Chapter 330: The Multiplayer Horror Game BE QUIET
Chapter 330: The Multiplayer Horror Game BE QUIET
“In horror films, themes involving ghosts and mutations are certainly common and deliver strong visual impact, but there’s also another type of horror movie made up entirely of ordinary people, and their horror effect can be just as outstanding.”
“Ultimately, horror is just a feeling. There’s no need to be overly fixated on visual shock like ghosts or mutated monsters.”
“Take our company as an example—if you draw the curtains, immerse everyone in a tense atmosphere, then all it takes is a single scream for everyone to feel terrified.”
“So creating the atmosphere is the most important thing. Sometimes, the human heart is more frightening than any ghost. This should be a very crucial point.”
“If we can recreate this kind of feeling from the company inside a game, wouldn’t that achieve the same horror effect?”
Wang Xiaobin strongly agreed. “Yes, yes, that’s exactly what I was thinking too.”
“So we create a terrifying environment in the game, then throw a bunch of players into it, letting fear gradually spread and infect the crowd—just like what happens in our company.”
Ye Zhizhou continued, “In other words, in this game, the sense of fear doesn’t come from ghost models or monster textures, but from other players, from the ever-spreading atmosphere of fear, and from the environment itself.”
“Once fear spreads, conflict between players is inevitable.”
“Players absolutely cannot be in a purely cooperative relationship, otherwise it turns into ‘holding hands and singing Kumbaya while clearing a haunted house,’ which removes the challenge and runs counter to our goal.”
“We must create conflict and confrontation between players—letting players scare each other. That kind of completely unpredictable danger—isn’t that precisely the source of fear?”
“And as for how players confront each other… President Pei has already hinted at it: the weapon system!”
Ye Zhizhou looked at the third point President Pei had emphasized. “The strongest weapon is only a handgun. That’s because everyone in the game is an ordinary person, not a ghost or demon, so overly powerful weapons can’t appear—otherwise player combat would lose its balance.”
“As for other weapons, they can be daggers, stones—anything that can harm an ordinary person, but won’t kill them in a single hit.”
The two of them discussed and took notes at the same time.
Lin Wan interjected at the right moment. “There’s also a hidden setting here. Although President Pei didn’t state it explicitly, through our reasoning, it’s already becoming obvious.”
“To make fear spread among the player population, it means that at the beginning, most players should be in the role of ‘innocent victims.’ But later, once confrontation begins, some players must transform into ‘perpetrators.’”
“So how does that transformation happen?”
Ye Zhizhou frowned and thought for a moment. “I remember President Pei saying that at most… there would be madmen?”
Lin Wan nodded. “That’s right—madmen.”
“These active perpetrators should, in terms of narrative, be dangerous individuals with unstable minds—or in other words, madmen.”
“I think we can introduce a concept that exists in many games: ‘mental points,’ or sanity—SAN value. Many elements in the environment will continuously increase the player’s psychological stress. Once it reaches a certain threshold, the player goes insane and becomes a perpetrator, compelled to kill those players who are still normal.”
Wang Xiaobin nodded while taking notes. “Sure enough, once you lay it all out like this, everything becomes clear.”
“It’s just that a lot of details are still missing.”
“For example… since this is a multiplayer online game, should we add a voice system? Should players be allowed to chat with each other in-game?”
“If players can communicate freely, they’ll start doing all kinds of goofy stuff, weakening the game’s sense of horror. They might also coordinate through voice chat to form malicious teams and exploit the system, which would reduce the overall fun of the game.”
“If players can’t communicate with each other at all… it feels like a lot of the fun would be lost. There wouldn’t be much interaction left between players, and it might turn into pure confrontation with no cooperation.”
Ye Zhizhou thought for a moment. “That’s easy to solve. Since ‘speaking in the game’ is such an important mechanic, then we just need to find a way to restrict it.”
“Players can talk—but they can’t talk freely. Every sentence is extremely precious, and talking too much might even bring punishment.”
“For example… turning into a madman.”
“A qualified horror game should be like the atmosphere in our company.”
“Everyone is groping forward in total darkness.”
“If someone suddenly says a single word, everyone will scream…”
“Speaking of that, I just thought of a pretty good game title.”
“Be Quiet.’”
…
Under the three of them’s brainstorming, the concept for this horror game came together very quickly.
The core concept of the horror game BE QUIET was a multiplayer horror experience. Each match would consist of 8 players plus a random number of NPCs.
The number of NPCs would range from 4 to 8. These NPCs would be controlled by AI, intended to create a certain level of confusion for the players.
All players and NPCs would enter a procedurally generated game map, searching for items, looking for an escape route, and interacting with other players and NPCs.
The game maps would use different scenarios, initially planned to include: an asylum, a madmen’s village, a roadside inn, an ancient castle, and a school.
