A project in flight.
notes from a crazed Resident Evil fan.
I’ve wanted to make a survival horror game with Inform since, well, before I even learned how to use Inform. You see, among my sophisticated and varied interests, such as cats, John Berryman, Infocom, Søren Kierkegaard, DC Comics, the narrative games of Autumn Chen, and first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, perhaps no interest is as sophisticated and varied as my regard for Capcom’s survival horror franchise, Resident Evil. Fellow fans among my readership may wonder: “There are so many types of Resident Evil fans. What kind of fan is Drew Cook?”
🧡Favorite character: Jill Valentine
🧡Favorite “modern” game: Resident Evil 2 (2019 remake)
🧡Favorite “classic” game: Resident Evil (2001 remake)
🧡Raid mode or Mercs: Raid
🧡Favorite POV: 3rd-person
🧡Favorite ship: I actually like imagining that everybody but Ada and Claire are aromantic (but I don’t ship them)
🧡Favorite non-game media: Zach Cregger’s upcoming film. I haven’t seen it, but we all know it will be better than everything else.
🧡Favorite weapon class: shotguns.
💔Least favorite character: I love Leon, but the fans have officially worn me out.
💔Least favorite “modern” game: Resident Evil IX: Requiem
💔Least favorite “classic” game: Code Veronica (X)
💔Least favorite game media: I’m no hater, but I can’t get into the Milla Jovovich movies.
Why am I telling you all of this? I am excited to announce, here, today, my own survival horror project, Inherent Depravity.
what is Inherent Depravity?
ID is what I have taken to calling a “rogueless,” a combat-heavy adventure across a fixed map. It’s a strange word, I admit, but “roguelite” doesn’t quite fit. One of the things I love most about Resident Evil games is that they become, on subsequent playthroughs, efficiency problems. How can they be beaten more quickly and with fewer resources? What strategies are necessitated if the ability to save the game is limited?
Modern games tend to award “achievements” or “trophies” for specific accomplishments, and some games offer in-game rewards, as well. These perks and bonuses more or less map to the “metagame” of roguelite designs. Unlike roguelikes, though, Resident Evil games rely on route optimization and mastery. Procedural generation, a staple of the roguelike/lite oeuvre, has no place in this model. I will list what I consider the signature features of a Resident Evil-style survival horror work with metagame elements.
- Strong combat emphasis
- Fixed maps with predictable enemy and item placements
- Strategically malleable, ie, multiple paths to success
- Varied weapons with different advantages and weaknesses
- Healing and buffing items in fixed, limited quantities
- Ammunition and other combat expendables in fixed, limited quantities
- Saving the game is limited in some way (only possible in certain amounts, or at specific points)
- Player power increases as the story advances
- A variety of enemy types requiring a variety of tactics
- Strong information management for the player: dynamic mapping, a system for organizing information uncovered during play.
- Multiple playable characters with unique play features
- Unlockable elements to scale power in future playthroughs, enabling a higher level of play (completion in less time, with fewer saves, and so forth)
In my experience, the best Resident Evil games each ship as two games in one. There is the first and most familiar game, which simply consists of completing the game’s story, and there is the second, deeper game of replay and optimization.
I have long wished to make such a game, and Inherent Depravity (also known as Inherent Depravity; Malevolent Occupancy or ID;MO) will be my attempt to do just that.
getting started.
This will be a big Inform game with a lot going on. Where to begin? The characters in Resident Evil games are such an important part of the experience. It makes sense to begin there.
a protagonist is a kind of person.
an enemy is a kind of person.
If this is a design requiring turn-based combat, we will probably need to devise some statistics to govern encounters. That’s going to take a bit of thinking, certainly. Whatever the particulars are, our combatants will need some measure of health to safeguard, lose, or regain.
We could declare a “current health” and “maximum health” as new value properties.
a person has a number called current health.
a person has a number called max health.
the max health of a person is usually 5.
the current health of a person is usually 5.
That’s easily done! Of course, in a large game with 40 or so enemies, our program might get a little messy if we proceed in this manner, especially if a fully-built combatant has several other statistics to manage. I will use a table instead.
a protagonist is a kind of person.
some protagonists are defined by the table of player characters.
table of player characters
protagonist max health current health
chad 45 45
june 40 40
an enemy is a kind of person.
some enemies are defined by the table of monsters.
table of monsters
enemy max health current health
zombie 5 5
hunter 7 7
As the documentation notes, Inform will, all on its own, determine that a protagonist has a number called max health, and, should we review the output from showme chad, we will see that things sit as they should.
>showme chad
chad - protagonist
location: out of play
unlit, inedible, portable; transparent, male; singular-named, proper-named
description: none
initial appearance: none
carrying capacity: 100
printed name: "chad"
printed plural name: "protagonists"
indefinite article: none
list grouping key: none
max health: 45
current health: 45
As new combatants are implemented, they can be added to a relevant table. Note that, if we have a more developed organizational strategy, we might break things up a bit.
an enemy is a kind of person.
a zombie is a kind of enemy.
some zombies are defined by the table of z-types.
table of z-types
enemy max health current health
gurgler 5 5
groaner 7 7
…and so forth. There’s more to do, of course. We have health, but no means of dealing damage, nor have we identified a way to calculate attack success and failure. While there is not yet an actual model for conducting combat, let’s quickly add some more statistics as food for thought.
table of player characters
protagonist max health current health accuracy speed defense
chad 45 45 7 5 7
june 40 40 5 8 5
There. I imagine these are mapped as follows:
- health: a measure of durability
- accuracy: influences a combatant’s ability to strike in combat
- speed: affects evasion and turn order
- defense: a combatant’s ability to absorb damage
This should be enough to determine combat outcomes. I don’t mean to reinvent the wheel here: combat should move quickly according to small but impactful choices with a strong secondary goal of resource preservation.
This is not yet enough to stage a fight, though, as there does not exist a means for delivering damage. Perhaps that can be sorted soon! As I’ve already indicated, weapon variety is a significant feature in survival horror games, and Inherent Depravity should participate in that tradition fully.
Hopefully, we can get to that next time!
next.
Experiments with rulebooks producing results, weaponry, and so forth.
I hope to release Inherent Depravity during Spring Thing 2027, but only if it is finished. I have high hopes! The map is perhaps 2/3 complete.
The 64461-word source text has successfully been translated into a world with 63 rooms and 195 things, and the index has been brought up to date
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