Shudder

Out of Date! The information here is out of date. Shudder is currently being reworked from the ground up for the Fallout 3 engine, and probably won't see the light of day for some time. I am hard at work mastering the changes to the new world editor (the G.E.C.K.) and waiting patiently for updates to the model export scripts for Blender. (Primarily working collision.) In the mean time, I am working on a less ambitious mod for Fallout 3 called Deer Point.

Forum: Shudder now has a forum for users and developers, and a wiki exclusively for developers.

Shudder is a survival horror RPG total conversion for TESIV:Oblivion. Although gameplay elements will be heavily conditioned by Oblivion game mechanics (for obvious reasons) Shudder takes its inspiration from the works of H.P. Lovecraft, Asian horror cinema, and groundbreaking action/horror games like Silent Hill, Resident Evil, The Suffering, Fatal Frame, and Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth.

Although I enjoy a good Zombie Apocalypse as much as anyone, Shudder is distinctly a NON-Zombie Apocalypse mod. There are already a lot of great zombie-slaying games out there and Shudder will make no effort to supplant them. Shudder is also NOT a Vampire: Masquerade-style mod. Much as I like the slick, sexy appeal of the genre, Goth is more about romance and fantasy than it is about horror. And, as I said at the beginning, Shudder is about survival horror: the emphasis will be placed squarely on creating creepy and disturbing situations and environments in which the player will often feel in real danger of losing life, limb, or sanity.

I have been toying with the concept of Shudder on and off for about a year now, shopping around for the best engine for creating the kind of game experience I am looking for. I had originally planned to develop Shudder using the Valve engine, but found the complexity involved with creating things even as simple as NPCs and quests a little overwhelming. After spending a few months with the Oblivion engine, I've come to the conclusion that it provides most of the in-game elements I'm looking for already prebuilt, though it will require a bit of tweaking to get things working just right. (As the concept--and my own knowledge and skillset develop--I may find that another engine better suits my purposes, but for now Shudder will be built around the Oblivion engine.)

Role-playing in a World of Survival Horror

So what is a 'survival horror RPG'? Well, it's pretty much exactly what it sounds like.

Survival horror games are typically about ordinary characters facing overwhelming odds and having to use their brains and the environment to solve problems that brute strength alone won't solve. The goal, plain and simple, is survival. When the player's character is no longer in danger, the game is over. While there is usually some element of combat involved a survival horror game (and typically poorly implemented), the focus of survival horror games is usually placed squarely on the creep factor: moody lighting and sound effects, gruesome graphics and sudden, startling creature attacks are the bread and butter of survival horror games. To overcome obstacles, players are typically required to find weapons and items, combine inventory objects to create new tools and weapons, and solve puzzles involving logic (using conveniently placed clues) and physics (moving around boxes and statues and the like). These are all gameplay elements which I would like to implement faithfully and effectively in Shudder, and which are easily(?) implemented using the Oblivion engine.

Role-playing games, on the other hand, typcially focus on combat, character development, interacting with NPCs, and collecting loot. They are typically quest-based: the player's character speaks to an NPC quest-giver who issues a quest to the player; the player completes the quest, collecting loot and building stats along the way by fighting monsters, and returns to the NPC to claim his or her prize. RPGs already share some elements with survival horror games, particularly the gameplay objectives of finding useful items (and combining these items to make more effective items), problem solving (in the form of puzzles and mini-games), and combat. A survival horror RPG, then, will expand on both genres by combining the mood and menace of survival horror games with the long-term character development and NPC interaction of RPGs. It's like a nightmare that you just can't wake up from. You'll probably think I'm weird for saying it, but that's a kind of experience I'd like to have (in a game!), and I think there are other people out there who share my peculiar interests.

The unique role-playing possibilities provided by a world of horror are different from those of traditional RPGs. In traditional fantasy RPGs, players typically develop their characters into invincible heroes of epic proportions, often able to single-handedly defeat gargantuan bosses in single combat. In horror RPGs, the emphasis is placed less on developing powerful characters, and more on peeling away the layers of mystery and secrecy that conceal the true nature of the universe like the layers of a decomposing onion. The core role-playing tasks of Shudder will involve the player in quests to uncover the sources of the terror springing up all around them, and in finding ways to put an end to them. While the goals are similar, the emphasis is different. Think X-Files with less science fiction and more Lovecraft. Mulder and Scully make good analogs for well-developed horror RPG characters.

