Hey DeRaNgEr, welcome!

Thanks so much for the video - that looks fantastic! Gorgeous modelling and solid animation on the character and the environments immediately make me think of Solaris and 2001. Nice post processing with the depth of field, etc, and I dig the slight camera movement to keep everything 'alive'. I tend to feel that panning/pivoting the camera is a bit overused in fixed cam games (easy to setup, bit of a crutch), but I like how you've combined zooming with some of the pans!

Honestly, I'm in favour of cam-relative movement - tank controls have their place (and should be optional), but... really, a modern fixed-cam game should be as accessible as possible (even consider using some screen-based raycasts to make your game playable with a mouse...!). Consider taking a look at Heavy Rain, that had some interesting control ideas...!

Insisting on the traditional elements of ANYTHING is a good way to get left behind!

I appreciate the setting - it's great to see some innovations in environment, story etc for Fixed Cam games. I'm a little curious about how 'realistic' you're making the game, as the pressure suit says 'realistic', but the gravity and, uh, firing what looks like a ballistic weapon in a pressurised environment usually leads to this...! But if you're fighting robots, I guess you'd have other options you could employ!

If I may ask, what engine are you using? All are excellent for modern fixed cam, of course, just curious. =D

Best of luck with the project! Please keep us updated!

--Rev

PS: Let me know if there's any way we can support you here!

PPS: 5's good fun, especially with a friend. I know Resi fans had issues with it taking the franchise further from Survival Horror (and there were some justifiable complaints about the imagery), but... honestly, I'd appreciate a few more games that could be played with a friend like that (Revelations 2 was also good, until the end!).

Thanks! I can't take credit for the modeling/character/animations, they're market place assets. I'm mostly proficient in level design and game design itself. I'm a solo developer so limitations are something I've learned to work around with. That said I tend to tweak/alter/edit assets to set them apart. I would love to work with custom assets but right now that's just not a reality due to incredibly limited budgets so my aim is to make up for that with solid gameplay. The animations in the video are not where I want them to be yet. I feel like I can make them more fluid and will attempt to improve on that aspect.

So yeah, let's talk fixed cam for a bit! I also believe the majority of the game should be static camera angles as well. The video above is me mostly testing out the various camera features I implemented. Sadly I haven't really played any modern takes on these kinds of games so that's something I want to do to get an idea of what they've been up and see what I can learn and avoid from them.

My main inspiration will remain the Resident Evil 1 remake. I first played it on my Game Cube and played the PC version when it came out and I still love that game to death and it has some very slight panning (can't remember if the Game Cube version had it).

But yeah, my goal is to use camera positions (angles, etc) to evoke certain feelings and create the right amount of tension. I think that the benefit we have today is being able to place cameras in realtime and not have to render out these environments so I feel I should be able to take advantage of that when placing these cameras.

And yes, player movement will be camera oriented by default for sure, Tank controls are implemented because I know some purists out there will love it and I believe a developer should do whatever they can within their ability to cater to as many people as possible (as long as it's within reason and it adds to the game/project).

I may look into alternate control options but for now the main focus is on gamepad or mouse + keyboard. I'm certainly not against new ways of doing things but my immediate goal was to make a game that plays similar to the remake but also improves on it in certain aspects.

I've read some discussions on the RE1 Remake posts on Steam and it's interesting to read the reactions to cameras. Some complaints were that these cameras felt clunky and disorienting. From what I've heard, they went with the fixed cameras because of that. I think that was true for the tank controls. It's supposed to be that way as to make the player feel less in control when panicking and I kind of like that aspect. The tank controls however to me are too much. I can't believe I played the original remake with those controls and was proficient at it.

Sorry for all the text but I feel explaining myself aids in the conversation of what I think I would want a game like this to be VS what others might want. Ultimately I always believe the creator should be able to push his vision but I also believe other people can have really good ideas as well and I try to mediate between those two philosophies.

So what I tried to achieve in the video was to use these cams to create certain flow. This should also be out into context of where you are in the game. Late game areas should be much more disorienting and break that flow more and more. I'll be experimenting with that and trying to find where the fine line is, which will be difficult because something that's fine for me could not be fine with someone else.

So, in the video there's a mess hall area with two placeholder NPC's/ This is an area I think a pivoting camera can do wonders. The thing I do like about pivoting/panning cameras is that it can slowly reveal more of an area. This is something a static camera can't and I believe there's a value in that, but it has to be done in moderation I think. I do believe the video above has a healthy distribution of fixed and moving cameras/ But this is a test environment and nothing representing anything final.

As for the setting, I'm not going super realistic with this. I believe the fun should be in the gameplay and the horror aspect. I'm aiming for a strong atmosphere / game experience first and realism after that. Not ignoring it of course but games are more fun when you don't let them dictate gameplay. The movie Gravity showed this intimate kind of loneliness that felt inspiring. I haven't mentioned it yet but Silent Hill is also an inspiration to me. In fact I am working on an idea that falls into the two realities aspect of that and which is part of the mystery building where nothing is really explained and things happen and the player just tries to survive.

Basically I'm playing with the idea of the game taking place on board a (near-future) space station called Eden where they've been experimenting with dimensional portals. The idea of it taking place on the space station is to isolate these experiments in case of (dun dun dun) they go wrong. It also bypasses the ethical laws on Earth and it's just a very cool setting.

