Bloodsucker

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

I am sure that most of you played S.T.A.L.K.E.R., no?

What about fighting our greatest fear from it in the Cataclysm?

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[center][size=10pt]“Bloodsuckers are a type of rare mutant usually found in the deeper areas of the Zone, often underground. They seem vaguely humanoid, with a hunched stance and height similar to that of an average person. Their eyes are lambent and their mouths are surrounded by several powerful tentacles used for feeding on blood.” [/size]
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I really think something like this should be added, because it would be totally awesome, and it would make some gameplay differences.
At least not the bloodsucker itself, but something like it.

It could be able to become invisible, and you would have an slight chance of seeing them while on this stage. When they are near you, they automatically become visible and attack.

Strong and fast. A noob killer.

He would be passive unless you get too close to them. Let’s say, 15 tiles.

Watcha think?

2

You hear a slurp from the northeast. SLURP!
You hear slobbering coming from the north. Gross.

3

i wuld like to have somthing like this +1

4

Ugh. Those are one of the nastiest critters in the Zone besides pseudogiants and chimera.

Though it was pretty sweet giving their lair a big dose of sarin in CoP.

5

To be honest, I don’t think this is a great idea for the game. Don’t get me wrong, I love STALKER. It is a game that all should take note of. Hell, a lot of Cataclysm takes cues from it and is better for it. Here’s the thing though. Just because it worked fine in STALKER does not garuantee it will work here. The most unique feature of the bloodsucker is it’s ability to turn invisible, which does a great job of throwing you off balance. STALKER is a shooter at heart, and when players see they can shoot something they know they can kill it. However, with Bloodsuckers, you can’t see them unless you squint, and when you do see them it’s too late, you’re done.

If done in Cataclysm, it wouldn’t work because Cataclysm is a roguelike without a focus on shooting and ASCII graphics. How do you represent invisibility except by having no indicator as to it’s presence? Sound cues and text messages wouldn’t work, even newbies would immediately cop on that something is due to the law of conservation of detail. Since the game isn’t based around shooting, where’s the horror? Bloodsuckers would just become another annoying thing and not the true monster they are.

However, if you want a bloodsucker in a roguelike, here’s what you do. You make an enemy, let’s call it a mimic, that has a random letter representing it as its icon. You aren’t alerted to it’s presence, to you it is just a rabbit or something. It isn’t until you put your cursor over it that you realize it for what it is, but then it will go on the attack. It won’t ever attack you otherwise, fleeing if you hurt it. This is because it waits for you to start crafting or sleeping or reading to attack.

Let’s give a description of this similar to how many STALKER players give their description of a Blodsucker encounter. It’s the end of the day and your guy is hungry, thirsty, and more bored then an illiterate man in a library. You sit near a window to read and see a deer randomly screw around outside. No biggie. You make him start reading a photo album whilst smoking pot to get that morale up. However, down the bedroom a window smashes! You press five and rush to check, expecting wolves or worse, a zombear. Weirdly, there’s nothing there that could have made the smash. Just a couple of deer.

You board it up and go to sleep, expecting an ordinary night… When suddenly…

“The mimic pierces your skin with an evil looking tongue!
The mimic reaches down and begins to tear at your skin!
You fire your Glock 19 x4
The mimic tears at your skin! x2
You have died. Any last words? >”

6

OK, there’s the problem. If I’m either gonna be latched onto For Massive Damage or have to manually Xamine everything I encounter, I’m gonna third-option and boot it for excess tedium.

Sorry, but you’re gonna need another way to implement invisible bloodsucking killer mutants.

7

Ooh ooh. How about the “bloodsucker” makes tiles flicker, like the hallucination effect that Schizophrenics have. That way you have to be paying at least a modicum of attention to notice where it is when it goes invisible.

8

i like idea of Fniff

9

I like Dat’s idea.

10

Who the fuck is Dan?

That said, I don’t really like the idea of mimics in roguelikes. I don’t like the idea of mimics at all unless it’s done particularly well. Vigilance is all well and good, but obsessively [V]isual-chec[k]ing every enemy is just going to be tedious. Ideally, if a mimic is done well, there will be some obvious form of it telegraphing, the ones in Dark Souls occasionally crack open their mouths for a moment and visually look different from what they’re pretending to be, for example.

A grab is an alright concept of an attack for an enemy, so long as there is a somewhat reliable way for you to break the grab, whether it be hitting them hard enough to knock them off you, or suddenly diving away from them. The enemy can be powerful, but it has to be fair, there needs to be a reliable way for you to beat them.

11

:l

12

My name is DATAN. Feth’s sake man, I thought you knew Fniff by first name or something at first.

13

the flickering effect is a good idea could be used when entering horribly irradiated or supernatural places

14

The general consensus seems to be that Cataclysm needs more flickering. If the game doesn’t end up looking like an improperly stored video from 1910, I don’t want to be a part of it.

15

Well, it could depend on your perception, and it could be mixed with Dat’s idea too. If at this we add that it should attack like a dog does, i mean, attacking and retreating, i think you would stand a good chance at them.

They would also make the yellow ? things, of noise.

16

it should also be black and white to enhance the bleakness and the general sense of nihilism. those red J’s and cyan Z’s ruin my immersion. i want cataclysm artsy.

17

Why not just make it completely invisible and reappearing occasionally for 2-3 turns when you pass your perception check? As a bonus, when visible, its color should match the terrain it’s on.

18

we got bionic named alarm system

“A motion-detecting alarm system will notice almost all movement within a fifteen-foot radius, and will silently alert you. This is very useful during sleep, or if you suspect a cloaked pursuer.”

maybe this bionic will tell player where is him if he is in rage of this bionic

19

Heh… Arek is right…

20

OH MY GOD. A not sleeping benefit to the alarm system? Now we DEFINITELY need an invisible/concealed enemy of some kind.