Shedding Some Light on the Monsters Under the Bed

So how will Shudder work in practice?

Shudder will make full use of all of Oblivion's established gameplay features, and extend some of them in new directions (barring engine limitations). In general, gameplay features may be broken down into quests, combat, and mini-games.

Quests

Oblivion uses a system of discrete quests to parcel out tasks to the player. Some of these quests are very long and involved, and others are short and perfunctory. Generally speaking, completion of a quest waits on the pleasure of the player: time constraints are rarely imposed on players for the simple fact that, in an RPG, the player is king or queen and should have the luxury of doing as he or she pleases. This leniency is a powerful factor in the popularity of sandbox-style games where players are given as much freedom as possible to act out their fantasies. Shudder has no intention of breaking with this tradition: while some might complain about the eroding effects that lenient timelines have on immersiveness (take, for example, the main quest in Oblivion), there is no arguing the appeal of a truly open gameplay experience. You can expect Shudder quests to be structured in much the same way that Oblivion quests are: but, hopefully, you will find the stories to be a little more compelling. What Shudder lacks in 'ticking timebomb' mentality will hopefully be made up for in creep factor.

Combat

Combat in Shudder will not depart dramatically from Oblivion. Naturally, every effort will be made to provide compelling gunplay suitable for a modern setting, but it will not be a central (or even necessary) feature of the game. In the world of Shudder, a well-aimed blow to the back of the head with a lead pipe may prove to be more effective than running into a dark room with guns blazing. Shudder will rely extensively on Oblivion's stealth mechanic to make it possible for relatively weak and defenseless characters to complete quests as quickly and effectively as physically powerful characters. I have no desire to impose limitations on your ability to complete quests and enjoy the game simply because you as a player have chosen to play as a brilliant, but physically weak character, or vice versa. Let your imagination roam freely over your character creation options and play the kind of character you want to play: Shudder will not penalize you for your decisions.

Mini-games

Mini-games in Shudder will be retrofitted to work in a modern setting to enhance the gameplay experience. Lockpicking, combining alchemical ingredients, and repairing items can all be pressed into service to provide diverse and interesting experiences in the world of contemporary horror: hacking security codes and hotwiring cars, combining chemical reagents to create acids or explosives, and repairing jammed weapons or creating makeshift traps are just some of the possibilities these mini-games provide. Other mini-games, like the persuasion mini-game, bartering, and buying homes and furniture can also be gainfully employed. Persuasion will play a large part in convincing NPCs to provide you with additional information about a quest, or in providing you with access to a restricted area, bartering can assist you in attaining black-market items at affordable prices, and buying a home and furnishing it with exercise equipment or a library could be useful for improving your attributes. This should give you some idea of the scope of role-playing opportunities that I hope to encompass in the world of Shudder.

Gameplay

So what can you expect when you play Shudder?

In a typical session of Shudder, players will explore their environment (a modern city with surrounding rural areas and wilderness), read newspaper reports or listen to radio or television reports (planned), interact with NPCs and in various other ways uncover clues about strange goings-on. Following these clues, players will be lead to ramshackle mansions, abandoned asylums, top secret laboratories and other unusual environments where they will have to use their wits and skills to survive and (hopefully) put an end to the horror, rescue the missing child, or complete whatever other task may be set for them.

As players complete quests, they will improve skills and attributes that will prepare them to face greater challenges and deeper levels of horror. Shudder is not a min/maxing mod (or shouldn't be), so less emphasis will be placed on stat-building than in typical fantasy RPGs. In Shudder, your starting choices during character creation will definitely have a larger impact on the way you play the game than in Oblivion, but should not have an adverse effect: in practice, most opponents will be too powerful to face head on without an effective strategy in any case, so concentrating on building a physically powerful character won't do you much good in the long run (though, of course, it will help some in the short-run). Opponents in Shudder are defeated (or circumvented) through careful planning and strategic decision-making rather than brute force, so the mod bears some resemblence to stealth games in this regard.

Brains, Beauty, and Brawn

So what good are stats, then?

