I'm trying to figure out what the starriest component of a horror game is.
Is it the fear of dying and having to start a section over? Is it gruesome sights and sounds? Sudden jumps? Mysterious, oppressive, looming threats? A combination, and if so, which is the most important?
For me, it's always sounds. Whether it be gradually building footsteps or ominous whispers, sounds are what get me in the horror mood.
things jumping through windows.
Enclosed spaces, dark nooks/crannies, vague silhouettes/shadows, warped realities, insanity, hint at everyday situations (Doom 3 was good at this - every dead body has a terrible story to tell). Play on common fears; spiders, evil clowns etc, and yes, make sure there's plenty of freaky audio in there - and recommend the player wears headphones, then you can get some really realistic ambience going on!
PS. Sometimes gradually building sounds could be a bad thing. It might make the player aware what's about to happen. Short sharp sound shocks!
I remember there was similar thread already on these forums... and lots of people gave interesting opinions there.
Anyway, always thought there are 2 concepts most fearful: something that is completely illogical, irrational, unexplainable, that comes from the dreams; and horror of the reality, which makes you believe that similar thing can happen to you when you expect that least.
something like that... ::)
EDIT: Oh, damn, I realized I did not answer the question exactly, hah. Well, next time maybe ;)
I'd say sudden, shocking events is probably the scariest parts of Horror games. I'm not lying, I was screaming when I played Trilby's Notes and suddenly everything became gruesome.
But, now I know that I won't play your game :P
I like sounds, particularly when you can't see what is making the sounds. And when you wear headphones especially.
I also like it when things build up the suspense rather than when a big monster jumps out and goes "BRAAAAAWAARRRGHGRAAAAA!".
Also, sort of in relation to CW's post, I played Dead Space Extraction recently, and thought it wasn't actually really very scary, I did like it when they had you controlling a character who was having hallucinations and stuff, where you weren't really sure what was real.
But then, I don't have much experience with horror stuff.
What people before me said is true for me as well. Irrational things get me - think space/time loops and anomalies, things (dis)appearing, etc.
For me scary was always "something coming after me", no matter what it is. When you know something's after you and you're sucked into the game before that moment, you have great conditions to get really scared. Thief series veteran speaking :P
Sound for me is most affective. It has the power to completely transform whatever you see on screen. The mere suggestion that 'something' is there is far more scary than actually seeing it. Visuals often can't compete with your imagination.
I scare very easily, I have to say, so I tend to avoid horror games=S
What's scary? Creating a convincing sense of peace and security for the player and then destroying it brutally and unexpectedly.
Oh, yes, playing with player's consciousness is a great thing. Imagine wandering the house, for example. You enter the room where you've been ten times already, and... something is different.... slightly... lights are shifted, couple of items fell from the shelf to the floor... you start wondering - does this mean something? was someone(thing) here? or it's merely a game bug? or? then you start to question yours memory... and sanity ;D.
Uncertancy can be much more frightening than any monster.
I'd say the sound aspect as well. I actually scared myself a few times while working on my games...
I don't think its sudden shocking stuff. There's a difference between startling a player and scaring them. You might scream when you are startled, but it passes. If you reuse it too many times it can get old and tired.
But when a game is scary, it creates that 'Oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no' feeling that I think is harder to achieve but makes for a better game. A lot of that is sound cues; games use sound to indicate when you're being attacked or if an enemy has spotted you. If you play with when that comes up (whether there are enemies or not) it can be terrifying.
Monsters.
Monsters are scary.
Also, a subtle and gradually mounting sense of dread, climaxing in an eyeball-popping mind screw that haunts your nightmares with visions of an ultimately unknowable terror.
That's about it.
I remember there was thing in "Trilby Notes" that scared me so good that I nearly jumped from my chair :) it was even more frightening, than other gruesome scenes or ghostly apparitions in the Trilby series. It's when Trilby had these random hallucinations and
Spoiler
his sprite was changed to the one of the Welder, so you basically saw yourself controlling the Welder
.
I agree with Virgil. Cheap jumps are not the same thing as genuine horror. Cute, defenseless kitty-cats suddenly jumping out of lockers will make me jump, but then they make me feel angry that I've been fooled into falling for such a cheap trick.
For me, real horror is psychological... more often than not it's what you can't see that's the scariest... I know they're clichéd but I find abandoned insane asylums fookin' scary, too.
For me, slimy and hairy things are far less scary than 'human' monsters. Dead babies, and the twisted nurses from Silent Hill... now that's scary, because they're more human.
