Inspiration & Introduction
Chasmal Fear takes place in a deep sea facility and is inspired by classic movies like The Abyss, and Lovecraftian horror.
The main antagonist in Chasmal Fear is heavily inspired by Attack on Titan. The choice of location is to set the initial fear of the unknown. The lore behind this facility is that scientists have uncovered a section of the ocean even deeper than the Marianas Trench! This new discovery has attracted military and commercial experimentation, resulting in the monstrosities found in Chasmal Fear.
The open-world underwater facility is host to many different parts. There are civilian sections, military sections and classified experiment sections that each have ties to the story. Directly inspired by Doom 3, audiologs, videologs, laptops, ect provide the backstory in the game for those who want to look for it. This lore was kept out of the way to accommodate players that are only interested in running through the game’s action. Core narrative and background lore is kept out of the way on purpose. The main objective will remain in focus, but there are many side-stories and hints to find to learn about what happened to the facility.
Horror
There are many enemies that embody the elements of survival horror. For example, the body cam perspective was chosen because it is a newer method of bringing horror to the FPS genre. Mental health-horror awaits players. A sanity mechanic inspired by F.E.A.R. is a big part of Chasmal Fear. The sanity elements can cause the player to see or hear things at times that can offer a lot of story context to their actions. It’s also common that the player will see things that their co-op partner does not.
There are over a dozen enemy types at launch with many more planned following play-testing. Known monsters include:
Juggernaut enemies have a chance to spawn from mutating enemies. Juggernaut is based on Mr.X from Resident Evil. They are invulnerable to damage and can only be slowed down by environmental opportunities.
mutated/modified Sharks can behave similarly in the open water sections of the game.
Dog-like monsters rush the player with overwhelming speed.
Mutated human, zombie-like enemies shamble around in the dark. These melee enemies are most common but they also have the chance to mutate upon death. Combat can be hectic as a downed enemy may begin to mutate into something worse. The player has a knife that contains a rechargeable amount of antidote. This knife can be used on downed enemies to halt that mutation.
Spider-like monsters are less deadly in small numbers, but they may work together with the Juggernaut to be effective.
Ranged monsters, like “spitters” blur your vision with strikes.
Co-op
Some parts of the game are altered to accommodate multiplayer. Difficulty will scale to maintain level of challenge and ammo is more common for two shooters. Various segments will play slightly differently; one player may have to defend the other while they interact with parts of the environment.
Choice
As the player progresses, the environment will present choices. These navigation choices allow the player to have a real sense of agency and exploration.
There are challenging rooms that are entirely optional. These rooms may be locked by hacking challenges, but their completion could result in the discovery of better weapons, more ammo and chunks of lore.
