What makes a game scary?

[Las Naranjas]

Alot of what's being said here seems to indicate that the capacity to startle the player is a scariness that should be attained. And that includes the anticipation of bein startled.

Sure it's fun, but it's still rather cheap.

But relatively I guess not that cheap, because it's becoming harder to scare an audience on a more fundamental level [with anything but reality]. Most horror classics don't seem scary.

So when the alternative is unattainable, perhaps not that cheap.

[Robert Eric]

As EvenWolf has said, don't let the player think or know something is about to happen if something is indeed about to happen.  Give them the feeling of dread with their surroundings, then calm them down.  After that, scare the living crap out of them with something they were not expecting.

[evenwolf]

Someone stated a good example already. But let's reiterate it to death:

Typically in a game when you pass through a room once, you have the feeling that you have cleared it out of all possible threats. So it can be amazingly shocking to the player if you program an event to occur in a room he/she has already "cleared" - and especially after an event of relief (ie: attaining a key to a previously locked door). The player subconsciously says "But I've been thru here! It was safe before!"

In other words, the ultimate way to give the player a feeling a fear- is to first give the player a feeling of safety or relief.

[Las Naranjas]

Well, it is the easiest way to startle...

[evenwolf]

Well Las, you can imply that it's a given and I'll agree with you - but let's talk a little on the methods one could use to lull a player into a feeling of safety.  Becuase I doubt you and I practice these on a daily basis.

In Resident Evil, Save Rooms are regarded by the player as zones free of enemies.  I'm fairly sure at one point however- after numerous save rooms which contained no enemies, suddenly one appears.  That would startle me and seem to break the "rules" of the game, despite rules never being assigned.

When a character walks into a room, the music could change pace to something peaceful.  The room could have a lighter quality to it than the rest. Characters could exchange dialog and then a scripted event occurs and the walls of the room erupt- and a monster/enemy appears.

Somewhere in the game, your character can encounter another character (such as Barry in RE) who has saved you and fought by your side in the past. You approach him from behind as he appears to be tinkering with something. Suddenly he turns around from feasting on another human and his eyes are blood red, and it is apparent this is no longer the friend you once knew. Now you must fight him.

[Las Naranjas]

That's still a startle though, it's not fear. Fear is something more fundamental that lasts.

And startles are easy to achieve, so I don't see much point providing elaborate discussion on how to create them when it's more rewarding, if only from an academic viewpoint, to discuss how to create fear.

Thinking about a former friend that is now a zombie. He turns, he's a zombie, bang, startle. Now that's over he's a zombie like the rest of the game.

But an idea would to have that friend still in grasp of his cognitive abilities. He either can talk but can't control his actions, or is just giving in the the need to feed, but can taunt you and remind you that he is still there in some capacity. That has the ability to create fear, more carefully constructed and longer lasting. The Soufflé to startling's Big mac.

[evenwolf]

[crap, I wrote this and then saw your post at the top of this page 2. But I stand by it, because how else would you apply fear?  Let's not get to intellectual that we cannot even apply the advice we give.  If this guy wants to make a game with fear- I say AGSers have so far given sound APPLICABLE advice]

Alright, all examples of startles.  But look at it this way- games like Silent Hill and Resident Evil may attribute their overall feelings of fear to both atmosphere AND startles.  Exposure to the first startles in the game creates a collective fear in the players mind that "Oh shit, something can pop up at any time."  I think establishing that mindset in a game- and early, while not fundamentally necessary, is what the most talked about scary games have in common.

I mean "Fear" isn't a condition with any certain requirement.

You may achieve fear without scary music, but rather happy music
You may achieve fear without any zombies, ghosts, or weapons
You may achieve fear without any startles
You may achieve fear without anything happening.
You may achieve fear while actually telling the player what is about to happen (example, when the Tyrant corners you on a catwalk in RE2 and you see him coming on the TV monitor)

But whereas you say its "cheap fear", I argue it takes some craft to instill the constant fear of being startled (anticipation) with a few well placed events. RE (1 and 2 for Playstation atleast) actually did not have too many startles. But those few instances had me on my feet for most of the game. Except of course, when I felt safe (which is when the next startle would most likely occur.)  So, if you are saying "startles cause fear, only when used infrequently", I most certainly agree.

