Game Study Epic Fail's #1 Flash Light Mechanics - Game Five Night's at Freddy's: Security Breach
I know this is the least of the worse mechanics I've studied but this series is to tackle the small to the large blunders performed by games and how they function as a whole. This is to teach game developers what to do and what not to do.
Making a game mechanic moot
How is this done in Five Night at Freddy's: Security Breach? For one; keeping the lights on, this is idiotic because the flash light becomes useless and you're wasting light resources along with the fact it doesn't make sense to have the lights be on.
When using mods to turn the lights off is when the game starts to look like an actual horror game and makes use of the one game mechanic they brought into the game. You need to have the game mechanics make sense to the purpose of the given system in question.
If you have game mechanics that are there being used with little to no purpose then what was the reason to add it? An example; a character that passively heals and you have a med kit mechanic, what is the point of that?
Usefulness
A game mechanic needs a level of use; in a horror game it's usefulness is in building tension and that useful game mechanic needs to be made useful by other factors surrounding said game mechanic, dark hallways, long stretches before another flash light recharge station, etc.
When you have easy to get to locations with instant refills of flash light recharge stations you have it where you break the tension, so your flashlight being on a limited life has little to no value.
A game that does do a limited resource system that is infinite right is the healing flask from the souls game series; you have to recharge them at a bond fire, you have a limited number of them.
Yes they're recharged in use and limitless but you have to have an area that is safe and you have to refill them at a bond fire with resetting the threats in the area as well making it where you can't just play it safe.
Solutions to fix this game mechanic?
Simples fixes would be the following;
1. Decrease the light of the game to basically nothing
2. Put the recharge stations on a timer, this way once you refill at a recharge station you have to wait until you can refill them again
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