:o I'd like to enlist the secrets to make a scary adventure SCARY. Graphic style, sfx style... everything. That's my dream and I've never done something scary ^^
Well, play Pleurghburg with a notepad right next to you so you can list scary stuff... because, atleast in my opinion, Pleurghburg was scary at some points.
Not to mention Gabe Knight at points, or Phantasmagoria, or The Dark Eye, or Harvester, or Black Dahlia, or Midnight Nowhere... ;)
Here's a couple of tips, though: as Midnight Nowhere and Black Dahlia proved, however good the atmosphere is, if gameplay is bad (BD had too many gratoutious puzzles, Midnight Nowhere just had plain bad gameplay and puzzles) the game dies. Similarly, if the game is good and intriguing, like Harvester, BUT if, like Harvester, it has a bad ending, the WHOLE game ends up spoiled.
Spoiler
Harvester placed you in a very weird town with very weird characters and one hell of a backstory... and then at the end tells you it was all a virtual-reality dream made by people who wanted to "make" serial killers, and therefore placed them in the virtual and twisted town of Harvester to de-sensitize them utterly. I never replayed the game which up until then I was loving.
Those game names smell commercial... And I own exactly 2 commercial adventure games, so...
Heh. Yeah, and quite old, to boot (except for Midnight Nowhere). But despite their forthcomings, they're all worth a try, AND worth a buy, even - except for Harvester and Midnight Nowhere. Those are worth trying, but not worth buying.
I said this recently in another post, but I can say it again:
I believe it was John Carpenter who once said that as soon as you show the monster the movie is over. This ties in pretty well with Rui's disappointment with Harvester (I haven't played the game myself).
You have to build tension throughout the game by dropping small pieces of the puzzle for the player to find. If you leave too many clues the player will know what to expect before it happens and the tension is gone. If you leave too few clues the player will feel unsatisfied. And never go for the "it was all a dream" ending!
The stakes have to be real and the monster has to be real, else the fear will not be real.
Example:
If you're making a game about a werewolf terrorizing a village you start with a mysterious death and rumors. (ACT I)Somebody saw something they can't explain and some people talk about a werewolf. The player is in a cottage in the woods at night to investigate a second murder together with two companions (one who believes in werewolves and one that does not is the classic setup). Earlier in the day he has found some footprints that looks like a wolf but are too big. Something is moving in the bushes outside. You can see two red eyes in the dark. Suddenly it comes running towards him. He closes himself inside the cottage as the creature pounds the door. Sudenly it's quiet and when you look outside nothing is there. (This starts ACT II)
The player ventures into the woods, following the tracks from last nights attacker. He comes upon the beast's lair complete with the bones of victims. The doubt about the existense of the monster are now removed. When in the lair the player is surprised by the werewolf returning and must hide. The animal passes close by and you can now show the player parts of the monster (a snout or a paw) just to give him some idea of what he's up against. The player makes a narrow escape and now has to prepare for the task of killing the beast. (Assembling a team/setting a trap/gathering ingredients for a potion/whatever) (And finally ACT III)
The player returns to the lair, things do not go according to plan (maybe one of the team's members are killed) suddenly he is face to face with the monster and kills it. The werewolf turns out to be the rich farmes that nobody liked or something like that. - The End
Very crude but broken down it's like this:
ACT I - Introduce the characters and the problem, gather evidence.
ACT II - Get the player in trouble. At the end all doubt about the existence of the monster is removed.
ACT III - Kill the monster.
Well... Something like that anyway... ;)
Well, yes. I completely agree with this analisys but there's still something I've doubts.
I'd like to "put all togheter" the points that make a GAME scary. For example:
-right music in the right place
-sounds in the right place (of course, right sound)
but what I'm really asking is: what about grafics? what about what the player SEES?
I tought: render 3d scenes? and what about the character? or maybe collect photos and videos and put togheter with digitalized stuff? I dont know...
Quote from: YOke on Wed 02/02/2005 13:08:51
If you leave too few clues the player will feel unsatisfied. And never go for the "it was all a dream" ending!
The stakes have to be real and the monster has to be real, else the fear will not be real.
Oh, you can... if you have a very good reason.
Examples... oh well, those would be spoilers. Hm. How do I do this? Anyway, I can think of three examples, one game and two movies.
