Most Innovative Gameplay Award
Hi all!
With Steam Nominations happening, I thought I might reach out to my amazing community to see if you'd be interested in helping nominate On Dark Terms for the Most Innovative Gameplay Award!
As many of you know, I've put my heart into creating this game, pushing the boundaries of its potential by building a truly unique experience that sets itself apart from every other paranormal investigation game.
I thought it might help to list the key features of my game that truly make it special:
- My First Game: This is my very first game as a solo dev that took me roughly 1 year to create and I have taken creativity from a novel that I began writing a long time ago to create a fantasy game that takes paranormal ghost investigation and mixes it with Survival Open World RPG elements.
- The Astral Cat: Among all other elements the multiplayer experience of being a cat with your friends and using your cat to perform investigation mechanics to complete dungeons has easily been the most talked about feature of the game. The amount of customization for the cat, the interactions with it, and how it integrates into the core gameplay is innovative in this genre.
- Open World: A truly Open-World Multiplayer Paranormal Investigation game that brings next-gen game design to open world dungeons that completely removes loading screens from the player experience. On Dark Terms does not have a single loading screen aside from launching the game and joining a session and uses Unreal Engine 5's new cutting-edge technology to create dungeons that players seamlessly walk into. This experience is unlike any other. Most games require new map loads, but I pushed those boundaries.
- A Unique Dungeon Leveling System: Unlike most games where difficulty modes are unlocked and apply to every map you want to play, On Dark Terms treats Dungeons as individual progression systems. This means that in order to unlock a crafting station or a hard mode for the Amusement Park, players need to complete open-world research quests in the local area of that dungeon to specifically gain access to that dungeon's high difficulty mode.
- A Crafting System: rather than relying on the normal paranormal investigation store system, players are expected to loot materials in the open world by exploring or by completing dungeon quests to earn currency that can be traded for materials that players then need to craft!
- A new take on Ghost Hunts: On Dark Terms completely changed the way we “Hunt” entities by stepping into their world and fighting back against them with RPG and Survival based mechanics. Players must execute different strategies to survive.
- A new take on Ghost Investigation: Evidence in this world is a manifestation of Darkness and players need to hunt entities to observe their behavior all while trying to survive the hunt. This is how players determine entity types. The combination of survival and observation makes for an intense and invigorating investigation experience like no other.
- Unique Story: this game is not just a cookie cutter paranormal investigation game. On top of everything mentioned, it brings a unique story that breathes life into the game, immersing players into the world. In On Dark Terms, you are not just a random person looking for entities. You are a normal human who volunteers their soul during an Apocalypse with a Loa of the dead to gain Astral abilities (and hence the Astral Cat Form) that will allow you to fight back against the Darkness. If that’s not cool, what is?
I can't thank my community enough for the kindness those of you have showed me. It's been an extremely difficult journey for me and I'm ever grateful to every one of you. I know that my game is not perfect, but I also know that no game is. What matters most is what a dev decides to do about their imperfections and I for one am always listening, always improving, and always dedicated to making the game the best it can be.