Name: Matthew Searle
Research
Idea Research
Resident Evil (2002) - RE1
Resident Evil Zero (2002) - RE0
Recently, I have been replaying Resident Evil and I have been enjoying them very much as their original movement system at times, I found it quite scary because the camera was restricted meaning I couldn't look about a corner to see what was there, I just had to leave it to the environment and atmosphere plus there system was revolutionary because most games of the time were just platformers or fps shooters. In my opinion, this popularized third person-ish games.
I like the game's atmosphere and theme. They created an place that is related to wealth scary by changing the lighting, audio and environment design. The developers for this game, they use realistic lighting to light a room for the player via wall lamps and chandeliers. There is one section in RE 1 where you have to walk down a hallway full of mirrors, suits of armor and weapons but it was only lit with your flashlight and some old wall lamps, making the player to use reflections in the mirror to see a small refection on what is around the corner, The environment design and the camera angle that makes the scene tense because the player cannot see anything else other then the small refection from the mirror.
Video Research
This playlist teaches me how to create multiple mechanics that are found in resident evil, Like the restricted movement and camera system, Enemies and ect. This is going to be extremely useful as I don't have to mash multiple codes together which can cause multiple errors and headaches for me and for the engine. Now all I have to worry about is the animations and environments that the player will be traversing in the demo.
Episode 5 of the playlist covers how to set up animation and how to apply it to the characters and enemies. This is going to be useful as I won't have to worry about making my own animations and getting them pre set up for my demo.
The playlist has all the necessary information that I will be able to create my demo with succession. I will have to create my own scripts for picking up keys, triggers to check if the player has a key to active lore and puzzles.
These Videos are amazing because they talk about points on why the game is great and how developers build its atmosphere via the movement, environment and gameplay mechanics, they also talk about cons about the game and what they could have changed to make the experience better for the player and the game.
On the second (Bottom) video, At 46:37, She talks about the pros and cons of the game. how the presentation of the game affects the environment and atmosphere and how it helps the horror elements become more emissive and fearful.
So in my opinion, From these videos the main thing that makes the game good are the visuals, sound design and lighting and how Capcom have utilized the forced perspective/Restricted Movement to increase the tension for the player since its restricted. It's easier for the player to get hurt/damaged as the player is locked in place while aiming their weapon.
Environment Research and Inspiration
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These images are from Resident Evil 1 and it's the spencer mansion, It's the main environment that the player is in. These images are the main inspiration for my demo's play space because It gives off the correct amount of scary as the environment seems abandoned but it isn't at the same time, it makes the player uneasy as it gives them a sense of they are being watched by something.
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I also quite like the décor of the mansion as gives off old but fancy, dirty but clean, etc. It's a great location for a horror game as it has unlimited potential for encounters with enemies and random environment changes like fires, floods, explosions ect.
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For my demo, I want the same thing for environment but more modern for the time period i have put them in. For this, I'm going to take the lighting and some of the graphic similarities for my demo.
Sales reference:
By the sales, you could tell the resident evil was more of a success compared to Silent hill 2, Because its style of horror resonates with people who come from the original PS1 games and I would say it’s different as most horror games before were simple and not scary due to graphical limitations using fog or long loading screens to load areas or just putting the player in a pitch black area but since Resident Evil and 0 used high quality pre-rendered backgrounds since they did this, capcom were able to implement high poly count player models making the game look graphically more realistic than any other game on the market like Silent Hill 2. Since silent hill 3 used fully 3d environments it caused the game to look lower quality because most of the resources were being used up for the environment making the creators use lower quality models for everything.