Very vague hint for the game:
Spoiler
It's from Konami and a bit dated now.
Name of game:
Spoiler
The bad ending of the first Silent Hill.
And the movies... oh, well. I guess I can't find a good way to give hints for them. Just look at them if you are pretty sure you know which two movies I mean - both are pretty well known.
Spoiler
Jacob's Ladder and to a lesser extend Devil's Advocate (the one with Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves... could be named "The Devil's Own" in the US, though.
.
As for the topic itself... rendered graphics look very sterile most of the time, unless they're professionally done. Unless you want to have a sort-of-sterile setting like a space station, I'd advise against it.
And yes, music is EXTREMELY important for the scaryness factor.
Well, the main emphasis of adventure games is story, so why not read a few horror books for ideas? You can get some from your local library, so you don't even have to spend money on research!
Or if you're not much for reading, rent or buy a few horror movies. You could invite a few mates round and quiz them about what bits of the movies they found scary.
Good luck with your game.
You should have a go at Stranger by Night By fivetrickpony (in the medium games list.)
That was pretty 'scary' and i really liked the way the graphics were done - it gave great atmosphere :o
Yes, I saw scary films and read scary books, but i do not think that story is enough:
for example, try to see my now-coming game, Jack Trasheater. At first I wanted to make it a scary game, but graphics made it another thing.
So, I think story is nothing without environment.. but HOW to realize environement "strong" enough?
Well... 5 Days a Stranger and 7 Days a Skeptic had a great "claustrophobic" atmosphere - but Phantasmagoria, which you would think would need that kind of atmosphere too, being a haunted house and all, didn't; it went for the "supernatural-and-madness" atmosphere. The Dark Eye went for Poe, and built the game in the style of Poe.
I guess your questions about "environment" call all be boiled down to atmosphere, and there isn't ONE right atmosphere to be made - there are several, which may tie in with the story or even enhance it or lead it down unexpected paths.
Graphics, now... well, I think that, as long as they're consistent, it works. Enclosure had some VERY tense moments, and it's AGI.
Dark Fall also had some pretty tense moments. In the case of that particular one, the atmosphere was of intense haunting and lurking evil. Overall, it did wonders. Harvester did too, if we come to that. Harvester failed in the ending ALONE. The rest I loved (though it's not considered a very good game at all, it seems).
One thing I've noticed with games that had scary graphics that actually worked.
It's generally pretty standard graphics except there's SOMETHING that's a little off.
For instance Silent Hill was just a LITTLE too dark. Not dark enough so it couldn't be played, but a bit darker than it would probably be, which made it unsettling.
Or the previously mentioned 'Stranger' AGS game, the sprites were rather standard looking, put against backgrounds that although you could understand what they were, were just really blurry. Which gave a very unsettling feel about it.
'Dark Eye' had characters be photographed marionettes, which gave them many possible poses, but left them all very stiff and expressionless, which constantly creeped me out.
but I think above all, writing makes scary games far scarier than and graphics could. Good writing can salvage sub-par graphics. Superb graphics can't save a bad script.
Something that a lot of "scary" movies seem to have in them is big tension builders that turn out to be a false alarm. This is followed shortly after by a sudden scare (usually accompanied by a loud, sharp, shrill noise). This sort of tactic gets the viewer on edge, lets them calm down a touch (though they're still expecting something if they're a veteran horror viewer) and then hits them with the scare when their guard's down.
It's a tactic rarely used in games, from what I've seen.
Quote from: Ozwalled on Wed 02/02/2005 18:10:32
Something that a lot of "scary" movies seem to have in them is big tension builders that turn out to be a false alarm. This is followed shortly after by a sudden scare (usually accompanied by a loud, sharp, shrill noise). This sort of tactic gets the viewer on edge, lets them calm down a touch (though they're still expecting something if they're a veteran horror viewer) and then hits them with the scare when their guard's down.
It's a tactic rarely used in games, from what I've seen.
Well, this really depends on how you want to scare people. If you want to just have a "shock" scare (sudden noise, makes you jump, heart rate increases, etc) then this is fine.
But if you want to REALLY scare someone (can't be alone, turn on every light in the house, can't sleep clowns will eat me, etc) you really have to depend on atmosphere and tension. The master of this is, was, and will always be Edgar Allen Poe, and his close second is Hitchcock. Both of them were absolutely brilliant and their stories terrifying. Yay!