These environments would feature strong randomness. Through procedural algorithms, the function of each room and the items within it would be randomly refreshed at the start of every match.
Each room would contain collectible items as well as environmental props. Environmental props could not be carried but could be used to produce special effects—for example, a radio that could play a specific recording to increase mental pressure.
Players and NPCs would spawn randomly and separately at various starting points on the map. Once the game began, exploration of the map would commence.
Within the map, players could find special items such as daggers, bandages, psychiatric drugs, strange idols, and so on. Some of these items could be used to attack others, some to heal oneself, some to reduce mental pressure, and some to increase it.
How they were used would depend entirely on the player’s strategy.
At the same time, the eight players would start with different identities, and different identities would have different victory conditions.
Among the eight players: one is a police officer, three are good people, three are madmen, and one is an ambitious schemer.
The goals of the police officer and the good people are to escape from the area. The madmen aim to drive everyone into madness or death, while the ambitious schemer’s goal is to be the only one left alive.
If NPCs are present, they will be assigned at a ratio of half good people and half madmen.
A player’s identity is only fully revealed upon death.
There are various weapons and items scattered throughout the environment. The police officer starts with a handgun, which can deal heavy damage to both normal people and madmen. Other players can acquire items from the environment, or drop them on the ground to give to others.
Common items include daggers and high-powered flashlights. Daggers deal high damage to normal people, while high-powered flashlights deal high damage to madmen.
In addition, there are axes, flashbangs, and other more powerful weapons that are harder to obtain.
At the start, the police officer, good people, madmen, and the ambitious schemer are all normal people, with completely identical initial attributes.
As time passes, and under the influence of certain environmental elements and items, some players’ SAN values (mental pressure) will continuously rise. Once a critical threshold is reached without taking medication to reduce SAN, the player will transform from a “normal person” into a “madman.”
A madman’s movement speed, health, attack power, and other base attributes are all higher than those of a normal person. However, once a player enters the “madman” state, they completely lose the ability to communicate. Their muscles swell and their character model changes, making it visually obvious to other players.
Voice communication is allowed in the game, but under strict limitations.
Each time, a player can only say a single sentence, lasting no more than ten seconds. After it is spoken, the sentence is processed through the system’s voice software before being played.
Every time a player speaks, their SAN value increases.
If a player never speaks at all, they are easily regarded by others as an enemy or an AI; if they speak too much, on the one hand they increase their own risk of turning into a madman, and on the other hand they make other players suspicious of their true intentions.
In addition, to prevent “goofy” players from deliberately creating meme-worthy antics, most meaningless actions have been removed from the game.
For example, jumping is only possible when passing through certain specific terrain; players cannot just hop around aimlessly on the spot.
For players—especially those playing madmen and the ambitious schemer—there are many different strategies and playstyles available in the game, much like in many board games.
Police officers and good people must search the environment for mechanisms and exits while remaining vigilant toward others, and strike decisively when necessary to eliminate potential threats;
Madmen have much lower SAN values than good people. They can use environmental items to deliberately turn themselves into madmen and attack good people, or disguise themselves as good people to mislead others and lure them into traps;
The ambitious schemer can also choose to disguise themselves as either a good person or a madman depending on the current situation, in order to achieve their own goal.
Every player must constantly guess the identities of others during the game and adjust their strategy accordingly.
After each match ends, a comprehensive score is calculated based on each player’s data, time spent in the game, and the role they played.
For example, the ambitious schemer is an extremely difficult role to win with, so losing only results in a small point deduction, while winning grants a large bonus. At the same time, since actions such as killing, solving puzzles, and collecting items all contribute to score gains, even if the ambitious schemer’s main objective is very hard to achieve, there is still motivation to keep playing.
…
In the span of a single afternoon, the game’s overall framework had already taken shape.
By constantly raising questions and solving them in an endless cycle, many of the game’s settings were quickly finalized.
Looking at the design draft filled with dense handwriting, Ye Zhizhou and Wang Xiaobin couldn’t help but marvel.
It had gone far more smoothly than they had originally imagined!
Previously, they had spent two weeks playing horror games while brainstorming designs, yet achieved no major breakthroughs.
But now, in just one afternoon, the game’s prototype has emerged!
What was the difference between these two attempts?
The difference lay in President Pei pointing out the direction, and Director Lin providing a method for analyzing President Pei’s intentions.
Following this approach, every problem seemed to resolve itself naturally.
Up to this point, although no one could be sure whether the game would ultimately be a success, at the very least its gameplay was complete, there were no similar competing products on the market, and the first impression it gave was one of novelty.
And with President Pei having pointed out a clear path forward for the game, it was as if everyone had been given a powerful reassurance.
Looking at the design document, Ye Zhizhou couldn’t help but sigh with emotion.
“Could this be the final form of the horror game that President Pei had already envisioned from the very beginning?”
“Absolutely brilliant!”
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