You will also find that most gamers enjoy startles.  I'm fairly sure my brother and friends, while not being able to remember much else about RE1- will tell you their favorite or scariest part was when they were startled by _____.   It's like arguing that more indy movies need to made when you certainly know the majority of audiences enjoy big dumb movies.  Big dumb movies are written in a day, were not given as much consideration as the indy movies, but they get a huge happy audience and will continue to be made.

[TheYak]

Fear is a lot more difficult to invoke.  At least if you are talking about fear being atmospheric or chronic.  I think that's why a lot more games go for the startles or shock (massively gory/disturbing scenes).  If you fail at instilling a game with fear then it becomes laughable whereas an element of surprise nearly always works to some extent.  

I don't believe I've seen any pure adventure games that have much element of fear.  About the closest I've played is more creepy or disturbing.  Harvester - disturbing, Gabriel Knight SotF - Creepy (in places).  The most common way I've seen an aspect of fear done in an adventure is the "if I don't do this carefully/quickly/correctly I will die/have to do it again/view that horrid movie segment again" type.

As far as startle/fear goes, I think of the RE games as startlers.  They seldom have much creepiness & the atmosphere can be a bit creepy until you get used to it.  Silent Hill did a nice job with establishing a disturbing/creepy atmosphere both during gameplay and with movie segments, it just fell a little flat by not having the fear come to a peak at any point (at least for me).  System Shock 2 had a great creepy/fear-inducing atmosphere with its share of startling moments, its downfall in the realm of fear, in my opinion, was that it wasn't able to suspend disbelief, mainly due to occasional over-the-top speech and enemies that could be a bit goofy.  As far as Doom goes, I felt it was more of an "Oh, my god, there are 20,000 enemies and I've only got 6 shots" type of experience.  I expect a good fear-factor in D3, however.

[MrAnonymus]

Atmosphere and being stalked by something unknown. Silent Hill 2 nailed both of these nicely. You're in a city and you don't know exactly what's going on. You can only see three feet in front of you and everywhere indoors is a dank environment. Add to that the mysterious, giant Pyramid Head monster chasing you, and its one scary game. Resident Evil: Nemesis also got the stalking thing down. You're constantly being chased by this huge monster whose intent is to kill you. It's just a huge rush.

[TheYak]

MrAnonymous (if that's even your real name), haven't played either of 'em but from what I've heard the Nemesis stalking gets more annoying than terrifying.

[Oliver]

For example when I was playing Tomb Raider (long time ago) then it was SCARY AS HELL. Everywhere you go some wolf or bear or something attack you behind and you don't see him coming. wooo...what was some scary stuff :o

[Gord10]

Hey, this is a great thread.
Inspiring stuff.

Thanks  

I think the player should see the "monster" in the end of the game. For example, there was a game named "Frankie Goes Hollywood" in C64. . We were in a big house and there was a killer. It was scary too see the message "The killer is in the next room!" !

[Oliver]

oh yeah just remembered. There was this game, Resident Evil I. I think it was.

It was on PS 1. I used to play it all the time. The scariest things were the doors makign those scary sounds, and not knowing what is in the next room. SCARYIEST was when you could see 3 zombies blocking all your escape ways and you had no weapons or thing to kill them with :o

Or when you see some blood footprents on the floor. And when you follow them you discover some bunch of zombies.  :o

[Pumaman]

I think fear should be possible to achieve in a game - in a situation such as one where the player knows that the evil bad guy is around somewhere, but not where - so every time they enter a different room he could be there.
Rather than being a sudden scary event, there you get a constant nervousness on the part of the player when they change rooms, unsure as to what they will find there.

[Miez]

A truly scary moment (in a truly scary game, IMHO) was the school belltower in Silent Hill 1. After running through this foggy abandoned city for hours you enter a small tunnel beneath the tower. The tunnel is pretty short and ends in steps leading up. When I popped my head out of the far end of the tunnel I got a nasty shock: you exit the tunnel in exactly the same place as where you enter it (only now in some ghastly Hellraiseresque travesty of a shadow dimension).
That little tunnel seems to warp space in a most disturbing way - you enter it, and walk out the entrance without turning around ... not a "doors-slam-open-and-hundreds-of-zombies-burst-in" kind of scary, but very, very unsettling. As was the cat in the locker. I actually screamed.