Here are my thoughts about this.
I think it's very hard to do effective 'scary effects' of the first type. I think you should have a sort of action game, where the player has not much time to think, just time to ACT. In those situations, 'scary effects' like sudden noises, flashes, and all-that-stuff can be useful.
BUT I think in adventure games like ags ones this cant be done - not with the standard shape of the games. So I suppose that an adventure game is just a Poe book:
I gave a Poe book to my girlfriend as a gift. She likes scary story.
I also note that adventures descend by Interactive Fiction, so our adventures are the 'electronical' evolution of Poe's novels!
Conclusion: I think there are many small things to do something scary, and as said in the post before, something that makes me NOT to turn off light, to run quickly in the dark walkway in my house (sounds silly)... This can be only caused by the sensation given by the Game. And this sensation is not only gfx or sfx, but all atmosphere (and not 'environment' as I said) togheter. The question is... HOW render ATMOSPHERE?
HOW to make and Adventure Game without action sequences that scary??
QuoteHOW to make and Adventure Game without action sequences that scary??
You already asked that, everyone who's posted has tried to answer it. :P It's not easy to figure out, since it's actually an emotional response, and it's impossible to know for sure what triggers it, unless you really know your way in the field, like King, and Poe, and Barker. Note how I only say writers - maybe that means that story is chief. HOW to make the story an adventure game requires careful planning. What sort of planning? It depends.
...I could go on, but I think I'm re-stating points.
IMO, some rules for scary games:
*Let some exciting/horrible events not happen in the beginning of the game. Lots of example can be given about it.
Spoiler
In the first level of 5 Days A Stranger (and lots of other horror games, books, movies etc.) , you only meet the characters and get informed about the story in the game. It makes the player to feel him/her inside the game and sympathize the player character. Then the horrible events happen and you get scaried.
*Let the player not informed about the horrible event which will happen soon.
You are walking in a dark street, alone. You see some bloodprints beside a corner, then hear screams from there. Now you can easily imagine there's "something" beside the corner; and whatever you see there, it never frightens you.(unless the street is in the real life :)Ã, ) (maybe it attacks you suddenly after a few minutes when you get relaxed, but it doesn't really scare the player).
*Make the player feel he/she is defenceless. It's too hard to scare the player if s/he got a shotgun, and could kill the enemies in the game. So the better thing to do is not to give the player any weapon (except for the ending of the game.)
*Surprise the player.
The most scaring element of Lost In The Nightmare (err, the game which I'm working on it ;D though lots of people found it horrible, so guess you should play its demo for an example to the scary games) is to surprise the player.
Spoiler
Especially the toilet of the alternate version of the hotel, after you found your police ID. Something interesting happens after you read the envelope in the sink, when you raise your head to the mirror.
And after you found the lost campers "hanged", you try to open the door behind you. But it's locked, so the player thinks s/he has forgotten to do something in the previous screen. But when the player turns back...
Quote from: YOke on Wed 02/02/2005 13:08:51
I believe it was John Carpenter who once said that as soon as you show the monster the movie is over.
Mostly true, but was anyone else freaked out by the movie Signs? I sure was, and you saw the monster in that within the first 5 minutes (and much clearer about halfway through the movie... ). I was still freaked out right til the end because of the sheer atmosphere. It was just like Wogoat said, very normal settings that just got to you because there was -something- a little off about the whole thing. I think nothing is scarier and greater at creating tension that "unsettling". You have to put the player in a position where they KNOW something's up (and if they're playing a horror game, they'll generally know anyway... but just bring it home), but they have to use their imagination at the start.
As far as sounds, it is hard to give tips because you really just need a good grasp on horror to know what to do. There are so many different tactics, but I can tell you that I was quite freaked out playing 5 Days a Stranger by myself, even during the day-time because of the light whispering you could hear in the hallway. My personal opinion is to make most rooms silent, with maybe the places of particular danger having something like that; something quiet, but strange and threatening. Something that shouldn't be there. Give objects sound effects though. It sounds silly, but the sound of pushing a box or closing a door and getting a really genuine, non-quiet sound can be very effective in an otherwise quiet room.
As for graphics... well, I personally think simple but realistic is best (though Pleurghburg did it really well with simple yet ... slightly cartoonish graphics).