There's a difference between Scare and startle. Now since you asked for the first, things popping up just startle one person. I love atmospheres where nothing pops up for hours and you just wait for it. It's the anticipation of something scary that distorts it in your mind. And when it shows up, it uses that momentum gathered to scare you to death.
...didn't we have a similar disscusion before?
Unkown is scary, being vurnerable is scary, things that we can't control are scary and for some reasons, while I can watch almost anything else similar, anything happening with the eye (operation, puting in a lens etc.) just gives me the willies.
As said before, startling is cheap and offends me as a player if it's used all the time (1-2 good scares can help the mood).
Sudden jumps are the cheapest tricks, I always look for a production of intelligence. Gore is scary as long as it is believable, over usage ruins all.
Things I can advice as the author of Lost in the Nightmare;
Uncertainties: You know there is something sinister behind that door or inside this box, but you don't know what exactly you should expect.
Plot twists: Someone you trusted comes out to be the killer and hiding a tortured, alive person (maybe whom you are looking for) just behind a door you saw many times and couldn't open through the game.
Evil masterplans: Make sure it's really going to surprise the audience. See South Park's "Scott Tenorman Must Die" episode (I admit that most horror films/movies couldn't achieve scaring me as much as that SP episode) . Even if it isn't a masterplan, just show how cruel what you see is.
Deformation: Can be physical or/and mental. Also why Silent Hill's monsters look that scary is their resemblance of human anatomy.
I have now come to the conclusion that you are all excellent! I can really see your points about legitimate scares vs. cheap surprises, but now I have another question.
If your game is going to have a big evil antagonist, what form is most effective in terms or horror? As far as I can figure, there are three big types of horror antagonists. First, some sort of murdering psychopath or something, but grounded in reality with no supernatural ties. Second, a powerful, unknowable evil, like an Eldritch abomination. Or finally, a middle ground, like a cult of ordinary psychopaths that worship/get their power from the evil power. I personally think that cults have been overdone, but that could be because they are the most effective.
Thoughts?
I think its interesting to play with things that are out of the realm of traditional scary antagonists, but it all boils down to fear of the unknown. Just off the top of my head, have the walls come alive. Something that we are used to providing safety and security really turns things on its head.
Also remember, explaining the mystery can lessen the amount of fear and horror, or even negate it entirely. Much scarier to simply not know what is going on.
Quote from: ddq on Wed 16/06/2010 23:01:11
If your game is going to have a big evil antagonist, what form is most effective in terms or horror? As far as I can figure, there are three big types of horror antagonists. First, some sort of murdering psychopath or something, but grounded in reality with no supernatural ties. Second, a powerful, unknowable evil, like an Eldritch abomination. Or finally, a middle ground, like a cult of ordinary psychopaths that worship/get their power from the evil power. I personally think that cults have been overdone, but that could be because they are the most effective.
Thoughts?
I think that there's really a way to make a man of political power both evil and scary. More, the society that he rules can be very scary. As
anian mentioned just before - "Unkown is scary, being vurnerable is scary, things that we can't control are scary". Being a little man in the society governed by cynical money-makers (for example), who control corrupted goverment brunches, and knowing they can do to you anything and you have no - absolutely no - certain way to hide/defend from them, - can be very scary.
Not sure how this may be used in game though. I just wanted to point out there could be other sorts of horror stories besides "classic" maniac/ghost/monster ones.
99.9% of horror either makes me laugh or makes me wince in an 'this is awful' way, so maybe my observations will be of value to some of you who enjoy being scared and have thicker skin. For me, the effect in a game or movie that works best on me is a sense of unease or disturbance, the subconscious suggestion by the events in the film that something horrible and eldritch lies just ahead. It's this sense of deep foreboding that, when done well, can drag the viewer/player kicking and screaming into the narrative and make them more sensitive to scares and events that prey on their sanity.
The only game that's ever left me with that sense of foreboding was Call of Cthulhu and that's mainly because it was fairly faithful to the whole Lovecraft mythos and the general 'strange visions and realities' at work in much of Lovecraft's writing. I've always found his work to be, at its very best, unsettling, a great compliment I can't extend to most genre authors like King. Koontz too writes some unsettling stories, though I've never enjoyed any of his novels and none of them that I've read have been adapted to games.
