Postmortem: The Society

Hey there, Gamers and Game Makers!

This week's blog post is a postmortem on one of my older games, The Society.

The Society was designed to be a 3D third person horror game that put focus on building a mystery and atmosphere rather than rely on more jump scare type horror.

The Society being a third person game is an interesting point as it's only the second third person horror I made after previously working on Tales from Dunwich, which was a 3D point and click horror game. The Society reflected a lot of my influences from games I played growing up. The most noticed influence was that it felt very much like one of the first Resident Evil or Alone in the Dark games.

What Went Right

1. Achieved Atmosphere
The original design was to have a game that felt mysterious and created a sense of atmosphere without relying on the typical jump scare formula. The game succeeded in creating that sense of fear and tension with purely atmosphere.

2.Improved Camera
The camera design in Tales from Dunwich was inspired by the original Silent Hill game but the downside to that was that at times it felt clunky and could prove frustrating during gameplay. The Society favored a set camera perspective that made it easier for the player to navigate the level.

3. Likable Character
one of the key points in the games design was to break the typical trend of the main character being a male and rather have a female character that was normal and not sexulised. The response to this was very positive especially since the character was not made appear weaker just because of her gender.

4. Better Post FX
The visual effects in this game were also better than that in Tales from Dunwich. I made better use of particle effects, lighting and camera processing in The Society.

What Went Wrong

1. Controls
The design was to make it feel like a PS1 game but the downside to those controls were that it felt clunky to move the character around and the character didn't always move where you wanted her to.

​2. Multiple Endings
The Society did have multiple endings but they didn't vary very much so replayability wasn't high. 

In Conclusion
The Society did a lot of things well in terms of the overall mystery, lore and atmosphere. What it would benefit from is an overhaul of the mechanics such as controls and interactions. All in all the game was received quite well and is a game with lore I would like to come back to at some point.

​Until next time!