Sounds, that is one of the keys to building tension in terms of horror in the gaming (and movie) world. Now this is one of the more difficult things to pull off well. You must use sounds that people relate to..something that is similar to what they would hear on a daily basis if the room was quiet and they listened...also, to amplify the tension, apply those sounds to the horror aspect. For example, I will use Signs since it was addressed earlier...the aliens movement...you did not see them, but you could hear them..their footsteps, how they moved seemed hurried rushed, desperate to find someone or something. you have to make the horror seem believable, even if it clearly is not. Pull the person in with sound, and realistic aspects taking a unrealistic twist. I am probably not making much sense..but it's early in the morning..need caffiene
Kinoko, don't forget that within the first few minutes, what you saw was something very blurry and indistinct. The monster wasn't shown at all, we just got a glimpse. And THAT sure is creept as hell! Then, later on, we saw the footage in the video. THEN we saw the monster... and indeed, the movie SHOULD have ended there, but somehow it didn't. I think the actors and directors managed to place the tension in Mel Gibson's character's family and life and generally in our own sphere, other than the "there's-a-big-alien-running-around" sphere. Which is an important lesson - it's much more creepy if, as Stephen King (my favourite author) always does, the center of the tension is the characters. The prom ball in Carrie is what it is mostly because of what we know of the characters, and the great injustice we've seen commited, and the things that happen to the innocent.
That's the thing, the great directors let your imagination do the work of scraing you. For example, Psycho doesn't have any gore in it. Watch the shower attack sequence carefully and you'll realise that you never see a knife anywhere near Janet Leigh. You see a knife, you see her scream, you see blood in the plughole, but you don't actaully see any violence. Not only is this more scary, but also saves money in the make-up and SFX budget ;)
I totally think Signs was creepy, and I never agreed with people who bagged the movie because you saw the alien early (sure it was in footage, but you did see it clear as day, and they replayed it to make sure). I think it worked well because you knew what the "monster" was, but not exactly what the whole deal was. There was still a lot of mystery, but because the story focussed on the characters, one solitary family, and only took place where they were, the claustrophobic feel of the film carried it the whole way. I really, REALLY felt like I'd come close to feeling like I was in that situation, instead of just... watching a horror movie.
Which... is another great point. Claustrophobia is an excellent tool in horror, particularly for those of us that suffer from it in real life too ^_^ Signs worked for me as well because of it focussing on so few characters and following their movements only, which is where a lot of horror movies lose me.
Instead of constantly talkin g about Signs though, let me introduce another great horror (-ish) film, Langoliers. A -time limit- is a really, really great tool in a horror movie, and it would be even greater in a game. Not necessarily an actual time limit, but include the feeling of one. Langoliers did that well, on top of introducing a strange situation with only an isolated group of characters and a "monster" you knew nothing about apart from a sound in the background that got louder and louder (aaand a psychic girl who kept saying they were coming). Now I'm on the topic of that movie, it's also great to show the gradual maddening of a character, becoming more and more of a loose cannon and a danger.
I think overall the most important point is just having one or two things that don't make sense, that are just a bit off.
And when I add to Kinoko's point by saying that The Langoliers is Stephen King's brainchild, like Storm of the Century and Rose Madder and The Shining, I think we can safely say that horror is most effective when done, as he does, with the characters in mind. :) Make 'em real, or the player/reader/viewer won't even care for them. Where's the horror then?
I have to agree, that once you see the 'monster', the horror movie is over (at least in the case of Jeepers CreepersÃ, ::) ). But I think brief glimpses of it are a good tool. Just so brief that you're not even sure you saw it. Alien is a good example - you didn't see the alien much, but it was still darn scary!
There's a game for the gamecube called Eternal Darkness, which had some good ideas. It had a sanity bar, and when this was low it would affect the surroundings. Statues turning to watch her movements, sound of banging on doors, and occassionally blood running down the walls.
Still, sounds are definitely the best tool. The first ever time I played Resident Evil, I was seriously creeped out whenever I heard the shuffling footsteps of a zombie, or the clicking of claws of zombie dogs...
