicator (AR) Is disabled until to the next checkpoint. I was thinking of having those fizz out, AND DOES NOBODY HERE THINK BIOSHOCK WAS SCARY? MY GOD!!!Mb not disabled..Maybe that it acts on its own:PLike turns on and off and blinks and makes birdshadows on the wall...

[English Mobster]

I'm really sorry for the 6 (almost 7) month bump, but this map was a fucking awesome idea, and I just now stumbled across it when I was looking for something else.
What happened to this?

[Delta4907]

I was also expecting to see something from this.

[MetKiller Joe]

It looks like people talked about making a mod for 6 pages, then, when they couldn't find anything else to talk about, the thread died.

[ThePlague]

Pope quit modding, so I guess he junked it.

[Rob Oplawar]

One of my favorites is Sphere. I love the soundtrack to it, and I think that music would set a great atmosphere for a Halo map such as this. Give it a listen.

[dark navi]

Starship Troopers... That was a pretty good movies....

[Sel]

The aliens game.

That shit was fucking creepy.

The entire first level, you went through this huge complex, and it was a long time before you even found your first alien.

What it proved was that lighting and pacing are essential.

Flickery lights are a must, as well as loads of dark corridors. The Jaws theme might help you out too.


oh wow, look at this bump.

If you're all serious about this still, I'd have to say halo is a pretty bad choice. It just doesn't seem to be that great for horrific environments. I'd say source or unreal with their lighting. And another thing you may want to look at is zombie panic source, and it's stock maps. They proved that horror can happen in broad daylight, as well as in the night.

If you do it in the daytime, have lots of dark corners, but don't put things jumping out at you in every single one, put them in a few of said dark corners. If you've done this right, and the player is genuinely scared, theyll be shooting into every single corner that something could be hiding in.

[Delta4907]

If you're all serious about this still, I'd have to say halo is a pretty bad choice. It just doesn't seem to be that great for horrific environments. I'd say source or unreal with their lighting. And another thing you may want to look at is zombie panic source, and it's stock maps. They proved that horror can happen in broad daylight, as well as in the night.

If you do it in the daytime, have lots of dark corners, but don't put things jumping out at you in every single one, put them in a few of said dark corners. If you've done this right, and the player is genuinely scared, theyll be shooting into every single corner that something could be hiding in.

Halo may not be the best game to choose for this, however, when I first played the game, at seven years old, 343 GS was pretty fucking scary, I always got lost on the way out of the complex. I wish I could go back to that, albeit being scary, it was one of the best feelings I got out of a video game.

[PopeAK49]

Holy crap I forgot about this thread. My god people, I didn't quit modding I just decided to not create "multiplayer levels" for halo. Meaning not making levels that require gameplay and other components that you see uploaded every week. I decided to maybe start fiddling with SP missions since you don't really have to be in depth about the design, like you would with a multiplayer map. I also am working on a couple random mods like how slap happy did with his hillbilly map. One is a UFC map, so basically it's fighting. And the other is a zombie level with maybe custom gametypes using OS.

But hey, if anyone wants to make layouts for this horror mod for halo. Go for it. Just add me on xfire and I just might jump start this mod.

[Delta4907]

I have a couple ideas, although I probably wouldn't be able to pull them off myself. I'd add ya on xfire if I knew what your name was :)

[VickJr]

definately the aliens series (1-3, forget the others)

'Nuf said.
You could also look at the original 343 guilty spark level, (which had alot based on Aliens).

And as the second reply stated, music and sound effects are also key to creating a spooky/scary/freaky atmosphere, in adition to lighting.
Making it dark is pretty obvious. The key is to make it dark enough so the player can't tell whats out there, but so they'll still see glimpses of the enemy; enough to be afraid, not enough to know what your afraid of (which makes you more afraid).

[PopeAK49]

For those who don't know my xfire....It's studmuffin49

[PopeAK49]

I plan on now setting this mod on a UNSC colony ship. The ship is going to be modeled from scratch so if anyone wants to make some concept art for the ship then that would be awesome. You can post it in here or add me on xfire and show me on there. I don't plan on asking for help right now only concept art is the main thing, but maybe later on I could use some help. If you want to help me with this mod as a concept artist such as making concepts for interiors and exteriors of this UNSC ship then that would be greatly appreciated. Right now I got all the levels and main objectives planned out and I'm soon going to work on making layouts. Any help would be great. Thanks!

