Nightmare Mode

[WarHampster]

Whoa! It's cool, but seems to be a bit disjointed... I mean, there should be some overarching theme to the game that holds it together. It seems like the kid is just going from setpiece to setpiece (scary storm! alien portal! communist space police!)... what ties all that together thematically? In other words, all that exciting stuff needs to be molded around some structure. For example, let's say you're telling a coming-of-age story - in that case, getting thrust into an alien world from the safety of his parent's house could represent the challenges of maturation, enrolling in the space police the temptation to conform, etc. You can keep crazy and awesome events and still tell a coherent story! That way the excitement is less "ok here's another random cool thing" and more "interesting, I see how this cool thing fits into the story!"

[GMG Kurt]

The disjointedness is just my writing style. But I do see what you mean. That wasn't the whole story that was just how it started. The rest of the game plot is governed by your superiors distrust of you, the blood of your allies, and the portals which your sent out to investigate.
The game employs short segment with two to three puzzles that should make you think, with out the monotony of  modern puzzlers, followed by a very short cut scene with minimal dialogue that links it to your next objective. Most levels will end with a cliff hanger So that I can pull them into the next level, and then the next! Overall there's less than 10 levels, but you can replay the game from different characters viewpoint. You'll find out backstories, and what led each character to the life changing events it all leads up to.

That way the excitement is less "ok here's another random cool thing" and more "interesting, I see how this cool thing fits into the story!"

I see. Although I think the beginning of the game will inevitably be the former since its setting up the plot.

[GMG Kurt]

so warhampster how do you think I would capture fear? What is the best way to dramatically build up a creature so fearsome you'll want to wet your pants and run, just by hearing its steps. I remember  that feeling the first time i played minecraft with the feet scuffling all around me. (zombies) any ideas on exactly how i could pull that off?

[Connors]

Minecraft relies on random events and the world is so open that you can never tell what will come up. The game doesn't always play fair. Perhaps it's that uncertainty that makes it so creepy.
And creepers.

[Connors]

I wanted to find that article you wrote because I remembered it being deeply interesting (and also talking about a game that sounded really fun) and nightmaremode.net seems to be gone. Just... gone. No more article. No more homepage. Nothin'. What happened to it?

[WarHampster]

The editors moved on to other things and shut it down around 2 years ago. There's an archive though, you can read my stuff here: http://nightmaremode.thegamerstrust.com/author/sam-posner/

I think I've gotten much better at writing since then, it's weird that it was only ~4 years ago.

[Connors]

You know I actually found an archive of the articles on my own, while this forum was down, but I didn't know I could search by author and I had to scroll down all the way to 2011 by hand. xD

I finally tried Space Funeral, too. It's pretty great (I haven't finished it yet, though). Oddly enough, I wouldn't have gotten some of the allusions and references in Space Funeral if I had played it back in 2011 because I took Philosophy 101 in college in 2012. That one little detail made the plot way more interesting.

Specifically, they tell you early in the game that there is a perfect place, the City of Forms, and all things are derived from that one place, and that this City is corrupted. This might even explain all the weird blood creatures and bizarre, disturbing locations in the first few areas, and even the weird main menu which presents you with a choice of BLOOD, BLOOD, or BLOOD. They aren't afraid to break the fourth wall; EVERYTHING in the game got messed up (also the glitch floating down the river was a nice touch).

Maybe I'll make a longer review once I've completed the thing.