The thing we need to remember is that ASCII is not like traditional game graphics; it’s an abstract of a more complex intent. What you see when you look at the game window is NOT what your character sees in the world around them. You may see a green Z on the screen, but your CHARACTER sees a zombie. The zombie MAY in fact be green, but it could just as likely be blue or red or yellow with little spots. When you see a pink Z, your character sees a boomer. The shape may look the same to you, but it doesn’t look the same to them.
Yep thats why I am suggestting it as an effect of dimensional degeneration, because at that point, everything gets so fucked up that you cant actually be sure that what you are looking at is actually what you are looking at, objects in 3d space sudenlly seem smudged and unfamiliar once their 4th dimensional aspects are revealed to your eyes, something like an enhanced version of hallucinations but actually “real”.
Something like that could make for a startling and actually pretty scary experience if done well and properly. I find Cata doesn’t creep me out as much as it used to simply because there’s not a whole lot that is unknown or innately scary. Something like dimensional degradation where the universe itself is falling apart is pretty goddamn creepy no matter what way you put it. For all the slightly-occult and extradimensional things in the game there’s very few that are actually unsettling.
Exploring a cathedral and finding blank bodies in the basement was one of them. Granted it was 3AM and I had just finished reading some articles on the SCPWiki but I still couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Here’s an example of a screenie tinted with a black and white filter:
Interesting. Did you use an image editor or an actual ingame function? I ask because to my knowledge the games graphic “engine” (curses) is only capable of displaying a handfull of different grey tones.
Yes, I used an image editor. In curses it’d definitely be different.
I can still see it being interesting, because there’s definitely enough contrast between grays to tell the difference.
Plus, there’s always capital V to help you out. Or x.
What I am getting at is that ingame that contrast wouldn’t really exist. Compare with the boomered effect.
I like the idea of dimensional distortion, it would be a neat (and creepy) thing to run into in game.