Guide on Novels and Games - VIDEOGAME CHARACTERS - PART 5 - SH

Yes, I'm putting this type of game too.

As all of you know, this type of game involve the main character that in a way or another is inside a nightmare where death is behind every corner.

For this genre we have:

* **Map**, the classical function, normally we start using it when the player obtain a map of the zone and depending on the game we can have:
	+ Different colored doors, this function show us with different color the doors of the zone where normally the red ones are closed and can't be opened at the moment and green the one that are open and that we can open... please remember that the map function normally don't know which door is closed and which one is open so the user need to interact with them. A variation can be made is that if you you have the way for open a door that was previously closed than red doors become yellow or of another color, for example I encounter a door closed and the map show it in red but then I found a key and the system recognize that the key I found open the door of before and now can be opened.
	+ Item location, in certain games when the player interact with an item BUT don't take it, the map remeber the position but this function don't work with the enemy's drop because normally it despawn from the map.
	+ Point of interest, the map "remember" certain things that a player usually encounter during the adventure like a safe that is not open or a puzzle that must be solved for progress.
	+ Destination, in certain games the map point out the destination of the player in various ways like making the location in the map of a different color or using a sign for point it like an X.
* **Inventory**, this function is probably the more limited of all the types of games. Normally we start with a certain number of slots and based on it we can understand how much we can expand it because normally an inventory in a survival horror can be expanded but this, like always, depend on the designer... normally we see this type of inventory:
	+ Small grid, we start with a very small grid that work as inventory and that usually is 2 line for 4 columns, in this cases we found items on the map that add cells or an item that expand the entire grid like change it from 4x2 to 6x4.
	+ Column, said like this is not really right but basically we have a "large" inventory that can't be expanded or modified, that is and that stay.
	+ Normal with expansion, basically in the screen we have our inventory with all its various slots presents BUT we only have a small number of them open and the others are something we have to unlock in some way.
* **Items**, in survival horrors are usually:
	+ Weapons, depending on the project a weapon can occupy a single slot or more than one and that depend on the size, for example a rifle take 2 slots while a gun only one.
	+ Ammo, what we use with the weapons, in certain games we can found different type of them, infact in the UI we can se the ammo in use and the relative alternative ammo in the inventory.
	+ Mod, in some survival games we can found mods for boost our weapon and that, once applied, they can't be removed. Please remember that in a grid system inventory if the size of the weapon is changed than the number of slots took change too, for example a handgun take one cell but once I apply on that weapon a rifle's stock for increase the accuracy, that weapon will take now two cells instead of a single one.
	+ Healing, the items consumed for recover HP and heal status alteration if they are present.
	+ Special, they are the item used in the puzzles. This are the normal items we can found in survival horrors but if something like a shop is present then we can found a type of currency that is used.
* **Weapons**, when we talk about weapons in survival horrors we need to think about various elements:
	+ Setting, depending on where the story take place we can found different weapons, for example in a school is more possible found blunt weapons that can be obtained by sport equipment (baseball, hockey, etc.) and eventual tools for repairs things or take care of the green zones and, in theory, rarely we found fire weapons like assualt rifles or rocket launchers and relative ammo... viceversa in a urban contest we can found "more easily" fire weapons and we just need to think of go in a weapon shop or in another place where we sure can found such weapons.
	+ Type progression, with this I mean that the type of weapons that are found must follow a logic progression that revolve around both character and enemies because is meaningless have a weapon at the beginning of the game that work against a specific type of enemy encountered after half of the story because the user in the end forget that it have that weapon or even sell it withou know its real value.
	+ Balance, if you think well about the weapons we found in games they all follow a specific balance that divide them into:
		- High fire rate but they don't really do great damage with sometimes a spreading that increase when continuing on fire without rest.
		- High damages but very slow and, in some case, a small magazine (in a game I play there is a very powerfull sniper rifle but the magazine have space only for one shoot.)
		- Balanced ones that mantain a certain balance between their stats so power, fire rate and magazine normally don't try to suppress each other. Normally the starting weapon that a player have is a balanced one Please keep in mind that what I wrote here take into consideration the "pure" state of the weapon that is when the weapon is not modified in any way.
	+ Type, in survival horrors we mainly have this weapons:
		- Hand-to-hand, they range Another note about weapons is that we can found different types depending on the character, for example with character A we found an assault rifle and a shotgun while with character B we found a crossbow and UZI... the reason I'm saying this is that if someone want to think which weapon we want for a character we can't just pick the list of common one and use it.

* **UI**, in survival horror games the UI change depending on the game but generally we have a map, something that how the health of the controlled character, the ammo in the magazine of the weapon, the max ammo we have and eventually all the alternative ammo for the weapon in use

For what I know there aren't any novel or manga that use a survival horror system as power for the MC and the main reason is that is quite limited respect the other ones.