Back to Cthulhu, there are some genuinely creepy moments to the game, like when you're first walking around the foggy town of Innsmouth looking at all the strange looking people, none of whom want you there, and then not long after there's the whole harried escape sequence from some of the more 'changed' villagers. The constant sense of unease and dread that props up the narrative just never really existed for me in games like, for instance, Silent Hill, which were clearly not written for mentally mature audiences but for teens and people who think that gore and shock events are 'scary'. This seems especially true of the later games, which focus more and more on some kind of combat mechanic and collecting crap than they do any kind of cohesive narrative. The same goes for the Resident Evil games, really, though in their defense they were never meant to be more than a schlock horror sendup from the beginning that grew in popularity far beyond Capcom's expectations.
If you like feeling creeped out or just uneasy for awhile I'd definitely recommend Call of Cthulhu since it's one of the very very few games that worked for me on that level, though I admit the gameplay is far from perfect.
Apart from the three traditional antagonists I can name one that could be by far more frightful. What if the antagonist is in fact the protagonist. :D But not in a way it is immediately known, the further you get in the story the more you are going to question if what the protagonist tells you is in fact the truth.
He might have double personalities and he slowly learns about this fact (like that movie that I'm not going to name, or I'll spoil it)
Or maybe the protagonist is fooling you too, and you do not notice this until late in the story.
Hah, Wyz, I wanted to mention that idea. :)
Okay, then, here's another one. Make it twist, let player control zombie character being pursued by angry villagers. Depict the horror of realizing your soul and consciousness are locked in the rotten, crumbling body, and that no one will gonna help you, at least not before he shoots your brain. :P
Unease is probably the "best" feeling I can end a horror game/story with.
Nightmare on Elm street left me scared to fall asleep, Disney's Snow White had me fearing a witch will come passing by the window and see me in bed and steal me, some of Lovecraft's work also makes me feel strange (is that creak in the wall just the building or are there rats in it). But uneasy, like you lost some of your innocene and dogmas that were connecting you to the rest of the world and other people, shattering a pivot you were basing your thoughts and yourself as a person, as a human - that is what keeps on bugging you long into the night - that is scary.
What Prog said about Cthulhu, nothing specifically has to happen, just a tension and sensing something is wrong is enough for me. I don't need to see a room filled with blood or have a monster jump out of the fog - it is far worse to hear a monster waking around in the fog, watching you, feeling it's breath on your neck, always in the corner of your eye - it's not that my imagination is more horrific than somebody elses, but my imagination will tap that which scares me the most (based on my personality and my experiences throughout my life).
I second what anian said. An horror game succeed when I'm scared to progress forward, when I fear what may lurk around the corner, even when there's absolutely nothing. It doesn't means that scares are not important, without events that are out of the ordinary every now and then, I will eventually calm down, but it's mostly a matter of thick atmosphere and unknown.
Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Thu 17/06/2010 00:32:10Okay, then, here's another one. Make it twist, let player control zombie character being pursued by angry villagers. Depict the horror of realizing your soul and consciousness are locked in the rotten, crumbling body, and that no one will gonna help you, at least not before he shoots your brain. :P
It's a bad idea, because hating zombies is a feeling shared by all. Make it an human being chased by more human beings and the psychological aspect will ramp up. And now I just thought of a game idea, but unfortunately lack of balls from mainstream publishers/developers and/or the controversy it would generate would discourage anyone from doing it. Plus they would probably screw it up, or prove once more that Truffaut was right. Too bad, for it would be damn scary. Oh well.
Three things: Inability to escape, having to think fast and knowing there's danger but not knowing where or when. If anyone remembers Shivers, that game always did it for me. The idea of being stuck in a museum for the night where a few mysterious deaths occurred sounds overdone, yes? But having to find the horror in order to beat the game was a good twist. You didn't want to have to go after it, but you needed to. Not to mention it had a rather unsettling soundtrack.
For those that feel this fits under the 'startle but not scare' category, both the Laura Bow games are better examples. Especially the end of the second one. I hated having to solve the puzzles quickly, knowing there was a rampaging murderer in the next room and he wanted you dead. It's the whole one-misclick-and-you're-dead idea, it's not the scariest for sure, but it tends to keep a person on the edge of their seat.
As for antagonists, anything involving a group of suspects, all with motive to do something awful but with no real evidence against any of them tends to be on the scary side. This ties into the whole idea of imagination based horror, especially if you're stuck somewhere with the people mentioned and escape is not possible. Who do you choose to avoid?
