Goonhub
07-05-2018, 10:05 AM
Antagonist idea - The Follower (spoilers for It Follows)
Here’s an antagonist idea I had after watching It Follows again - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Follows (spoiler alert)
The Movie:
In the movie It Follows, there exists a monster that seems to track and follow one individual at a time, implacably. Upon being caught the cursed person is killed, leaving their body horribly mangled.
It turns out, though, that you can delay your own death by passing the curse along. In the movie, this is done by having sex with another person. (Because of this the monster can be potentially seen as a metaphor for STDs/STIs, but this is obviously not suitable for Goonstation.)
Once the curse is passed along you are safe. For a while. When the person you passed the curse along to is killed, it will again return to stalk you as well. If you curse someone, and they curse someone your life could be prolonged for a long period, but years later you might find yourself stalked again.
The Game:
Here is how I envision this being implemented into SS13.
If someone rolls The Follower as an antagonist, they could be either assigned one random person, or choose a random person when they are ready. The Follower's default movement speed should be around 75% of a normal spessman. (numbers definitely up for discussion ofc)
The Follower can only be seen by ghosts, or the victim. Until they choose a victim, they could essentially be invisible, but more or less corporeal, moving through the station. (Not flying through walls etc., but potentially moving through non-victims without bumping into them.)
Once a victim is selected the Follower becomes visible to them. I envision there being an invisible barrier (perhaps visible to the Follower) around the victim that the Follower can not pass through, initially starting at around 8 tiles away, and shrinking over time. (Maybe around 5-10 minutes for the barrier to become entirely absent)
The Follower can gain movement speed by being observed by the victim. (Obviously stolen from Wraith, but might be easier to code because of this?) This means that initially, because of the movement speed debuff on The Follower, the victim can easily move away, without sprinting, but the Follower will be able to track down the Victim and start to speed up until there is no hope of escaping.
At this stage, the Follower can start to harass and scare the Victim allowing them little peace. The Follower should also have some kind of pin pointer ability by default that allows them to find the victim. Other crew members will be seeing this person screaming at nothing and running from nothing through the station, before being horribly killed by something they cant see. (Im thinking all limbs ripped off, but not necessarily a full gibbing. Maayyyybe preventing cloning or setting DNR, but that might be overkill)
Now here’s the kicker - The victim can choose to pass the curse along to another crew member, saving them a bit more time at least. This could be done with a simple shove I think, which would probably be at least somewhat conspicuous. Thoughts welcome on how the curse could be transferred in game.
Once the curse is transferred, the Follower would get an announcement to them, vanish to the eyes of the previous victim and appear to the eyes of the new victim.
Instead of the whole process starting from scratch, I would propose that the rate of increase of speed and the process of decreasing the barrier would progress faster based on how far into the round we are. Additionally, perhaps a modifier based on how many transfers have happened, meaning that if people transfer the curse too quickly, it can power up the Follower even faster.
The curse cannot be transferred BACK to a previously cursed crew member, until in the order of progression is followed by people dying OR perhaps if EVERYONE living has been infected at least, in which case it could restart the counting/identification process of "infection" allowing anyone to be cursed again, but starting the count over.
With all of this said in terms of how the Follower can attack or use their abilities, I would especially like to hear what people think in terms of how to stop them. Should they be vulnerable to some weapons wielded by whomever is currently cursed? Holy water? Antibiotics? Fire? Plasmashard spears? Or perhaps it would be scarier if it truly was immortal and your only option was to pass the curse around until the shuttle arrives.
Also, what should happen if everyone who is cursed dies? Perhaps another living crew member could be randomly selected, or maybe that is how you kill the monster, by choosing to die yourself so that others may live. This may also be an incentive for the Follower to stalk and stress someone out without killing them immediately even if the possibility is there.
Abilities/Powers:
Doors- Able to open or simply move through (think animals that can move through doors) any door after a given time. This would be longer initially, but eventually become quite fast to do based on relevant timer.
Appearance- In the movie the monster appears in multiple different forms, including in the form of one of the protagonists father. Perhaps in game they will rotate appearances of other people on the station, living or dead, without any control however with an aura or effect to clearly identify they are the monster (maybe similar to spiders crawling on them)
Teleportation - In the event that the curse is passed along, or perhaps as a general ability, the ability to teleport to a random location within 32 tiles but no closer than 24 tiles of the victim could maybe be implemented. I think a cooldown of perhaps 5 minutes that can be reset when the curse is passed would work.
Pros:
Interesting
Potentially spooky
Requires crew to be moving around the station
If they want to live, present them with an ethical choice to curse someone else.
Cons:
Running around chasing people with a timer before you can do things to them might not be that fun without enough interesting things to do in the meantime.
A coordinated crew could potentially keep the Follower at bay until late in the round when the timer countdowns become quite fast.
Working with "station time" as a mechanic could potentially limit late-join antagonist effectiveness. The round might end before your timer would be effective if your buffs started at 0 30 minutes into the game. This could be solved by simply having any buffs based on station time anyway, but that may mean a late join Follower would immediately have many of the buffs catching some crew unaware.
