was gonna use terrible comic day to post this but its an idea thats been bonking around in my head for a min. if i knew how to program and the songs wouldnt all be copyrighted i would totally make this game.
adding some more bc i did not expect ppl to actually like this lol
like my art? check this out!
more ideas for this as ive been thinkin about it
i didnt just wanna do spooky shadow spindly thing bc that's been done by literally everyone and i figured this was a good way to make it supernatural but still unique
Song list and ID under cut, I'll also edit the previous versions to have IDs.
A couple thoughts I had while overthinking this awesome concept (and famous driving-related urban legends), particularly with thoughts of acceleration/deceleration in mind:
You suddenly see a pair of brights/highbeams in your rear-view mirror that are clearly rapidly gaining on you, to the point where there's even a clear shadow of your car stretching in front of you and loud longhaul truck honks are heard, which would normally cause a player to speed up... But then the chorus to Pink's "18 Wheeler" cuts in with "You can push me out the window/I'll just get back up./You can run me over with an 18-Wheeler truck/ and I won't give a f*ck...", indicating that for once the Objectively Scary Thing you're dealing with is actually harmless, and to stop gunning the engine to let the ghostly truck pass right through you.
At the other end of the spedometer, we all know what speed trap cams are, yes? Especially on roads where there are NO friggin' speed limit signs ANYWHERE near them to tell you how fast is too fast before one of them nails you for being a sliver over the limit? Annoying, right? Well, I say let's apply them here, AND make them useful! Now, in early game you'll come across them with no issue whatsoever. Trigger them, don't trigger them, doesn't matter (outside of the MOUNTAIN of speeding tickets mailed to the driver if they make it out of this alive). The point is, these early ones are just there to let you know they do, in fact, still exist, even along this eldritch stretch of asphalt. The real party starts later in the game, when the hazards start piling up. At this point, sometimes when a song indicating something's in the backseat starts playing, it'll also get chopped up by bursts of Sammy Hagar's "I can't Drive 55". This is your cue not only to not check the backseat, but also to tell you to speed up past 55mph (roughly 88kph) and deliberately trigger the speed trap cams, and the bright flash will pull a Fatal Frame and fry the malevolent thing that was creeping up behind you in the backseat.
Anywho, that's all I really wanted to add.
THESE ARE SUCH GOOD IDEASSSS
i didnt consider the acceleration/deceleration aspect before, but it's a great concept! I feel like many songs could apply to it- because there are many songs about going fast and going slow (with various meanings, of course)
the speedtraps are great not only because it's nonsensical and eerie on this eldritch road- but also the speeding ticket thing would be SO FUNNY. im imagining at the end screen of a successful game when you get back home, it shows a pile of speeding tickets all addressed to you from nobody lmfaoo (similar to how at the end of FNAF you see your paycheck and its super low)
thank you so much for sharing your thoughts!!!
Oh yeah, I love the thought of multiple songs being a signal for the same thing too, since it means you still have to pay a bit of attention even after you think you've memorized the instructions that each song equates to.
Or, taking it a step further, an entire nightmare difficulty mode (naturally unlocked after beating the "base game"), which adds an entire new set of songs that aren't in the base game and only play the portion of the song right before the "instruction line" of the song to test exactly how well the player knows the songs being played.
As an example, in the "base game" you get the straightforward "Don't Turn Around" by to warn you of something in the backseat, but in the nightmare mode you'd instead get the first three lines of the chorus to Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" ("You make me/Feel like I'm livin' a teenage dream/The way you turn me on, I can't sleep/Let's run away and don't ever look back, don't ever look back"), and if you don't know what come's after "Let's run away and-" you get got.
Also, I'm glad you find the speed trap camera thing as funny as I do. I like to think you ONLY get tickets for triggering the "unnecessary" ones, like the eldritch road is shaming you for being a reckless driver after you've escaped it (or it's just being a petty bitch since that's all it can do while you're out of its range lol).
ooooo yes completing songs!!! having to memorize that shit in nightmare mode would be great. I think in that mode maybe the reason it keeps getting cut off is the ghost who's helping you is being interfered with by the others so the song cuts to static right before the instruction plays
also some switch ups maybe! like it plays the first line of a song, then switches to the actual instruction song. EX:
[coming up on a speedtrap, but you have to stop moving at it]
"Hollowed out and filled up with hate/ all we want is--" *static* "Hold on, wait a minute! / feel my heart's intention, oh / Hold on, wait a minute!"
so it psyches you out, thinking you have to do one thing (go fast in your car) but then following it with the real song (stopping). the fake only plays for like one line so you have enough time to recover thankfully.
Piggybacking off the end screen idea with the speeding tickets, I imagine if you were to add more things like that (signs, lights, etc.) it would make a good scoring system- the closer you follow the law without getting caught because of it, the better your score. Maybe the hardest achievement in the game would be for beating nightmare mode with a perfect score, only ever breaking the law when it's necessary to survive.
lights and signs could also add more challenges to the gameplay! like going on red, speeding up at yellow, timing challenges, etc.
also getting that achievement would be so funny. i bet theres also another achievement for breaking the law 100% of the time except when necessary