Of course, this is all opinion. Just throwing stuff out there :)
Another thing that fit/complement pilferinloot's point on inability to escape: Keep your players powerless and vulnerable, always. Give them a shotgun and non clunky controls and your game will switch from horror to action.
Quote from: ProgZmax on Thu 17/06/2010 00:07:56
99.9% of horror either makes me laugh or makes me wince in an 'this is awful' way...
I haven't played that 0.1% of games that don't do this. I don't think I've ever been scared by a videogame. Maybe I should try Call of Cthulhu.
I've been "shocked" a couple of times, but yeah, as mentioned, that really just ends up irritating a person.
Blood soaked walls also make me groan. They just seem silly and overused now. And most "cult member" antagonists seem cheesy, and not scary.
I'm probably the wrong person to talk on this sort of stuff...I almost never have any nightmares, never in my life seen a scary horror movie (is there such a thing?)- not that I avoid them, just that none that I've ever seen were scary.
I suppose it depends how you handle it. People have been mentioning using people instead of monsters to 'humanise' the horror, but I'd think that an animal or monster would be more scary....you can't really reason with them. But then again, some people would just think "they're just dumb animals, what is to be scared?"
But yeah, from my limited experience, I'd say insane, illogical things masquerading as normal, the unknown, etc.
/me feels he's had this conversation before....
Quote from: blueskirt on Thu 17/06/2010 02:13:49
Give them a shotgun and non clunky controls and your game will switch from horror to action.
...and give the zombies assault rifles and your game will suck balls!
Quote from: Babar on Thu 17/06/2010 08:33:17
I haven't played that 0.1% of games that don't do this. I don't think I've ever been scared by a videogame.
What do you think would scare you then, Babar?
QuoteI suppose it depends how you handle it. People have been mentioning using people instead of monsters to 'humanise' the horror, but I'd think that an animal or monster would be more scary....you can't really reason with them. But then again, some people would just think "they're just dumb animals, what is to be scared?"
I don't think they should all be humans. I love lovecraftian monsters and co. as much as the next guy, even if I'm getting tired of ghosts and scary little girls, but in the idea Crimson Wizard posted I thought lynching mob chasing human would be better. But that's just me.
Quote from: Virgil on Thu 17/06/2010 13:49:31
Quote from: Babar on Thu 17/06/2010 08:33:17
I haven't played that 0.1% of games that don't do this. I don't think I've ever been scared by a videogame.
What do you think would scare you then, Babar?
Babar is so badass, that he could kill Nemesis and Pyramid Man, without bullets.
Quote from: Dualnames on Thu 17/06/2010 18:32:42
Quote from: Virgil on Thu 17/06/2010 13:49:31
Quote from: Babar on Thu 17/06/2010 08:33:17
I haven't played that 0.1% of games that don't do this. I don't think I've ever been scared by a videogame.
What do you think would scare you then, Babar?
Babar is so badass, that he could kill Nemesis and Pyramid Man, without bullets.
He laughs at your fragile dependence on bullets and weapons!
One could think of some monsters as just a type of animal that is unknown to you. But if the monster is supernatural in Nature than it would probably be scarier.
That game somebody suggested where you play a zombie and have to avoid the angry mob actually would be one I would like to play. The reason zombies eat people because is NOT because they are evil, but it is because they can't help it, eating people helps dull the pain of being dead. Rather than eating people I would have them eat Spam and drink spoiled milk that comes from undead cows. After feeding them spam the zombie would regain their whits and then you could engage them in conversation like you would a normal human.
Quoteeating people helps dull the pain of being dead
This is only one interpretation of why zombies consume the flesh of the living and it isn't even a 'popular' one (ie, used often). The only movies I've ever seen this explanation used were the Return of the Living Dead films, which were great fun but had nothing to do with the Romero films. Romero never gave an explicit reason why they consume the living; it's one of those things that seems more unnerving when you don't know, and generally it's the
lack of knowledge and the why that makes us feel uneasy in films like this.
Maybe it has already been said, but what always makes me feel nervous is the moment when you realize that the horror you go trough wasn`t created or thought of by a human being or a human mind (I dont`t mean the author of the game with that, but rather the `something` inside the game that is responsible for the hero`s situation).
On the other side, at the end of a creepy horror game I always need a relaxing, good ending where the hero has finally survived the dangers and lives happily ever after. Maybe not that cheesy, but you get the idea. I don`t like dark and twisted endings, I am a bit too sensitive in those things. ;)
I like ambiguous endings, myself.
I don't mind "happy" endings that make sense, nor do I mind downbeat endings if they are appropriate.
