After outlining key differences between souls-like games and general action-adventure games and comparing both in another section, “Genre Research”. I have come to the conclusion that my game would be better off as an action-adventure game, this is for a few reasons:
The Death System
In my game, dying is a crucial part of being able to unlock new abilities and open up the hidden narrative to the player. This system is made to be counter-active if my game were a souls-like, the insane difficulty and unforgiving nature of the genre would result in players dying over and over again, which would make it almost impossible to balance the death system, gaining new abilities and pieces of the story after every death would make it so that the player would be bombarded with abilities and the “hidden” story would now just end up being revealed to players.
Skills System
Upon the players death they are granted optional skills to choose from to aid them through their playthrough, these skills will be inspired from the imagination of the child. It would make much more sense if these wild skills were a part of an action-adventure game as opposed to a souls-like game, the combat in souls-like games focuses much more on weapon and combat mastery and not on using learnt skills/abilities.
Dual Aesthetic
One of this games key points is it psychological horror aspect, the change of aesthetic towards a scarier darker tone would be less impactful if the game were already dark and scary – as most dark fantasy souls-like games are. If the game had a similar art style to that of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (Fantasy Realism) with its blue skies, green pastures and 13th century architecture – the dark and “glitchy” aesthetic change when the player dies is a much larger contrast and provides a greater shock value.
Furthermore, the genre of “action-adventure” would allow me to further portray the child-like imagination through the unlockable skills/abilities of the Knight.
