Tenebrous - Open For Testing

The time has come! As I mentioned previously, I need people to play the game I created for my dissertation, Tenebrous, in order to gather data for said dissertation. If you'd like to help out, please read the following instructions carefully, and you have my sincerest thanks!

NOTE: Unfortunately, the game is currently only available on Windows.

UPDATE: People have been asking about the deadline. I have a demo Thursday 19th of December, so I would like to receive some responses before then so I can show off some results, but anytime before 31st December would be grand.

How To Help

1. Download the game from https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7n0P-XMWZ_Yd1Y5Z0ZDdUdSM2c (~50 MB). Unzip the folder. Keep track of where you put this folder, you will launch the game from here and this is where you will find the logs you need to send me.
2. Read the How To Play section below before playing - there is no in-game tutorial or even a list of controls. Rough prototypes for the win!
3. Play through the game as much as you like.
4. Create a zip file of all your logs, located in the logs folder (in the folder you downloaded above). Send this zip file with your logs to sarah.ann.herzog@gmail.com.
5. Go to https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1QEBzITmxkK-TjlmRfrK5cCYGDZ8D5v6EZdsrCQYYxAo/viewform to take a very short survey about your experience with the game. Remember to input your name when requested if you would like to be included in the Tenebrous credits when it is released.
6. Feel proud that you contributed to research for the good of games!

IMPORTANT: I need TWO THINGS from you:

1. Email me your logs from the logs folder inside the game folder after you play
2. Complete the online survey (results are sent automatically). 

Please don't forget either of those!

How To Play

Goal of the Game: You are lost and alone in a hostile, darkness-covered forest. You must reach the safety of a nearby holy house (follow the purple arrow!) before your magical light runs out. Be careful, as the creatures of the darkness are attracted to light and will drain yours if they touch you! Luckily, you are a holy warrior and have a few tricks up your sleeve, but don't be foolhardy: These monsters cannot be defeated by the likes of you, only delayed and avoided.

Controls:

• Movement - WASD / Arrow Keys.
• Sneak - H. Use this to dim your light, preventing enemies from noticing you.
• Boost - J. Use some of your light to continuously boost your speed. Great for escaping enemies.
• Distract - K. Drop a gem filled with some of your light behind you. Enemies will target it instead of you, allowing you to escape. You can also pick it back up if you need to, but it will lose light over time so you won't get 100% of your light back.
• Flare - L. Hold in this button to charge up and release a bright flare, stunning nearby enemies but using a large chunk of your light.

Terrain:

 There are four types of terrain:

• Clear land. This is denoted by a neutral gray colour and has no effect on movement or light.
• Forest. This is black, and cannot be moved through.
• Swamp. This is light blue, and slows the player.
• Miasma. This is purple, and drains your light.

Enemies:

Pulsar - A simple enemy which stays in once place and sends out a pulse of darkness, pulling in creatures of light and damaging them.

Bomb - This enemy is slow moving, but can be deadly if it should catch you. It will explode when in bright light, leaving a patch of miasma that will damage anything inside it.

Hopper - A dangerous foe who moves in quick hops, but must take time to change direction and can be outmanoeuvred.

Power-Ups:

Light Gem - A helpful gem filled with holy power, boosting your magical light. Will attract monsters.

Thank You For Participating!

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at sarah.ann.herzog@gmail.com. I really appreciate your help, I wouldn't be able to complete my dissertation without you!

Update: What Am I Logging?

I realized I should let you all know what information I am logging:

• Game time
• Game inputs (movement and abilities)
• Picking up light gems
• Being injured by enemies
• Player's light value over time
• Player's position relative to the start and to the objective over time
• Active enemies and enemies targeting the player
• Active light gems

Tenebrous - Calling All Gamers!

As you may know, I'm currently working on a game for my dissertation. This post will tell you a bit about the game, what I hope to learn from it, and how you can help!

Game Overview

The game is called Tenebrous, and is a top-down action/horror game in which you must reach a safe haven before running out of magical light. The darkness itself is your enemy - your light drains naturally over time, and is drained much more quickly if you come into contact with monsters or miasma, a purple substance created by said monsters. To aid you in your quest, you have four light-based powers:

• Sneak - dim your light and move slowly to sneak past monsters (they only target you if they are within your light range). Be cautious - moving more slowly means your light is drained more to get the same distance!
• Boost - expel some of your light behind you to move forward at a brisk pace.
• Flare - charge up and then release a brilliant flare, stunning nearby enemies and revealing the surrounding terrain briefly. Uses a large amount of light to activate.
• Distract - drop a gem filled with your light. Enemies will prioritise this gem and ignore you while it is there. However, it will slowly lose the light that was given to it, eventually disappearing. The good news is, you can pick it back up to regain some of you light if you are quick!

Armed with these abilities, you must navigate a twisting, procedurally generated forest filled with swampy ground that slows you and malevolent miasma which drains your light as you pass through. You will be attacked by three different types of monster: The pulsar, a stationary creature which sends out a pulse and pulls you in towards it, dealing damage to you as you touch it; The bomb, moving slowly towards you and exploding as it gets close; and the hopper, a fast moving creature that must stop to re-orient itself before continuing pursuit.

Research Goal

What is the point of all this? Why is it worthy of a dissertation? The project and research subject was inspired by Left for Dead and Warframe - both games with procedurally generated gameplay experiences, in which enemies are spawned in based on the current intensity of gameplay. This is a very interesting idea because it means that player experiences can be crafted to match the quality of pacing achieved in hand-scripted levels, but in endless, procedural levels. 

Rather than attempting to recreate exactly what Valve and Digital Extremes had already done in Left for Dead and Warframe, I decided to view this concept through the lens of my previous career in engineering. The intensity the player experiences via the game's pacing can be thought of as an output from a controller, and the input is the threats the game creates for the player to interact with. The controller's job is to judge what quantity of threat to provide to achieve a target intensity.

To that end, I have created a PID (proportional integral differential) controller which keeps track of the intensity the player is experiencing (based on their actions, movements, damage taken, enemies targeting them, etc), the target intensity (this would be controlled and tuned by a designer, a very simple model has been chosen for this project), and from these generates a target threat output and spawns enemies to meet that threat output.

TLDR: The project spawns enemies based on the amount of action the player is experiencing, with the goal of making a well-paced game procedurally.

How You Can Help

In order to measure how well this project succeeded, I need people to play the game and send me their logs! There will also be a short survey once you complete the game. The gameplay is not designed for long play - I expect there to be roughly 5 minutes of gameplay followed by 5 minutes of survey. Combined with downloading the game and uploading your log, I expect it should only take around 15 minutes of your time total. I'd really appreciate the help, and when the game is released, you can have your name in the credits!

If you are interested in testing, please send me an email at sarah.ann.herzog@gmail.com. I'll be contacting everyone on my list on Monday 9th of October with details on how to download the game and how to send me your logs.

Thank you so much for your help!