"The term "scream queen" is more specifically used to refer to the "attractive young damsels-in-distress" characters that have appeared in a number of films in the horror genre."
Wikipedia, The Free Encyklopedia
I love horror movies, especially from the 70-80s, and also monster movies from the 50s. One day I had an idea. Why don't make a horror game in which a main character would be a girl with no weapons. So she couldn't defend herself. The only one thing what she could do is to run away from monsters. That's it. I have started this project called Super Scream Queen. I used a word "super" as Mario's reference and also because the scream queen is really good at running.
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Game mechanics & Gameplay
Super Scream Queen is the 2D arcade game for desktop (Windows, Mac, Linux). The Core mechanics is very simple. The player controls the blond girl and the only one task is to take her safely to an exit.
Levels are in a branched structure:
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If I raise funds for my game, it will contain about 70 levels. The levels are quite short, but difficulty is pretty hard. You can finish average level in 20-40 seconds, but it's almost impossible to finish the level for the first time. You will die a lot of times before finishing most of the levels. The blonde scream queen doesn't have lives or energy and therefore you have to start over after a contact with the trap or the enemy. You can try it over and over again.
The average player can finish the game in around 10 hours.
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A movement of all (the main character and the monsters) is not limited by eight directions when you use a gamepad or mouse.
Variability of the gameplay is ensured by:
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Many different traps and enemies. Each trap/enemy has a different size, speed and behavior.
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Many things that influence the movement of the main character.
- Play of lights causes that you can not often see the whole space and somewhere you can even be almost blind. Therefore be careful about the monsters they wait in the dark.
- There are at least six different worlds with different graphics, the traps and the enemies.
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A combination of these things creates a pretty variable level design and gameplay. There is a description of worlds with some examples of the traps and the enemies:
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Dungeon: ghosts, zombies, wizard, magic ball thrower, breakable wall, count Dracula, dragon
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Forrest: wolves, swamp, swamp monsters, giant spiders, spider queen and, of course, velociraptors
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Factory: timed bombs, giant saws, accelerating floor, Frankenstein's monster, evil professor.
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Spaceship: alien cocoons, aliens, laser walls, laser turrets, teleports, robots, homing missiles
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Space: momentum of movement, black holes, meteors, flying saucers with lasers, alien mothership with even more lasers, great view of Earth (almost like in the Alfonso Cuaron's movie)
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Hell: burning floor, devils, fire walls, fireball thrower, lava lakes, walls that can be destroy only with the fireball, Charon, Lucifer
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In more than one world: keys, doors, killer that is always behind you and wait for your mistake, speed bonuses
The above list is not all inclusive and definitive.
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The expected release date will be summer 2014.
Stretch goals
I have a lot of ideas what to do with more money/development time:
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Porting to other platforms: Super Scream Queen is portable to almost every existing platform. Mobile platforms (iOS, Android) would be probably first.
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Map editor: Create and share your own levels and also play levels created by other players.
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Game improvement: Higher quality and number of the levels, better graphics, a wider offer of monsters and worlds, more music etc.
Fundings
I have financed the game development myself so far. But for now I have no spare money. Therefore I would need funds for full-time development. Because my life expense is quite low I would use money from this campaign for living.
if I don't raise funds for my game, I will have to go back to a regular programming job. Then I don't know when I can finish development of this game.
Something about me
My name is Jindrich Stefan and I live in Prague, Czech republic. My long-term plan is to be an independent game developer. Super Scream Queen is my second game. My first game is small puzzle game for iOS - Cats, Flowers & Labyrinth.