I don't like sequel-setup endings, or cheap "you thought you were safe, but you're not!" endings.
I will admit to being a bigger fan of endings than I am of beginnings.
Or the 'reworked' endings some sequels do to try and justify themselves when the first movie made it pretty clear the bad guy was dead? I hate those the most. Oh look, Johnny didn't really kill the bad guy, it was just some trick or treater in the same mask who we never saw (until now). BRILLIANT!
You can make scary game with using only text.
KGB (a.k.a Conspiracy) comes to mind. Game was based on little graphics and lots of shocking text. For example, you ended up in a meatshop, lit the switch and saw meatbags on your screen. Upon inspection, TEXT described what's inside bags... and it worked. And it still scared you shitless, without any animations, gory images, eerie sounds etc.
KGB is an excellent example how to make game scary, intense and exciting with good writing only.
See for yourself! (http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/93/KGB+aka+Conspiracy)
Also, most frightening is usually players imagination. As someone said, "without imagination, there is no fear".
So don't go all the way giving clear picture of the shock thing. Leave something for player to imagine, because it'll be times stronger than whatever you can present. Mysterious note, sound, etc could invoke alot more fear than that screenful of spiders eating zombies eating kittens you painted for 4 hours.
QuoteAs someone said, "without imagination, there is no fear".
So don't go all the way giving clear picture of the shock thing. Leave something for player to imagine, because it'll be times stronger than whatever you can present.
Although I'm extremely unimaginative when it come to text, I agree with the imagination bit. Whenever a monster kills me in a horror game, the next time I will face the monster, a significant chunk of the fear will be gone because what I imagined was far worse than what happened. It's the promise of gore that's scary, not the gore itself.
The Penumbra people are making a new game (Amnesia...something), saw a little of play demo and reminded me of one the worst things that can happen...
Dark halls, you hear a scream or something else that makes you know that a monster is coming towards you. You start to run in the other direction. There's a room and you shut the doors, pull a chest or a table to support the heavy wooden door.
Monster is real close now. You can hear the footsteps, the howling, the scratching of nails etc. It hits the door. They shake but just avoid buckling. The noises outside get worse, like a hundred people moaning and screaming while the door takes slams and scratches from the other side. The hits are relntless, they just aren't stopping. Wood splinters in places. Time is running out.
After the initial shock and panic, the adrenaline and the survival instinct are now really kiciking in. You look around the room to find an alternative exit, another door or window or vent or anything. You try to find a weapon or anything that might postpone a horrible death...then you notice the noises stopped. Is it gone? Is it waiting for you or has it given up?
Try to look under the door, are any shadows moving? Was that a footstep? What do you do now? You can't stay here and you can't go outside.
I hope you get what I'm trying to say from the crappy writing. Point is that the monster doesn't have to even be seen (though maybe just it's acts would be enough) and not knowing what are you gonna do next is creepy.
My first play of penumbra actually mirrored this sequence of events almost 100%. I was in one of the rooms and I heard one of those ghost creature biped things skittering about and I shut the door and slid some boxes in front of it figuring the weight of the boxes would keep it from pushing the door open (since you can't actually SECURE doors in the game, which was lame but that's another story). Then I hear a slam and one of the boxes starts to slide off the top of the other and I had to quickly push it back on, realizing that this plan wouldn't work (it had already detected me). So I see an open vent on the ceiling above a table and try to get in it but unfortunately I need one of those crates in front of the door.
Now if you've played penumbra you know your offensive options are SEVERELY limited. I can't grab a pipe and beat the creature to death because the game just doesn't work that way, you hold things in an elastic type fashion and can swing them for a bit of momentum but they don't really do damage. HOWEVER, apparently the coders designed weight to act as damage because as the creature pushed in the door and tried to wiggle in, I slammed the boxes against it repeatedly and crushed it to death...which at the time I thought was actually pretty neat.
So yeah, I think the penumbra guys can pull off tense moments, but only because they stack the deck against you from the start and leave you with nothing but a bit of physics juggling and the ability to run and duck in shadows. Aspects of the sequel especially felt really one-sided because there were several things that could serve as reasonable weapons (pickaxes, boards, pipes) and don't tell me a man or woman won't use one in a pinch because they will. While I liked the 'idea' behind penumbra, improvised weapons would have made it a lot more fun for me in all honesty, especially since most of them would only be effective when pressed and not really be idea for the run and gun style of gameplay of an fps.