[PwN Lone]

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned, and its no doubt severely over-looked by most wannabe horror film/show directors. Sound, atmosphere, ambience. Its not about having the most things jumping out at you, its about the atmosphere generated. Look at 343, there was an immense build-up on which Bunguie let your imagination run wild and think fo what you could be facing, then there was the movie, with the constant blip in the background, even in silences.

Lighting, Sound, everything plays a part in it. No I am not trying to treay you like a n00b, I just don't want this mod to end up bad.

[PopeAK49]

Well I understand what you are saying, but most of the concept of the space ship environment and stuff come from deadspace, which is what I sort of decided on. I'll be sure to add a sort of build up in the first level of the mod, and then things go crazy later on.

[SilentChaos]

I agree with what Rob said last page. The music and sounds really add to the atmosphere. Music that gives suspense and really gets your nerves going.
One of my favorites:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QjuEWsdgEc

[ICEE]

one thing in games that ive found freaky, is in fps shooters when an enemy latches on to you and is in your face ( clive barkers jericho ).

[ThePlague]

one thing in games that ive found freaky, is in fps shooters when an enemy latches on to you and is in your face ( clive barkers jericho, Metroid, Duke Nukem ).
ftfy :)

[PopeAK49]

The only thing I can find that is a UNSC colony ship is this...

http://www.halowars.com/images/timeline/timeline003.jpg

I have a bigger picture but it's hard to see what to model. Maybe someone can come up with concepts.

[rossmum]

Play through Minerva: Metastasis, the HL2 mod. It's not horror as such but it's pretty bloody terrifying... it's about two parts exploration to one part combat until you hit the climax well into it, but the uncertainty of exactly what is going on and what's lurking around the next corner is terrifying.

It leads you to believe that things are a lot worse than they are, then instead of millions of fast zombies you get a handful of Combine... and by the time you get complacent and start expecting handfuls of Combine, you get fucked.

[PopeAK49]

I was wondering...For interior architecture, should I gather my concepts the pillar of Autumn, or cairo station?

[Chainsy]

POA was a old military vessel with only the necessities for survival and war, while the spirit of fire above, was a relatively new colony ship and converted into a military vessel, so more like cairo.

[Alwin Roth]

So the Sp your making is going to be some kind of "dead space"

[PopeAK49]

If you played dead space some things will seem familiar, so yes I guess you can say it's like dead space.

[Neuro Guro]

-

[OmegaDragon]

The only thing I can find that is a UNSC colony ship is this...

http://www.halowars.com/images/timeline/timeline003.jpg

I have a bigger picture but it's hard to see what to model. Maybe someone can come up with concepts.

If you are talking concepts from the inside, you could also use the bridge (http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/halo/images/e/e5/Timeline002.jpg)picture from halo wikia to come up with the possible ideas. It can't be that different from other UNSC ships, so I would consider the POA and the Cairo station as a good start.

You also have the concept of the spirit fire colony ship drop bay:
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/halo/images/f/ff/Spirit_drop_bay_bravo.png
And the Shaw-Fujika drive room:
http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/halo/images/e/e4/Spirit_SF_room.png

Then you can go here (http://www.graemedevine.com/graemedevine/Resume.html)and look though the site to see a couple of interesting concepts from the lead designer from halo wars, some of which include human architecture and the colony ship.

As for the outside, there isn't much that I can find on that, however i did find a side view that contains alot of the halo ships, one of which is the colony ship. (props to liam887 in scifimeshes [thread with even more different concepts] (http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/2d-gallery/41907-halo-fleet-profile-sheets.html))
http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/3038/fleeth.jpg
and you can also try looking at Brokenline Studio (http://brokenlinestudios.net/halo-homefront/)'s homeworld mod for some concept on the UNSC ships.