However, both the games I refer to are action/adventures, so most of the scares come from baddies appearing abruptly. For an adventure game I would suggest a more subtle approach. Something like, you look in a mirror and see something standing behind you, but when you look theres nothing there, and when you turn back, there's nothing in the mirror. Or very faint sounds of footsteps. The problem is, unless the character can be killed, a lot of the fear is taken out of it. You will quite happily explore the haunted mansion, if you believe you are invulnerable. I guess the challenge is to make the player feel like they are in danger, without resorting to action sequences. And at the moment, I'm stumped!Ã, ::)
Pelican, that idea for sanity for that game is brilliant! Dark Eye did something similar - in the Berenice episode, when Berenice must rush to take her medicine, the rooms get all distorted and screwy. And Egeas (sp?) starts... seeing things.
People just don't often do this - play with the perpspective. Especially in 1st person adventures, like Dark Eye, this is a VERY powerful tool.
Yeah, it was really neat, when the screen would start to slant as the sanity went down. And occassionally baddies would appear and overcome the character, and then disappear. On one occassion, I cast a spell with low sanity, and my character literally blew up, and then flashed back to normal. And there were one or two funny ones, where it would seem like the tvs volume was turning down. Trying to involve you, by suggesting you were losing your sanity too. ::)
Something I always wanted to do in a psychological-style horror game or movie was to use optical illusions on screen to mess with the player/ viewer.
AN EXAMPLE:
Presenting black and white, roatating spirals for a while then having the player enter a room that looks distorted due to the image aftereffect... but THEN having them come to the conclusion that there's absolutly NOTHING going on with the room at all. This would open the door for using actual graphical manipulations that are distortions later. All of this would be in the attempt to get a "WTF? Am I seeing things?" kind of reaction from the player. Of course, this might work best with the player character's descent in madness or whatever.
It's just a thought.
Ah, somebody brought up Jeepers Creepers, makes a great example.
The movie was so creepy through the first two thrids. Granted, about a third through you get the extremley trite psychic lady giving cryptic warnings but I was willing to overlook that because the suspense was building up so thick you could eat it with chopsticks.
All of the scariness of that movie was build around the question: "What is it?"
When that is what's scary, as soon as you find out what IT is, nine times out of ten the scare is over. Unless the concept of what it is is just as creepy as not knowing, but don't count on that.
That's why when you finally find out, 'oh, it's just some generic demon thing' it's a dissapointment. For 2 reasons.
1) There's no more 'what is it' since you know.
2) And the IT, is... well... lame. It had no backstory, it was horribly generic looking, and had no real motivation. It's just something that kills you. Big whoop.
The reason Signs was still creepy even after you see IT is because that's not what the scariness was built around. You know from the beginning that they're aliens, what's so scary is the clostrophobic atmospehere. And you already know somethings there, you know what it is, you just don't know exactly where. And then when you know where it is at the climax, it's an entireley different scary becuase the kid is in danger.
Basically, once you show the monster, you can't depend on the monster to be what's scary, you have to use something else. Because the audience is immediatley desesitized to the monster once they see it.
Hope I'm not rambling too much.
What I think is one of the best ways to go if you want to scare the player is
to introduce your evil "it" in a good way.
Let's take the movie "The Ring" (which was way scarier than "Signs" in my
opinion): The evil "it" always introduces itself by switching tv screens next to the
victim to this black/white noise. In the first victims case you learn that
and then you don't even know that this other guy is going to be the next victim
but as suddenly that tv switches to the noise next to him, it is really scary.
Also, always add music to situations where the "it" appears, like in 5 Days A
Stranger, where, before you can actually see the evil "it", this high violin tune
goes like a siren... That's an awesome example.
One thing that can make a game scary is dead bodies appering and disapearing. OooOooOo. Also, children toys is really fucking scary. I'm serious about this. I always find it more scary to find a abonded, silent old children's room than anything.
Some other stuff that's scary/good for the mood:
*Finding traces of blood in diffrent rooms. This indicates that the person attacked might still be alive, and can build up many suprises.
*If you're going for a bit unrealistic freaky horror, I would recommend something like this:
You're in a dark basement(or somewhere else dark/scary), with wind houling and the like. Suddenly, you encounter a door. When you open the door, you find a childrens room, with "music box" music, playing a slow happy song. See?! freaky.
*I find it more scarier when 3/4 of the game is mostly mystery(People disapearing, blood trace etc. Possibly just 1-2 dead bodies to begin with.) than just a bunch of people dying one by one. Then, on the last part, the dead bodies keep flowing.
