Game introduction:

"Anglerfish" is a DEMO piece initially released on itch.io. After several months of continuous optimization, it was then launched on Steam for sale.

The gameplay of "Anglerfish" is a horror pixel-style adventure puzzle. The player will assume the role of a single uncle in a JK outfit with bizarre behavior, bravely venturing into a nightclub filled with strange elements and horror monsters.

However, this is not the focus of the game. "Anglerfish" innovatively binds the character's death mechanism to the game's save mechanism. The game only saves when the character dies, and each death of the character brings some changes to the scene elements. The changes brought by the scene are directly related to the way the character dies (killed by traps or monsters, etc.). When the player returns to this place for the second time, they will trigger corresponding new opportunity events.

Game Analysis:

• Driving game progress through the death mechanism

In "Anglerfish", the death and save system are forcibly linked. The game only saves when the character dies, and even when the player doesn't want to play and exits the game, they will be forced to die and start over the next time they enter the game.

With each death of the player, the game will make corresponding changes at the place where the player died, and the plot and story of the game will also further advance. As "Anglerfish" is essentially an adventure puzzle game, the biggest change is the transformation of the scene puzzles, which brings a continuous sense of freshness to players.

With each death of the player, the game's scene gradually changes from a bustling nightclub to a monster-filled hell. What the player needs to do is to figure out the dark secrets of the nightclub through multiple deaths and escape from this earthly hell. This is different from the "plot kill" segment of general games. Although both advance the plot through the death of the player's character, "Anglerfish" gives this decision to the player. Moreover, with the different death locations of the player, the degree and direction of the game's plot advancement will also vary. This allows "Anglerfish" to break out of the linear narrative circle of horror games, and gives players more choices in the exploration process, making the game content richer and more exploratory (of course, the game also sets multiple endings that can be achieved).

 Because the game's progress is directly linked to death, the death mechanism in the game is extremely straightforward. It's all about being instantly killed and dying abruptly, without any dragging. Although such settings are not novel for horror games, they greatly optimize the game's rhythm when combined with game progress. At least it won't make players feel that death is difficult, and sometimes they even need to commit suicide to continue the plot, because in "Anglerfish", death is always waiting for you in unexpected places. Multiple deaths also inevitably lead to repeated early-stage rushing content, so the game also sets up a safe and quick movement system (shortcut) in the later stage for players to return to their previous progress as soon as possible.

• Creating a sense of horror that is both familiar and unfamiliar through death

The changes in the scene in the "Anglerfish" death mechanism not only advance the game's progress but also set corresponding obstacles and changes at the position where the player died last time, which is related to the way the player died. This may sound a bit abstract, so let me give a specific example to illustrate.

In the game, besides monsters, scene mechanisms can also cause the player's character to die. If the player is killed by a monster, then when the player returns to this place, they may find more different types of monsters, or monsters are eating their bodies. If the player is killed by a scene mechanism, then when the player returns to this place, the scene mechanism may have different interactions, or it may break directly.

The horror elements in general horror games are mainly unknown, and players feel scared because they don't know what kind of event scenes or "jump scares" will be ahead. "Anglerfish", however, transforms this horror from pure unknown horror into a sense of horror that is both familiar and unfamiliar. This feeling is similar to the "deja vu" often mentioned in psychology, which is illusionary memory, and it is different from pure unknown. It reduces the player's psychological expectation for horror elements, and sets a random mutation horror element within the controllable psychological expectation, in order to keep the player always vigilant and enhance the game's sense of immersion. Every time the player passes the place where they died last time, they will be particularly careful, because they don't know what impact their last death had on it.

Player Research:

• Player's acceptance of controllable random elements

The most different part of "Anglerfish" is that it transforms the original unknown horror into a sense of horror that is both familiar and unfamiliar, which is also a manifestation of controllable random elements in the game. Rather than making the player nervous all the way, it's better to change the direction and let the player just pay more attention to the place where they died last time. The scenes experienced before are still the same as before, and players can pass quickly knowing the scene layout. Compared with the always tense fast-paced horror game, it can allow players to better switch their playing state and not feel so tired.

• The player's need for control over the direction of the game

Although most horror games emphasize jump scares, letting players be startled when they are completely unprepared. Of course, horror games can't completely let players decide the direction of the story, achieve complete control of the game, unless it's some "think and be horrified" plot-oriented horror games. The setting of "Anglerfish", although it does not completely hand over the decision of the direction to the players, can give the players a kind of passive controllability by advancing the game's plot through the character's death at a specific location. Simply put, it gives players a logical thought of "this place becomes more eerie and terrifying because of my last death", which can make players feel their controllability of the game.

Design Research:

• The narrative mode of the death mechanism can cause players to lose their sense of direction

As the player's comment in the picture below, this narrative method does feel very novel at the beginning, and players will be amazed at the new elements and content brought by each rebirth. However, the core problem is that "each death only changes the place where you died last time, but does not change the area you are going to explore next". And the narrative of the game is not achieved by just one scene. The multiple changes of the established scene, although it will bring players the fun of "deja vu", it will also reduce the player's desire to continue exploring the whole map. Because these two directions can bring new playing experiences to players, they essentially have similarities.

Obviously, "Anglerfish" still needs to work hard on the balance of these two. For example, set a certain number of limits for the game's death mechanism. After the player dies too many times at the same location, the scene will no longer change, but instead encourage the player to continue exploring the unknown map to directly advance the game process.

• The pseudo-randomness brought about by the death mechanism loop

Although the game's main selling point is "the game only saves when you die, and the scene changes that occur each time you die", this mode is more like a "loop" to a certain extent. After dying at many non-special locations, the player's resurrection is not facing a scene with more new elements, but just the previous scene changes repeatedly, and the player needs to repeatedly "trial and error" until they find the correct interactive way. In other words, "Anglerfish" did not achieve the "scene change" as it advertised, in many cases, it just used some pseudo-randomness completed by scene loop elements to fool players.

Of course, this can be understood because the content volume of the game is limited and cannot fit so many different content scenes. But in this case, forcibly binding the game's save and death will cause some players who replay after quitting the game to be forced to play the previous looped scenes, which is actually a kind of "repetition", but it will reduce the player's playing enthusiasm. Of course, this may also be a unique obsession for independent games.

The solution to this problem is also very simple, either design more different opportunity events for each map to enrich the player's death mechanism experience, or set normal exits instead of death exits in some high-repetition non-key scenes to balance the player's game experience.

Summary & Outlook:

"Anglerfish", with its death mechanism-led narrative mode, provides new ideas for the entire horror game genre or narrative-oriented games, especially those involving multiple endings and branching processes. It is worth trying to introduce the scene changes brought about by the death mechanism into the game, which can also replace the setting of the "inside and outside world" to some extent, and shuttle between different worlds through different deaths of the player (death in the outside world = rebirth in the inside world).

Even Roguelike games can learn from this mechanism of death changing scene events because this mechanism has randomness similar to Roguelike elements. The core of Roguelike lies in the random construction of the character's own abilities, while the death loop in "Anglerfish" tends to randomly set the map event itself. Although many Roguelike games are changing the player's playing scene, they often switch back and forth with a rule template, rather than setting different interactive events in the same scene.

And not only Roguelike, the fast-paced FPS that is also known for its operation can also learn from this type of gameplay, by changing the scene after each death to differentiate every player's playing experience, thereby improving the playability of the game. However, it should be noted that this setting is not the dungeon module in Roguelike, the death mechanism in "Anglerfish" emphasizes both familiarity and strangeness, adding some different contents in the original scene, instead of directly changing to different scene terrain.