[Martini-562]

I think the broken/malfunctioning/jammed motiontracker idea is a good way of adding horror to your levels. If it spontaneously starts showing motion around you, it will make you want to get ready for whatever's coming. However, if nothing comes, you let your guard down.

Second, sound, music can be used to hint at the moments at which you encounter an enemy. Most people will expect an enemy when the sound gets more loud/creepy. So instead of having music when an enemy appears, have the music play at random moments, and have the monsters appear at random times. This way, you're telling the player he could be attacked at any moment without any warning (especially if the motion sensor shows ghost signals)

What you could also do is make the player split up from a group of marines, and get radio contact in. You should be able to elevate the level of tension by having the marines warn you of things over the com and then discover it was nothing. Then, which is totally up to you, you let some random person scream over the com, followed by white noise. For extra effect, make the screams echo through the level.

Monsters, make them rare, and make them pop up when the player isn't expecting them. Do not have the appearances of monsters coincide with the music, that makes the monsters to easy to predict and shatters most of the effect the audio gives you. The enemies should range from easy to handle to tough. I think the effect of a player first easily taking out one monster, and then putting him up against a bigger, scarier and stronger monster makes the player stay on his toes.

Have indications of monsters appearing around the map, which will make the player keep the guard up in that area. And when the monster doesn't appear, they 'relax' a bit. Having the monster appear now would scare the player and immediately end the thoughts of safety.

Ambient sound, have random alien sounds, gun fire, screams and whatnot sound throughout the level. Should add to the level of tension.

As for a story for a level:
You investigate a ship with your team, you break up into individual patrols each on route to their own objective. Then, everything goes to hell. You are tasked with retrieving the AI core as to get a picture of what happened when the ship went off-line.

It has probably been done before, but I see no reason why it shouldn't work on halo.

Hope this helps

[Warsaw]

I suggest having some enemies that don't go down quite as easily...kind of like how Flood get back up again after you dispatch them...=D

[rossmum]

The PoA strikes me as a better style for horror than the Cairo, to be honest

[NotAChipmunk]

Halo isnt scary,Doom and fear is scary.

[rossmum]

Define 'scary'. Go on, define it.

Doom just throws monsters at you and makes the lights flicker or go out at crucial times, my idea of scary is more subtle hints and tension than monster closets or lots of blood

[NuggetWarmer]

Prey was a pretty spooky game at times. Especially when you fought the children ghosts.

[NotAChipmunk]

Define 'scary'. Go on, define it.

Doom just throws monsters at you and makes the lights flicker or go out at crucial times, my idea of scary is more subtle hints and tension than monster closets or lots of blood


Ok,ill take that back.

A Pretty spooky game is Maxpayne 1/2.Not only cus of the fights (which is more fun then scary),The Story is awesome,i dont know all of the story,but it had comics (not so scary),but there was levels that Scared me a little bit.

[p0lar_bear]

Define 'scary'. Go on, define it.

Anything that provokes fear or overwhelming uncertainty. :realsmug:

Anything can be scary to anyone, but in the case of the genre, it's a medium intended to frighten the masses. The average Joe.

[rossmum]

Try getting lost for an hour or two at the worst section of 343 GS at 3AM, home alone, lights off, speakers turned right up - on your first playthrough. (Well, obviously it's too late, but you get the idea.)

Factor in your dickhead mates telling you every part of the story EXCEPT the fucking Flood, and yeah, Halo can be pretty fucking scary.

[English Mobster]

Oh fuck. That was me.
I was so horrified of 343 Guilty Spark that I played through that level ONCE, on my first playthrough. I've NEVER played that level since, nor The Library.
In fact, when I finally got through the Library, my laptop got the BSOD. I had gotten to the first checkpoint on Two Betrayals. That was as far as I've ever gotten in Halo 1. I've never beaten the game because the first time I played 343 Guilty Spark, I nearly shat my pants.
I've never even played Keyes, just the first cutscene... :smithicide:

E: Actually, I'm going to go beat the game now. I've said that before, but I'm not going to stop until I've finally beaten the game and shat my pants again.