Stats will still determine which kinds of tasks you are good at, and which ones you aren't. Ideally, and in general, they will not affect your ability to complete quests, but they may make certain quests more or less difficult, depending on how your points have been allocated. They will definitely influence how you choose to go about completing a task, giving you some freedom to engage in direct conflict, stealth, or improvisation as you prefer. Hopefully, the variety of quests involved and the various ways of completing them should help to level the playing field between different character types, making for a fun, balanced experience for everyone.

Some additional details about different kinds of stats and how they affect gameplay are listed below.

Levels and Leveled Lists

No self-respecting RPG can afford to ignore the mechanic of character levels. But how will they work in Shudder? Levels will still be used to balance characters and opponents, but it will be done a little differently than in vanilla Oblivion. No need to fear that creatures once easily disposed of at lower levels are now dangerous adversaries at higher ones. Weak creatures will always be weak, and powerful creatures will always be powerful, though there will always be some variation between individual specimens. Creature strength will largely be determined by zones and quests, so staying out of certain places and avoiding the undertaking of certain quests until you are ready for them serves as a convenient technique for avoiding frustration.

Like creature encounters, loot drops will be targetted to the needs of the quest, rather than the demands of the player's level. Shudder is not about collecting the best loot, but about seeing what's making that strange noise in the basement. Quest zones will provide the player with the kinds of supplies they need to complete a quest, but players shouldn't expect a lot of additonal loot. There is little need for it in this world. (Though there will always be trophies for players to find and accumulate as mementos of their experiences.) Should players decide that they need some additional oomph to complete a particular quest, there will always be places (like the black market) where you can buy certain kinds of items (like weapons and ammo).

In addition to the above comments, some quests won't be unlockable until the player achieves a certain level. This may seem arbitrary, but since many quests are built around the Shudder mythos, it makes sense to reserve certain kinds of revelations for higher level characters. Of course, the other service performed by leveling-up is in providing the player with a sense of accomplishment. How exhilarated will you feel to have survived ten levels of horror?

Attributes

Attributes will remain largely unaffected by the change in setting. Strength, Intelligence, Willpower, Endurance, Agility, Speed, Personality, and Luck will all remain intact and more or less unchanged. The only thing that may change is the rate at which you can improve attributes, and the amount of improvement that you can realistically achieve. Don't expect to develop a character with scores of 100 in all attributes!

Skills

Although attributes will be relatively unchanged, many skills will be completely overhauled to accomodate the change of setting. Acrobatics (possibly renamed Gymnastics), Armorer (expanded to Engineering to include additional skills like creating traps and improvised weapons), Athletics, Blade (Cutting Weapons), Block (possibly renamed Parry, since shields will be relatively uncommon), Blunt (Crushing Weapons), Hand to Hand (possibly renamed Martial Arts), Marksman (adapted to include firearms), Mercantile (possibly renamed Finances), Security (adapted to hi-tech devices, naturally), Sneak, and Speechcraft (Persuasion) will all work more or less as expected.

Other skills, especially the magic-based ones, will require extensive changes. Four of the six magic skills will be converted to real-world skills: Alchemy will be modernized under the guise of Chemistry, and will be used to create not only pharmacological remedies for physical conditions, but also things like acids and explosives; Restoration will be retrofitted to Medicine and become a mundane skill, useful for treating injuries and curing the effects of disease and poison; Mysticism will become a more prosaic subject under the name Research, and will have much to do with reading ancient scripts in dead languages, identifying magical artifacts, discovering clues, and other sorts of lore- and quest-related tasks; and Illusion is changing slightly to represent a scale of tricks from ordinary stage magic to truly mind-bending illusions, and will retain any effect that can be reasonably attributed to the effects of hypnosis. Three of the core magic skills are being retained, but they will be expanded to include effects traditionally held by other skills that have been converted: Alteration will be renamed Thaumaturgy and focus specifically on miraculous changes to the laws of physics, including miraculous healing; Conjuration is being altered slightly to Demonology but will still be used to summon (and banish) otherworldly beings, including the unquiet dead; and Destruction will be renamed Sorcery, and will still deal damage using the elements (and is easily the most fantastic of the skills available).

Magic: As you will note from the preceding discussion, magic is being retained in Shudder, but in a severely curtailed implementation. Characters will still be able to learn magic, but spells will be hard to find, initially very weak, and subject to other limitations.