That's all I can think of now. :-\
I'd just like to point out that most suggestions of Hillbilliy's deal with memories. That is a VERY POWERFUL tool. As I recall, Dark Fall and Amber: Journeys Beyond relied on such things EXCLUSIVELY to achieve the creepy factor. It worked, because if well done it brings us much closer to the characters.
I'd just like to say. I thiught the scene in Signs with the news story and birthday party videotape was pure cinematic genius. Completely saved an otherwise so-so film for me.
Quote from: Pelican on Thu 03/02/2005 21:44:34
The problem is, unless the character can be killed, a lot of the fear is taken out of it. You will quite happily explore the haunted mansion, if you believe you are invulnerable. I guess the challenge is to make the player feel like they are in danger, without resorting to action sequences. And at the moment, I'm stumped!Ã, ::)
Exactly. I thought Dark Fall was really scary at first, for example...
Spoiler
when you enter the second floor corridor and the light starts dimming.
But when I noticed that you don't seem to die no matter what you do - at least I never died during the game, but maybe it's possible if you do something extremely dumb or something - the whole horror started to lift. That's what made games like Silent Hill and Fatal Frame scary - you had no idea whether something is creeping up on you right now. I'm not a huge fan of "make a wrong step and die" adventures, but in a horror game, I think it's neccessary or the game won't work. I mean, it's hard to be scared of the huge scaly demon in front of you if it doesn't attack you.
EDIT: Whoops... the spoiler tag is HIDE, not SPOILER... my bad.
As long as the DEATH GUI has a "retry" button, and as long as the answer isn't so strange and far-fetched you play through the same encounter umpteen times, fine by me. BUT... if the game achieves the creepiness WITHOUT having to resort to that... so much the better, yes?
It doesn't necessarily have to be death IMO. You've already spoke about graphic interfering, which I find a great idea. So, what I mean is like when player fails something for the first time then all of a sudden he gets somthing like blow in the head, screen shifts for a little while, objects get darker and blurry. Make it look like the character was attacked btu he doesn't know what struck him and he's clearly in bad shape but eventually he'll get through it. But such thing should happen only once through the game.
What I'd like to see in the story is a character who doesn't know what will happen. He starts to uncover things but he is a sceptic and always sees a reasonablwe solution or at least doesn't find his discoveries so strange. Put character's thoughts that will sound convincing and than at one point make the big blow - everythings unfolds into a real, existing horror, though most of the time it just looked like some evil intrigue.
Something similar to the child room with music box is putting voices of kids playing and laughing and then crying out loud in pain and sorrow.
A game on the gamecube called "Eternal Darkness" did something I haven't seen used elsewhere in terms of scares - it pulled little tricks and ticks aimed directly at the player - sillouttes of flies would crawl on the screen, the volume will seem to be mysteiously getting turned down, there''ll be weird staticy sound effects, stuff like that. There's a fairly complete list here - http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/gamecube/file/eternal_darkness_sanity.txt
Although they're all "startles" rather than creep outs, they help, after a hour of so of playing the game, to create quite a spooked-up atmosphere.
THe only genuine "jump" I've ever had playing a ameuter horror adventure game was in "Encolsure", which is one of my all time horror game favorites. It drips spooky atmosphere like a big soggy scary thing.
Davy
Er... Creed...
QuoteThere's a game for the gamecube called Eternal Darkness, which had some good ideas. It had a sanity bar, and when this was low it would affect the surroundings. Statues turning to watch her movements, sound of banging on doors, and occassionally blood running down the walls.
And the two following posts expanded on it. ;)
Well, that'll teach me to speed-read, then. Dammitt. But now I might as well say more.
Something I've often thought would add another layer to a horror game is making it possible to save NPCs. Imagine a game set in a haunted ship, lost in fogs ways out at sea, with six people trapped aboard with a big nasty lump of horror. Generally in a horror game, it'd be "pre-ordaned" who would live or die, each character would be picked off at plot points or would survive until the end of the game exactly the same each time you played. What if it was posible for the player to save or doom everyone if they just make the right descisions - listen to or ignore the crazy psychic guy's visions, befrend or become a foe of the twitchy military guy, act fast enough when a nasty arrives on the scene and save a kid who'd otherwise get slaughtered, things like that, would all pan out into things happening differently. You could wind up seeing the dawn in alone, or with all your comrades still around you. Making the characters rael and dynamic, and giving the palyer a chance to positvley effect the chgaracters "lives" would be much more involving, and spookier, than the normal running-on-rails nature of games plots.
