Labyrinth Map. (or how to turn Boring Game into Survival Horror)

[Enelance]

Sorry for my bad English…

I’m currently working on a Labyrinth map.
Actually, the maze is done and even implanted to the map. Camera System and some initializing triggers are ready to. But now I’m afraid that simple walking from corner to corner would be to boring for modern wc3 gamers, besides my maze is pretty challenging it will take time to finish it (and get bored the player even more).

Only thing that I know at this moment is that I don’t want any slaughter and ubber-elemental wars with hundreds of artifacts, shields swords and so on…

I want to create a survival horror with some special combat system (but I thing its even won’t be combat at all).
First idea was to make whole story around one person (map is single player) who had stuck in his nightmare and to release himself he had to find the exit and defeat his nightmares.

So I need suggestions for the map: a very unusual combat system, some freaky usage of inventory and so on…

 

[Trillium]

Add traps. Traps should be hidden and require players to be constantly alert in order to avoid them. For instance, a small wisp of smoke could indicate a fiery trap, but it would be hard to notice on a dark floor.

Combat could consist of just several abilities - Push, Toss, Kick and the like. While these abilities alone would be of little effect, you could fill the dungeon with a lot of items that those abilities would affect. Kicking a log that supports the ceiling could cause a stone shower (with a brief delay, so the player has a chance to escape). Pushing a giant boulder could cause it to roll down the tunnel, smashing (or maybe just pushing away) all monsters it its way. Of course, these abilities would cost mana, and quite alot of it, so the player would have to make decisions, what abilities and when to use.
Inventory could contain picked up stuff for tossing or interaction - for instance you can pick a light chair to later put it on the ground and send flying at enemies with a kick.


A different use for inventory could be storage of torches. The dungeon could be very dark, making seeing monsters and traps problematic. The player would have a very limited supply of torches to use (he can find some more in the dungeon, but not many and with effort). Apart from being a short-timed light source, torches can be used as a one-time weapon (smash enemy with a torch to set it on fire - that may be the only way to permanently kills monsters perhaps? monsters on fire could deal bonus damage to the player), or scare away some kinds of monsters that fear light. Of course, some of the interactive objects in the dungeon could be flammable - so the player can push several barrels together and light them, to create a wall of fire - or set a barrel on fire before pushing it at enemies.

 

[Enelance]

Thank you for your ideas, but all of those ideas are more for dungeon-games. All of those torches, falling rocks are cool, but it sound like some kind of escape map and I’m looking for mysterius gameplay to make player not get bored while searching the exit of the maze.

 

[Dawn Whitelighter]

aside from traps, other brain games would work, like people that are lost for years in the maze that could either tell you the right path, give quizes before you could pass, or lead you to doom. clues like blood spills and runic messages could give more sophistication. the maze should also have different exits: one leads to victory, others lead to doom..
hope this helps