Here’s an antagonist idea I had after watching It Follows again - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Follows (spoiler alert)
The Movie:
In the movie It Follows, there exists a monster that seems to track and follow one individual at a time, implacably. Upon being caught the cursed person is killed, leaving their body horribly mangled.
It turns out, though, that you can delay your own death by passing the curse along. In the movie, this is done by having sex with another person. (Because of this the monster can be potentially seen as a metaphor for STDs/STIs, but this is obviously not suitable for Goonstation.)
Once the curse is passed along you are safe. For a while. When the person you passed the curse along to is killed, it will again return to stalk you as well. If you curse someone, and they curse someone your life could be prolonged for a long period, but years later you might find yourself stalked again.
The Game:
Here is how I envision this being implemented into SS13.
If someone rolls The Follower as an antagonist, they could be either assigned one random person, or choose a random person when they are ready. The Follower's default movement speed should be around 75% of a normal spessman. (numbers definitely up for discussion ofc)
The Follower can only be seen by ghosts, or the victim. Until they choose a victim, they could essentially be invisible, but more or less corporeal, moving through the station. (Not flying through walls etc., but potentially moving through non-victims without bumping into them.)
Once a victim is selected the Follower becomes visible to them. I envision there being an invisible barrier (perhaps visible to the Follower) around the victim that the Follower can not pass through, initially starting at around 8 tiles away, and shrinking over time. (Maybe around 5-10 minutes for the barrier to become entirely absent)
The Follower can gain movement speed by being observed by the victim. (Obviously stolen from Wraith, but might be easier to code because of this?) This means that initially, because of the movement speed debuff on The Follower, the victim can easily move away, without sprinting, but the Follower will be able to track down the Victim and start to speed up until there is no hope of escaping.
At this stage, the Follower can start to harass and scare the Victim allowing them little peace. The Follower should also have some kind of pin pointer ability by default that allows them to find the victim. Other crew members will be seeing this person screaming at nothing and running from nothing through the station, before being horribly killed by something they cant see. (Im thinking all limbs ripped off, but not necessarily a full gibbing. Maayyyybe preventing cloning or setting DNR, but that might be overkill)
Now here’s the kicker - The victim can choose to pass the curse along to another crew member, saving them a bit more time at least. This could be done with a simple shove I think, which would probably be at least somewhat conspicuous. Thoughts welcome on how the curse could be transferred in game.
Once the curse is transferred, the Follower would get an announcement to them, vanish to the eyes of the previous victim and appear to the eyes of the new victim.
Instead of the whole process starting from scratch, I would propose that the rate of increase of speed and the process of decreasing the barrier would progress faster based on how far into the round we are. Additionally, perhaps a modifier based on how many transfers have happened, meaning that if people transfer the curse too quickly, it can power up the Follower even faster.
The curse cannot be transferred BACK to a previously cursed crew member, until in the order of progression is followed by people dying OR perhaps if EVERYONE living has been infected at least, in which case it could restart the counting/identification process of "infection" allowing anyone to be cursed again, but starting the count over.
With all of this said in terms of how the Follower can attack or use their abilities, I would especially like to hear what people think in terms of how to stop them. Should they be vulnerable to some weapons wielded by whomever is currently cursed? Holy water? Antibiotics? Fire? Plasmashard spears? Or perhaps it would be scarier if it truly was immortal and your only option was to pass the curse around until the shuttle arrives.
Also, what should happen if everyone who is cursed dies? Perhaps another living crew member could be randomly selected, or maybe that is how you kill the monster, by choosing to die yourself so that others may live. This may also be an incentive for the Follower to stalk and stress someone out without killing them immediately even if the possibility is there.
Abilities/Powers:
Doors- Able to open or simply move through (think animals that can move through doors) any door after a given time. This would be longer initially, but eventually become quite fast to do based on relevant timer.
Appearance- In the movie the monster appears in multiple different forms, including in the form of one of the protagonists father. Perhaps in game they will rotate appearances of other people on the station, living or dead, without any control however with an aura or effect to clearly identify they are the monster (maybe similar to spiders crawling on them)
Teleportation - In the event that the curse is passed along, or perhaps as a general ability, the ability to teleport to a random location within 32 tiles but no closer than 24 tiles of the victim could maybe be implemented. I think a cooldown of perhaps 5 minutes that can be reset when the curse is passed would work.
Pros:
Interesting
Potentially spooky
Requires crew to be moving around the station
If they want to live, present them with an ethical choice to curse someone else.
Cons:
Running around chasing people with a timer before you can do things to them might not be that fun without enough interesting things to do in the meantime.
A coordinated crew could potentially keep the Follower at bay until late in the round when the timer countdowns become quite fast.
Working with "station time" as a mechanic could potentially limit late-join antagonist effectiveness. The round might end before your timer would be effective if your buffs started at 0 30 minutes into the game. This could be solved by simply having any buffs based on station time anyway, but that may mean a late join Follower would immediately have many of the buffs catching some crew unaware.