Davy
Eternal Darkness suffered from dire repetativeness, despite the nice sanity effects which added nothing to the gameplay. I was disappointed really, it was an interesting concept but the design was horrible.
Creed Malay: That's a wonderful idea! Actually, that's the kind of game Laura Bow I should have been. Poor Laura just wandered around, trying to activate that stupid clock and find dead bodies. It certainly didn't help that all the victims were largely two-dimensional; who cares if Fifi (::)) the French maid and Jeeves (::)) the Butler get stabbed to death? They're no more interesting alive than dead.
Horror is best when the stakes are high, and nothing is more important than saving someone you can care about.
Pelican: You're right; a player character must be in danger of death in most horror games. And it's not enough to allow the player to replay from the point before death; no, he/she has to restore, old-skool. That way, the player is less tempted to do stupid things that they would never attempt in real life.
Anyhow, that's my 2$.
Quote from: MoodyBlues on Sat 05/02/2005 21:23:48
Pelican:Ã, You're right; a player character must be in danger of death in most horror games.Ã, And it's not enough to allow the player to replay from the point before death; no, he/she has to restore, old-skool.Ã, That way, the player is less tempted to do stupid things that they would never attempt in real life.
Anyhow, that's my 2$.Ã,Â
That actually depends. If the danger is sort of visible or clued in (even if it's only implied... for example, when you decide to enter a dark cave, it's common sense to save your game first), or you have a chance to avoid it (by running away when a monster approaches, or seeing / hearing it from the distance before you encounter it) - okay. In fact, I actually enjoyed trying to find all the possible ways to die in Zak McKracken and Maniac Mansion, for example, and especially in the SQ games, since you usually got a funny quip.
But if it's random deathtrap #56 that activates because you... I dunno, decided to open a door, there should be a sort of automatic reset to "before" the moment of death.
Take the Nancy Drew game Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake as example.
Vague spoiler, nothing story-wise:
Spoiler
You see a note tacked to a wall. When you go closer to read it, Nancy says something like "It says: DANGER! Floorboards are roooo..." and falls to her death.
I considered it pretty funny when it happened, but that scene would have pissed me off quite a bit if the Nancy Drew games didn't have the "Second Chance" option which allows you to continue after you do something lethal.
Right. Random deathtraps are almost always a no-no in a serious game. In games like Space Quest they're not so bad, though, since they can be sources of humor.
In the 5 and 7 days games, the dreams of deaths and the walking corpses are truly scary. Crank up the horror, baby!
Yes, the dreams were VERY scary! They had my eyes go like this: :o
In 'Enclosure' I thought the tention was enormous since you never got a really good look at the "IT" until the final scenes.
And the scene at the end in the restroom got me jumping off my seat!
F**k. I just realized that I'd typed up this big, insightful post, butÃ, I was a moron and it no longer exists.
ANYway, what I'd wanted to say in a much more eloquent fashion was that I played "Friday the 13th" on the Commodore 64 when I was a kid. In it, as a GUI for you to see there was a picture of your face that would get more and more frightened-looking when scary stuff would happen.
What I was trying to say was that if adventure games are to be scary, it helps if you remind the player that the player character is scared, and do it visually. This might mean a cheap but effective "face GUI" like I talked about, or it could be through much more intensive animation work, like the charcater's actual facial expression and/or posture changing, but that can be an awful lot of work.
Blah. I swear it was awesome before I killed it.... And I once caught a fish THIS big.....
Dammit.
wow I completely forgot that friday the 13th game, I used to play it as a kid but hadn't thought of it for years untill you mentioned it!
wow I feel so rejuvenated! :D
I remember being real scared as a kid everytime Jason walked in.
man I'd give anything to play that game again.
as for making a scary game, there's no telling who will find what scary, so my advise would be, try to scare yourself!
The "5 and 7 games" might have had the 1st few dream sequences scary, but when same idea kept getting repeated, I got to expect it. I suppose a horror game shouldn't keep repeating the same "tricks", but I didn't mind them so much in the "5 and 7 games" (haha...that just might become an expression) because I took them as a part of the games. They had to have dream sequences where the guy died.