Two skills, Light Armor and Heavy Armor provide special difficulties, since armor of any sort is very uncommon in modern society. Unfortunately, advancement in both skills is tied directly to hits received while wearing armor of one sort or the other. Light Armor and Heavy Armor will either be rezoned to No Armor (like the Morrowind Unarmored skill, which will include all types of clothing) and Armor (using stuff like bullet-proof jackets, riot gear, and improvised armor), eliminated entirely, or, if possible, tied to other game events to make new skills possible. Since I am not optimistic about the ability to mod new skills out of old ones, these skills may very well remain relatively under-used features of the mod.

Races

Since the contemporary world does not offer the same kinds of racial distinctions that a fantasy milieu provides (with humans, elves, orcs, etc.) the race feature is being co-opted to provide some variety in the player's body type and facial features, and to set the base stats for attributes and skills. Races, then, should be thought of more along the lines of body types and 'character' stereotypes. For example, everyone 'knows' that nerds are typically frail but very intelligent, and that jocks are typically physically strong but dim-witted, and Oblivion's character creation mechanic can be used to implement these stereotypes. Although actual changes to physical meshes are very limited (restricted to changing the scale of the mesh), it does provide some inexpensive customization possibilities. Proposed body types include small, medium, and large varieties of a range of complexions, as well as body types more suitable to younger and older characters and NPCs. Again, the differences will be slight, but should enhance the gameplay experience somewhat.

Body meshes: Final decisions about which body meshes to use have not been settled. Since it is the aim of Shudder to provide a true total conversion experience, however, it will undoubtably be one of the many popular body replacer mods currently available. Throttlekitty has also provided a head mesh replacer which will likely replace the stock head mesh.

Birthsigns

Birthsigns in Oblivion provide some fun, instant abilities transcending the powers of ordinary mortals. Since it is the aim of Shudder to provide a realistic experience (whereever appropriate), however, birthsigns will be handled in a different fashion. In all likelihood, they will be used to provide minor changes to a character's starting attributes and skills. Depending on how the game develops, they may provide certain other advantages or disadvantages later in the game, but for the moment this remains purely speculative.

Classes

Classes in Shudder will reflect real-world occupations: police officers, fire fighters, parmedics, homicide detectives, news reporters, university professors, archaeologists, brain surgeons, star quarterbacks, fashion models, writers, truck drivers, gang members, bank robbers, politicians, and game modders should all be considered viable occupations in a game that places emphasis on mood and atmosphere rather than twitch-based or stat-based combat. Shudder will come prepacked with a selection of horror-genre stereotype classes, but you should feel free to let your imagination roam wild and play the kind of character that you want to play by creating any kind of custom class you desire.

A Brave New World

The City of St. Germain

The heart of the Shudder universe is the city of St. Germain. St. Germain is a large, metropolitan city halfway between New York and Montreal (both physically and conceptually). In some ways, it shares a heritage with New Orleans (and Anne Rice's wonderful evocation of it), though it is closer to it's northern kin in temperament. St. Germain is a city steeped in dark secrets, and home to many exclusive clubs where the rich and powerful congregate to trade information and illicit goods and services. It is also an artistic and cultural center of the east coast and a hotbed of scientific experimentation. In short, it is the perfect place for something to go wrong.

Other Worlds

But the Shudder universe is not constrained by the physical dimensions of the city of St. Germain and its surrounding environs. Layer upon layer of other dimensions exist, most of which are completely unknown and unheard of by the vast majority of humanity. With the proper techniques, a player may learn how to travel the world through astral projection, or enter other dimensions remote from the worlds of man. Frequently, even in this world, places of power exist, where lines of occult energy converge, making it possible to slip into alternate realities without the awareness of the player. Alien beings, who travel between worlds as easily as we cross the street, appear suddenly in remote areas (and sometimes not-so-remote areas) to strike terror into the hearts of mortal beings. And, of course, madness is always just around the corner....

Art Assets

Shudder is intended to be a true total conversion in the strict sense of the word: a modification which uses the underlying engine of another game, but which uses none of its artistic assets. In order for this to be true, all meshes, textures, animations, music, sound FX, voice dialog, icons and other GUI elements have to be replaced with custom assets. This is a tall order: the original game ships with thousands of art assets. How can the duplication of all of these files be achieved in a mod? Certainly not by one person, and certainly not quickly or easily. There is a plan for implementing this, however.