[ThePlague]

You should play Fatal Frame. That game defines scary as shit for me. The whole atmosphere is scary, and all you have to fight things is a camera. Also, it doesn't help playing it at 4 in the morning with sleep deprivation.

[n00b1n8R]

Try getting lost for an hour or two at the worst section of 343 GS at 3AM, home alone, lights off, speakers turned right up - on your first playthrough. (Well, obviously it's too late, but you get the idea.)
Been there done that :smug:

:words: That was as far as I've ever gotten in Halo 1. :words:
:v:

[PopeAK49]

I'm sort of stuck on some of the story im trying to devlop with this. I already know that it has a theme to it. But I'm trying to figure out for each mission/level what the objectives should be. I also need some answered questions.

What should I use to get the player around the ship inorder to get the player to the next level/mission? I was thinking about a tran station but i don't know. I wanted to think of something more orginal.

What should I do for a weapons system? Should I have it like Doom 3, Deadspace, etc...

I have 10 missions planned out for this mod. But I need some ideas for the main objective and small objectives that tie into the main objective. The best idea gets a cookie. Names for the missions are:

Arrival
Lying Dead
Extermination
Xeno Morphic
Infection
Silent path
Deadly Incoming
Early Sunrise
Armagedon
Dead Halo

[Alwin Roth]

You start off in a ship that has an infection going around, the ship was visiting an old outpost where they haven't heard of the group there for months, so after searching around and finding nothing but dead bodies, the ship leaves.

The captain of the ship plans to lock down a certain section of the ship which the infection is growing in, you just so happen to be in a cryotube sleeping in the infected zone. He decides to give the whole crew 20 minutes before the lockdown of that area.
So what happens is, a fellow marine wakes you up, tells you to get the hell out of here
(omfg this is like pillar of autumn~) then Blam, door opens he's killed by an infected, lights go out and the infected are gone.

then a timer pops up, now you need to get to the "safe" zone of the ship before that timer hits zero. or else, your stuck with some hungry infected fuckers.

You run down the hall way, an explosion occurs, lights are flashing and your hearing this eerie infection noise, as you pass through hallways blasting through the infected, you just happen to see 3 marines trapped in testing chamber, with some infected, either you can help them out, which could waste about 5 minutes going through shafts to get in, but then you will have backup throughout the first mission, or you can simply watch them get slaughtered.

eventually once you get out of there, some marines are guarding one of the lock down doors, armed to the teeth with turrets, rockets, etc.
you get there, but then blam, the ventilation shaft above and beside them slams down on them, and infected begin to pounce on you and the marines, you kill the infected, then

*cutscene*
you punch an infection in the face, meanwhile marines are getting raped in the background, your character picks up the rocket, fires, kills almost everyone, except a couple marines, then you drag one of the marines inside, and then the doors lock right on a infected that's about to pounce on you. *cutscene done*

first mission done.


as for the transport system, i was thinking of a portal, but not the halo style portals where you just walk in and your at the other side, i mean as in, requires a shit load of time, so while you go to different places you have to hold off infected aliens/humans while the portal is charging up, sometimes marines could be helping you.

and for weapons, keep it at some kind of warhammer 40k style, heavy chunky ass machine guns with shredding bullets and chain swords, or some sort of chain saw.


oh and go play clock tower 3.

[PopeAK49]

Huge bump...If you would wanted to play as the main character for a horror type of scenario in the halo universe, do you think a spartan with no shield and a broken motion tracker is just as scary as being a lone marine fighting the flood?

[Higuy]

lone marine is way more scary then a spartan. But then again the scariness really does rely more on the environment and events.

[Donut]

the broken motion tracker would be a great effect. have little rooms outside the playable bsp area with 3 or 4 infection forms running around to throw off the red dots

[PopeAK49]

I know it's a little early to post the WIP of the ship but fark it..