[TheYak]

Yeah, but you're old.  Lots of stuff scares you.  

[Ghormak]

I think the fear is more real if you find out what the Terrible Things(tm) are for yourself, rather than having the game explicitly telling you what's going on, or the player character letting you know that he's figured it out.

In System Shock 2, for example, you find out most things by listening to audio logs left by other crew members. They only hint at strange things happening (at least in the beginning), and with the logs combined with everything you see you can start to piece together the whole mystery for yourself. No NPCs approaching you saying "Goddamnit, you! Don't you get it? They're going to do Terrible Things(tm) to us unless we get out!". Good good.

[Miez]

Yeah, but you're old.  Lots of stuff scares you.  

Argh! just you wait until I get my hands on you! young rascal! damn ... where's that walking stick? ...  

[Nine Toes]

If you wanted, you could track down, rent, or buy cheap, and try any number of horror games and pick out peices from them that you think are the scariest:

1.  Any Resident Evil Title
-Resident Evil
-Resident Evil 2
-Resident Evil 3: Nemesis
-Resident Evil Survivor
-Resident Evil Code Veronica
-Resident Evil Zero
-Resident Evil (remake for the GC)
-Resident Evil Dead Aim
-Resident Evil Gaiden (for the GBA)
-Resident Evil Outbreak (once it's released, I don't know the date)
-Resident Evil 4 (in the works I guess)

2.  Any Silent Hill title. (these display every example I described in my above post, the silence, the lack of ammo, unfamilar surroundings with minimal lighting,  NTM the fog and the snow, etc.)
-Silent Hill
-Silent Hill 2
-Silent Hill 3

3. Any Clock Tower title, although I haven't played 3 yet.  There is one from back in the day for the famicom, like I said, there are two for the PS, althought the second on for the PS is kinda crappy...
-Clock Tower (Famicom)
-Clock Tower (PS)
-Clock Tower 2: The Struggle Within
-Clock Tower 3

4. Any Dino Crisis Title.  These aren't exactly scary, although I haven't played the third one, but they're suspensful.  And they display how it feels to be stalked.
-Dino Crisis
-Dino Crisis 2
-Dino Crisis 3
-Dino Stalker (?) - I'm not sure if this is actually part of the series, but it's a first person shooter like RE Survivor and Dead Aim.

5. Koudelka.  This stab at Survival Horror/RPG for the playstation wasn't horribly scary, but it had some very disturbing enemies designs, a good  soundtrack, and a very creepy atmosphere.

6. Alone In The Dark.  The second game for the PS was great in the beginning, but towards the end it felt like it was slapped together half-assed, like the developers were in a crunch to get the game finished.  This one displays a lot of examples from my first post too.  There also is another very old, very rare Alone in the Dark title for the PS called One Eyed Jack's revenge, that I really can't tell you too much about, because I didn't have it for too long.  But more Alone in the Dark games are available for the PC, you just have to find them (I don't know the titles)...
-Alone in the Dark: One Eyed Jack's Revenge
-Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare

7.  Countdown Vampires.  The only reason why I listed this one, is because I want to warn you: STAY AWAY FROM IT!  IT'S FUKKIN TERRIBLE! It's got good character designs, decent music, but it's got terrible voice acting that will make the original RE look like a literary masterpeice, not to mention a very shitty plot.

8.  Fear Effect.  These weren't horribly scary either, but maybe they're worth a look.
- Fear Effect 1
- Fear Effect 2

...hmm... I coulda swore I had more than that... well, if anyone can think of any horror games for any platform that I forgot, add them.

[Las Naranjas]

Can I just mention that when all is said and done, the scariest thing I've found in a game was a startle, and it was in Loom, when the shepherds come out of the trees at you.

But I don't seem to get scared by fiction, and I don't know why. I'm certainly no badass mother who's afraid of nothing, and I am willingly suspending disbelief.

It's my loss I guess.