Nightmare Cove

[DougE]

Hello!  I've co-created (with two friends) a horror RPG on Facebook.  We describe it as an "interactive horror story game."  We just released it in beta.  Here's the link - though you do have to have a Facebook account:  http://apps.facebook.com/nightmarecove

One thing we tried to do was hide the game mechanics.  So rather than saying you have a strength of 14 and an agility of 7 we say you're "Buff and Clumsy"  Combat generates sentences that describe the events without revealing the dice rolls behind them (e.g. "The zombie bites your arm but it's just a scratch.")

I'm curious if this approach sounds fun or if you'd rather know the specific numbers involved.

[pvaughan007]

As one of the creators with Doug, I will chime in with my own 2 cents having observed the players so far. I think we might need to pay off the character attributes (not necessarily show exact stats) more often.

For example, if you have a strength of 9, I don't really think you need to see that number to have a fun time. But if we describe it to you as "weak", then we ought to have you unable to swing certain weapons, or have a noticeably much harder time at it. As it is, we allow our builders to check for any of your abilities or skills, but the actual pay off to buffing up or buying a new skill is hard to measure. And if it's hard to measure, it's hard to become addicted. Not to say that leveling up is the only goal or excitement to an RPG, but unlocking new abilities and skills is a huge factor in whether or not the game sticks and you crave some more.

To this goal, by the way, I recently have written 300 new customized attack sentences to payoff various skills and items (in addition to the wide variety of combat lines already in place), to provide a more a combat engine that takes into account the specifics of the character who is playing.

If you haven't checked out the game, please do so and let us know what you think on this point. We'd love to fine tune and make the RPG a rich experience. Thanks!