What makes a game scary?

[Ben]

Heh.. I had an idea for a movie once where this redneck would cut people up with a chainsaw while a Don Ho song (Tiny Bubbles  ) played on a turntable in the background. Sometimes contrast between something innocent and something gruesone can be scarey, or at least disconcerting. Ever notice how lots of people are afraid of clowns and dolls? It bothers people when something that seems safe and familiar turns out to be something much different.

Subtle things are usually more frightening than graphic depictions of violence. Show a room that looks completely normal.. Until you see something move in your perehperal vision. Nothing direct. Just enough to show that not everything is as it seems.

[evenwolf]

Something tells me this will be one of those threads that gets so long and detailed that the same things will be repeated over and over.  And eventually we will all have to agree:


We may never truely know the secret of monkey island

[remixor]

MONKEY ROBOT!!!!111

[Gord10]

I've never been emersed in a book like it seems many other people are. Sadly I don't feel any emotions when I read a book. I need to see a film or a game if I want to be scared or shocked, etc.

No, books sometimes can be scary. I've read a short story named "The Judge's House" by Bram Stoker. It was rather scary.

[timh_009]

I'm not sure about scary but your avatar reminded me of Max Payne's nightmares where he follows the blood with his baby crying in the background. then you hear his wife screm "No Max No! It wasn't my fault! Stop it Max STOP IT!" and you wonder why is she screaming that? did Max do something to her? was he blaming himself for their murders?
that was disturbing like the dream in pleurberg I loved that!

Also just to note, children's lullabys in movies are scary. In nightmare on Elm Street I was pissing myself laughing at Freddy he is hilarious but when those three ghostly girls with the skipping rope start chanting that song I soon changed my tune.

"One Two: Freddy's coming for you"
"Three Four: Freddy's at your door"
"Five Six: Freddy's up to his tricks"
"Seven Eight: Going to stay up late"
"Nine Ten: Never sleep again"

man I still remember that tune and I will never forget it.
In Freddy vs. Jason the dream that the girl had in the police station was disturbing, not scary because i wasn't really scard but it was really weird. The one with the little girl with no eyes and tears of blood streaming down her face.

i have never really been scared during a movie but the ones that I remember that had an "after-shock" were:
the excorcist, that demon face was a great effect that made me nervous after watching the movie
the ring (American version and Japanese version) the creepy girl was really disturbing but if you've seen it once it is less and less disturbing each time you see it.

some of my fav scary movies are:
the exorcist
the ring
the bunker
pet semetary 2
some of the nightmare on elm street movies are ok
Halloween (either ressurection or H20)

[SSH]

Yufster ius right about anticipation. And the people who have said about the unknown... SO many movies are great and scary up until the bit where they try and show you the monster: The Fog included...

Powerlessness is scary, too. Its when you know that the character is about to be gutted/sliced/eaten but you can't stop it. That's why people withou mouths are scary, and being buried alive, suffocated in transparent polythene, etc.

When I've had nightmares, its not being able to escape which has sacred me most. I realy hate the movie DeTox (I've only seen up to the bit where Sly's wife gets killed) becuase he is powerless to stop the killer who phones him from outside his home where he is about to kill the wife...

Maybe a game in which the mouse cursor slows down as the bad guy gets close, so you are desperately trying to stop him but your cursor is like stuck in the mud...


EDIT: On the other hand, Nelly Furtado's Powerless rocks...

[Meowster]

SSH,

The very thought of that just scared me so goddamn much.

I'm actually taking note of it and I'm going to use it. Except it won't be the mouse slowing down since I'm using keyboard control. So the character would be slowing down. And a slowly shaking screen (Shaking with the distant-but-gaining-quickly-shudders-of-an-approaching-monster) with a blood red tint... O_O ... And you don't know WHAT it is that's coming for you, how how far away it is, but the shudders are getting louder and more violent and you're getting slower and ...

O_O


Also,  not being able to escape in nightmares is the worst, you're right. And not knowing whats coming for you, but that SOMEthing is. I once had a really bad nightmare that involved some sort of weird demon that looked like that guy from that musical episode of Buffy, Once More with Feeling (Not the scary part yet). Anyway, it sounds ridiculous, right... but the worst part of the dream was that he somehow buried me alive in this hole, I forget how... but I was a hundred feet underground and could barely move, and I was going to be like that for all eternity.

Jeeze.

I'm beginning to bite my nails and hyperventilate and now people are staring at me. Thanks a bunch, SSH.