23742375

I'm going to add more detail, but I want the ship to have a mini city behind that glass, which will eventually turn into a separate level itself. This is my first time modeling a ship so be gentle to me...
:mech2:

[voodoobram]

use music from the game jericho and anime elfen liedlied.
Than have backgrond sound with peaple being tortured.
that sets the mood.
than have flood like ai and flood veriands.:raise:

[Cortexian]

MegaUltraBump

[PopeAK49]

MegaUltraBump

I'm still working on Joust!!! But I am developing a story for Dead halo. I'm trying to combine Doom 3 and Dead Space. That is all I can give to you for now. Thanks for caring though.

[TVTyrant]

This thread will never die.

[PopeAK49]

This thread will never die.

lmao, this thread dates back to 2008. I can't believe it was that long ago.

[Spartan314]

What happened to the marine idea with the flood?

[PopeAK49]

What happened to the marine idea with the flood?

Nothing happened, its just an idea. An idea that I might be using. Although I was thinking of going with the approach of the forerunners thinking they found something in a precursor built structure, but instead it leads to the flood. A trap designed by the presursor as they lost the war to the forerunners. /non-canon.

[Warsaw]

I'd say forget about the Precursors entirely, because they do nothing but make Halo uninteresting.

[DarkHalo003]

I'd say forget about the Precursors entirely, because they do nothing but make Halo uninteresting.
Not anymore anyways.

Forget you Greg bear.

One thing that always gets me in Halo Horror (besides the music and eerie environment) is simply the enemy your fighting being congruent to both the music and the environment. The Flood has always retained (for me at least) a feeling of terror because the idea of them simply has fit the molding that the environments and music Bungie developed for them. In other words, there is hardly ever a gap in the progressively anxious feeling I get playing levels like Sacred Icon, Quarantine Zone, Cortana, or even Flood Gate; the thing about the Flood is that it's not so much that you're on their turf: it's that the turf that was once yours is now theirs. If there is any game that capitalizes on this concept, which features both the congruency and inexorable-absorption-of-territory, it's Halo 2. Halo 1 and 3 may have had some scary-ass moments, but Halo 2 made me cower in a corner with a shotgun or sentinel beam hoping the Flood wouldn't find me.

[Tnnaas]

I'd say forget about the Precursors entirely, because they do nothing but make Halo uninteresting.
Precursors were cooler when they were much more mysterious than the Forerunners.
And then Greg Bear turned the only one we know into a giant spider. :maddowns:

[Hotrod]

Precursors were cooler when they were much more mysterious than the Forerunners.
And then Greg Bear turned the only one we know into a giant spider. :maddowns:
Though the Primordial was actually a Gravemind and told us that the Precursors and the Flood are one and the same.

[TeeKup]

Wait seriously? Hotrod is that what Primordium says? That's fucking stupid.

[dazman23]

Yeap that is what it said, I'm trying to think of it as it will say anything it consumes is the flood just to keep it interesting for myself.

[Tnnaas]

I was too distracted by the awful modern-day [2553] ending to realize that the Primodial was a Flood Gravemind.
At least the Precursors could still be the mysterious, transentient beings we always wonder about.

[PopeAK49]

So I started developing the story. So far I came with the following:

You are a marine, in a group of five others driving through the swampy terrain of installation 04. The sargent explains that Captain Keyes gave them a direct order to contain the 'weapons cache' (Note that this is the same area/facility as 343 guilty spark). What they find out discovering was not a weapons cache, but the flood. Your team is instantly attacked but you manage to escape the ambush. Without contact, you realize that Captain Keyes is about to unlock the other 'weapons cache'. You attempt to stop him and his team, but its too late.
You give up hope, but then some sort of A.I in the facility communicates with you. The AI speaks of a 'cure' to the virus so you help him out by collecting samples. You soon realize the A.I's true purpose and things go chaotic after that. (Don't want to go too much into detail because of spoilers. Unless you can guess it yourself.)
The story moves on to more complex objectives; but after that, you must attempt to escape halo.

Also the idea of limited ammo, infection transformations (I think is possible with OS), and doors with secret combinations that can be found within each level and have ammo/guns or enemies will be implemented.

I just wanted to give people a quick synopsis of the story without the spoilers. If you want to know everything that I have laid out, just PM me.

Don't hesitate to give ideas/crit. I want to minimize plot holes and make this an enjoyable horror story/campaign in the future.