DoubleBear ZRPG Development Update
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X-Com combat made the end of a turn into as sweaty, heart-in-the-pit-of-the-stomach press of a button. You could have several good turns where aliens were spotted and put down before they could get a shot, and then one turn where the operation was completely FUBAR a grenade thrown into the middle of a squad, a Chryssalid running into a room and killing your commander, or an unseen sniper getting several good shots in on your best guys it was as much a game of suspense as it was of tactics. Enemies had to be spotted not triggered, mind you but actually seen by one of your party members in order to know its position, which meant that it was entirely possible for an enemy to sneak up on you if you weren't carefully positioning guys to watch your back. Every time you were about to open a door, you didn't know if the room was going to be empty or if six Snakemen were going to be standing there with rifles aimed at your chest. The game provided scares and tension that carefully-plotted designs just can't reproduce.
One of the major elements I really want to be able to hit is capturing the feeling of moving through an environment without knowing what to expect. I don't want the player to be scared because the monsters are 10th level when they're 8th, but because they don't know what's behind the door maybe that was the room where people in the neighborhood were storing their dead, or maybe there's an incredibly paranoid survivor entrenched behind a barrier ready to unload at the first site of natural light or maybe there's. nothing.