To begin with, stock assets will be used whenever and whereever necessary. (Character animations, especially, would be hard to duplicate in a timely fashion.) As the mod progresses, more and more custom assets will be substituted for stock assets. (As Shudder takes place in a completely modern setting, most of the stock meshes will be useless anyways.) To encourage other modders to contribute to the mod, all artistic assets will be made freely available to other modders with every release of the mod. Modders wishing to make other types of conversions set in a contemporary worldspace will then have free access to the assets created for Shudder. Hopefully, this will encourage other modders to begin creating these assets for joint use in the creation of entirely new worldspaces.

A Bestiary

A brief description of some of the creatures and NPCs you are likely to encounter when playing Shudder.

Natural monsters.: Wild dogs, mountain lions, bears, sharks, poisonous snakes, and swarms of rats can prove fatal to the unwary adventurer.
Human monsters.: The world seems to abound in people who take pleasure in the pain of others. Serial killers, psychopaths, criminals, and fanatical cultists must all be treated with extreme caution and can prove to be more dangerous than their less human, and less intelligent, counterparts.
Witches and warlocks.: Ordinary humans who have unlocked a tiny fragment of the true nature of reality are often tempted to use this knowledge to pursue selfish ends. Their power varies widely, as does their sanity. Some are reclusive and scholarly, others are flamboyant gurus, flaunting their power. Most cultists endeavor to attain some level of magical power.
The Undead.: The dead do sometimes come back to haunt us. Their grasp on the world of the living is often tenuous, and their actions often seem nonsensical or inscrutible to those who encounter them. They are all motivated by powerful emotions and desires which can have a powerful impact on the environment, altering it in ways that affect the living. Freezing cold, sudden spontaneous combustions, objects being flung willy-nilly around the room, sudden apparitions, voices, fragrances, the feeling of hands squeezing around a wrist, etc., are all indications of an unearthly presence. In addition to these more traditional hauntings are two special cases of the undead: zombies and vampires. The reanimated dead (zombies, mummies, and skeletons) are a special case of the dead where only a very primal vestige of the original spirit is returned to the corpse--a beastial consciousness driven insane by the pain of its remembered death, mindlessly destructive and violent, concerned only with destroying the living and feeding on its flesh. Vampires are a special case of possessed human, similar to shapechangers. (See below.) In the case of vampires, a steady supply of fresh blood is required to prevent the corpse from decomposing, a painful experience for the still aware consciousness of the host.
Shapechangers.: Obscure spirits (animal spirits?) that infuse themselves with (ie. possess) humans and take on the shapes of animals when certain conditions are met. These transformations are often beyond the control of their human hosts, though some learn to control them with time. Since these spirits are masters of manipulating flesh, they are often capable of amazing feats of healing, making shapechangers extrememly difficult to kill.
Astrals.: A race of astral beings that take on various forms and which sometimes live among us. They are able to adopt any form they like, as they are not entirely material, resulting in many diverse descriptions of them as aliens, elves, etc. They delight in pranks which by human standards seem unnecessarily cruel. They sometimes lead humans into the Astral and keep them there for a while, sometimes forever. Some live as humans, replacing their counterparts or living in far away lands. These astral pranksters are known as Doppelgangers.
Demons.: Demons (and angels) are beings far removed from our plane and they obey different laws. Demons feed on our pain and suffering, angels on our hope and happiness. Their visitations have been variously interpreted, but uniformly incorrectly. They often trap the spirits of the recently deceased in pocket dimensions and feed off their emotions. Some of these trapped spirits escape and return to the land of the living with dire depictions of the afterlife or words of joy and rapture.
Gods.: Powerful multi-dimensional beings. Sometimes they are worshipped by humans who have encountered them in the Astral and they are given names. The classical pantheons are examples of this sort of being. Of course, most of the attributions of divine power are mere superstition and conjecture, though the power of the 'gods' is real enough. Generally speaking, they have very little interest in human beings, who are about as significant to them as insects.
Alien races.
: There are also races of genuine alien beings, material, like humans, but bizarre and often incomprehensible. The Great Race of Yith, the Fungi from Yuggoth, and the Star spawn of Cthulhu are examples of Lovecraftian creatures that would fit this description. (The Greys, however, are not true aliens, but Astrals toying with humans.)
Abominations.: Man-made abominations are also created from time to time. Tragic errors of the noble pursuits of science. Biological, technological, and psychological varieties exist.