Static Paradox blog post #2 - Second Area done

 This ended up being quicker to make than I thought.

After defeating the first area, there is one of six variations chosen for the next area. They have minor differences, mainly the monster the player has to deal with.

The location

The building is very tight and is shaped as a cross, with lots of couches and other objects. The player can spawn on any of the 4 ends. The middle has a gun that is used for defense, but also required to leave. Every end has a key to one of the four doors. There are four locked rooms. They act as safe rooms and one of them has a lever, that can only be activated from a gunshot. The gunshot opens a fifth hidden door around the middle to leave.

The lever location and the key locations are randomized no matter what variation you are on, and they have no names to point out right away where things go outside the generalizations. 

Couches will also randomly rotate at the start, and they can be moved slowly.

The variations have some smaller stuff like placement changed for certain smaller objects, mostly to keep the player on their toes with figuring out what part of the cross they are on.

The music is mostly sound effects, but has a very light distorted choir and church organ in the distance.

--Enemies-- 

Bunch of new enemies, I'll mention the two main ones from the first area/demo, since they do have some small changes for the new area specifically for it.

The Hound

From the first area, they have a chance to be the monster. They are mostly extremely subtle, and they are also one of the hardest to escape from, due to needing to open a safe room. Since the hallways are made to give large amounts of line of sights for the player and enemies outside the main multi-room areas, it can lead to very subtle discoveries for either entity. 

The Drifter

The drifter acts mostly the same, but due to how aggressive he is, the couches serve a major purpose in delaying him from grabbing the player. The player is always on edge, since it is always very close by where they cannot relax. Going into a safe room means little room for error to escape. 

Cockroach

All variations have them. They make noises, are very fast, and can push objects around slightly. They mostly move around randomly to add tension with random sounds, and to move objects very subtly.

Mascot

The mascot is like the Hound but a little more complex. When they see the player, they will project voices into the player's head. They will walk around randomly and they can be hidden from behind couches, sometimes. if the player doesn't have enough room between them and the Mascot, then they will know they are behind the couch. Sometimes running backwards to see if the player moves before bolting to them. They have an organ theme as well. They mostly randomly move to search, and they can be shot to stun them. They will stay in place for a random amount of time before moving once at a position or after they got shot. It's not very difficult, but it does make the player have to see where they can hide and cannot, where hiding too close to where they were seen will end badly.

Baby

The baby is invisible and is more of a cosmic horror in a sense where it can be heard but not seen. It is also extremely random, meaning it doesn't chase the player as much, and only does so when it knows it can easily get to the player before they can run away or hide. Shooting it, by accident or somehow on purpose, it will release a faint baby cry. Has a very bombastic and giant theme.

The Gas Girl

The Gas girl is very manipulative, if it sees you, it will project static making it harder to see. It will always do this the first time for a random amount of time. The other times it spots you, is a little more random. Sometimes it won't, and will creep up on the player. It's theme is subtle with a sitar, and it very aggressive. It also has breathing noises being of distorted chuckles. The static is projects isn't as harmful as it's manipulation of when it uses it and how long it lasts, and since it's such a massive thing, not seeing it happen gives the player a misplaced sense of trust when they hear giggles getting louder with the large beat of the Sitar.

Alien

This one is extremely fast, with animations that are extremely fast. But it has a weakness of stopping when stared at. It will start searching and have random noises that can be heard before it's theme, and it's theme is mostly subtle but can get extremely random. Once it is seen, it will stop making the searching noises until it has discovered the player or it begins searching again. It will stop once seen, but not fully. It will still twitch and turn to the player's direction, if it has spotted them already. Once it has spotted the player, the player must always look at it's direction or else it will sprint to them, and the only way to shake it off is to unlock a safe room and to enter it. It's extremely dangerous, especially when discovered before a safe room has been unlocked. Sometimes spotting them will give the player away, but other times they will pretend to move away, but will go back to follow the player.

  Anything else?

Not sure how many areas the game will have. I don't want it to be too small but I don't want it to be bloated, due to how the game is with how enemies work with sending everything back to area 1. Part of having many different enemy types, is so the player always has a sense of fear and dread to not knowing what they are up against instead of it being too repetitive. But tension does require release before building up again, so enemies need to have some sort of threat factor. And for random factors for variations, I want it to be random enough to always have tension for what is coming next, but also consistent with fitting with the themes and ideas. This is also being applied to the pacing, where I don't want it to be too comfortable to know what to expect but also I want the pacing to be good. A lot of balancing overall. I'll probably make some newer monsters for the end parts too. A lot to figure out overall still with balancing in mind.