The idea for the story/game is to start out as your typical zombie survival horror game until you reach a point where it changes that perspective. I'm also thinking of a very, very minimal cast of characters, if at all. The idea is to show an abandoned station that seems to be just fine. No signs of violence (at least at first) it's just missing the people that lived and worked there. So you start out exploring parts of it before anything happens. All of this is to set up the atmosphere and build up to the rest of the game.

Last thing I want t mention about the gameplay is that I'm also thinking of a sort of HUB kind of approach. Certain Areas that are (for the most part) safe zones. These are places where you can store items, etc for whatever you can't carry. An internal delivery system (think of the chests from RE1).

Anyway, as I said I'm still prototyping and looking into how much of an audience there is for this kind of game. I think they're out there and I also believe this kind of game, while somewhat of a niche? can still be successful enough if done right. I haven't seen much games that really try to be different. Tormented souls looked good but didn't feel too different, Republic seems interesting as well. But there aren't too many titles as far as I can see. But I'm not an expert and I'm also not a diehard fixed camera expert either. I just really enjoyed the RE1 Remake and 0 and I played some of the Silent Hill games (mostly 2 and 3).

Okay this is getting ridiculously long, sorry. :P I'm using Unreal Engine 4 (2.6). I'm leaning into going full production with this (still have a smaller project going) but I want to make sure I'm a bit more educated before committing.

For now people can support me with just having a dialogue about their thoughts/ideas and perhaps offer some feedback. If the game goes into actual production people could support me on Patreon. Maybe I'll try my hands at Kickstarter or something but that's a big maybe. I'll be happy to post some updates here in the meantime.

Since I haven't committed yet, I don't have any official places to really talk about it. I'll link to my discord when/if that changes. :)

For now I'm having fun talking about it. Also thank you for responding you brought up some interesting points and I'll make sure to keep some of the things you said in mind while I expand the prototype. My goal is to keep working on it to the point that I have a digital slice of (most of) the main gameplay loop.

I'll now stop typing because I feel like I've written a novel. :P

Words, DeRaNgEr, you have them! =D

I appreciate your pragmatic approach to resource scarcity, working with pre-built assets is a smart choice (though you can always target something more stylised/lower-poly as another option!). You mention previous projects - would love to check them out!

It's worth taking a look at Quantic Dreams and Supermassive Games projects. Conditions in QD may seem dodgy, and David Cage has a tendancy to take his stories in absolutely gibberish directions, but I'd argue that Fahrenheit and Heavy Rain have perfect thriller beginnings that really make the most out of fixed cams. Fahrenheit's often on sale for a pittance, and I believe the demo's free - well worth a go.

Supermassive's Dark Pictures Anthology series are probably the currently highest-budget fixed cam games out there, though the latest release (House of Ashes) skips fixed cams, sadly. It's interesting to see how they felt the need to drive the player's input through animations and then onto the avatar - it looks filmic without the character turning on a dime, but it's much less responsive.

(Slight nit-pick - Resi 1 Remake has camera trucking[blog.storyblocks.com], which is much less common than panning/pivoting in fixed cam games! =P)

Tank controls have their uses. =D But, yeah, trying to onboard folks to fixed cams is still tricky, never mind that even people familiar with the paradigm still find the odd camera cut awkward! White Night and Heavy Rain attempt to lessen the control confusion, but honestly - the enormous success of Telltales Walking Dead shows that people can get over that hump if the content is good enough...!

Resi fixed cams come from Shinji Mikami trying to convert the design of the 2D game Sweet Home to a PS1 first person perspective, before finding the game Alone in the Dark and adopting (and some would say 'perfecting') the approach for his game. Tank controls, however, were intentionally adopted over cam-relative controls in order to heighten difficulty and panic (misatribution of arousal, etc, stuff Thomas Grip used to write about).

Camera composition in fixed cam games is interesting compared to what you normally get in linear media - usually you want to obey the key cinematographic rule of 'not crossing the line'... but Reynal, Mikami and Kamiya do it all over the place in their games. Maybe that's a reason we get confused navigating in those games, but it seems almost impossible to follow it everywhere if you're building something like Alone in the Dark. On the other hand, it seems advisable to follow the 30 degree rule where you can...!

As a favour to me - if you've decided to do a pivot camera somewhere, consider off-setting the tracking target for the camera a little, just so you get a more interesting composition than having the main character stuck in the middle of the frame. The rule of thirds is popular for a reason - we can't all be Stanley Kubrick! =P

Ah, realism. It's really only useful when it demonstrably adds to the fun of the design. Slavishly implementing it can be deathly dull... though, honestly, sometimes the constraints of realism can inspire some serious creativity. =D

I really love the 'internal delivery system' as a replacement for Resi chests. Makes a ton of sense...! Maybe even have stuff printed out and disassembled into component elements for reuse...!

I'm excited to see where your games goes! Do consider hanging out here and giving us some updates. I'd like to make this a point of contact for folks who dig these games - maybe we'll expand beyond a Steam group at some point!

And let us know when you have a demo, I'd love to try it! Best of luck!

Hey Joure! Was wondering if there was any movement on your game? Looked exciting...!