Everything I learned about game design last year I learned from Dead by Daylight
Sometimes I worry I'm a contrarian. People tell me I'm not, but I won't listen to them. Here's an example. Last year, while most of my peers were pouring hundreds of hours into Zelda and Super Mario Odyssey, I was completely obsessed with Dead by Daylight, an asymmetrical multiplayer horror game that almost no one else I knew was playing. Developed by Behaviour Interactive, it challenges four players to work together as survivors, avoiding the murderous intentions of a fifth player who takes part as the killer. During each bout, the survivors have to explore the map, find generators and fix them in order to power-up two exit doors and get the hell out of there. The killer just has to kill them.
Unlike the ostensibly similar Friday the 13th game, Dead by Daylight features a range of homicidal maniacs covering a range of movie tropes, from chainsaw-wielding rednecks to mad doctors - there are also licensed characters in the shape of Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers, and all of them have different attacks and abilities. The killing process involves capturing survivors then impaling them on meat hooks. If they're not rescued by other survivors within a short window of opportunity, a Lovecraftian beast claims the writhing victim.
Got that? It sounds sort of complicated doesn't it?
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