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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperDesignHow can first-person horror games be improved on?
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Eadow
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« Reply #20 on: July 03, 2014, 06:11:51 AM »

I really hate jump scares, they're cheap and they're expected. I feel like something that Lone Survivor did very well is making you scared of things because you know nothing about them and the game's story makes you wonder if they are even real.
A good tactic for a horror game is to make the player uncomfortable, use the uncanny valley in your favor and make the player be scared just by the atmosphere and his own mind. Amnesia A Machine for Pigs did this very well in the part where you pass a prison full of the monsters. It let's you look inside the cells and the pigs don't even seem to notice you, but still you feel like you're completely unprotected and they could kill you at any instant.
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« Reply #21 on: July 03, 2014, 10:23:12 PM »

Another issue that I don't think has been raised yet in this thread, is how does everyone feel about death as a "punishment" in horror games?  

Does the player dying and then having to do the section over or in extreme cases even ending the game (perma death), make the game scarier and the deaths "mean something"; or does it just make the game frustrating and repetitive?

Do you feel like that sort of thing adds to or takes away from the fear?
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« Reply #22 on: July 04, 2014, 08:35:25 PM »

I think instead of permadeath or respawning both remind you it's a game. Instead you could have the enemy disappear if it kills you. Did it really disappear, or is beating the game just a fantasy? Were you dead the whole time? Are you going crazy? Did it even exist?

Something that I think needs to be in a horror game is meta horror. Start like a normal horror game but halfway through have the main character realize he's in a game, and explain to you that you're in danger too. And then have the game close to the desktop... but using the few seconds the game still has control over the audio and video to make it black and sound like breathing is coming from behind you. I don't know how much creepier you can get than hearing breathing right after the horror game you were playing told you to watch out for your safety in real life and then crashed.  Shocked
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« Reply #23 on: July 05, 2014, 09:50:09 AM »

That's a very interesting idea! 
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« Reply #24 on: July 05, 2014, 05:31:43 PM »

I watched this horror movie and at the beginning these 2 girls were playing hide and clap(Marco Polo on land). And threw out the movie the spirit would toy with the characters by clapping in there ear from a closet or right next to there ear when shit was hitting the fan 1/2 threw and there was still another climax to hit. It was something playful in the begining that was always creepy and 1 time jumpy. There is a scene were the characters back it to a wardrobe and it slowly opens 2 hands slide out threw the cloths and it claps in the same pattern as the girls from begining mom thinks it's the kids yada yada... But yea I the way something innocent as clapping became creepy.
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« Reply #25 on: July 08, 2014, 05:25:11 PM »

Googled hide and clap.

It's called The Conjuring.
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« Reply #26 on: July 13, 2014, 09:39:44 PM »

DanHayesGamer-

Yeah, I can definitely see how graphics quality (and variety) could impact the player's immersion into the game like that.  Of course as you pointed out that does make it more daunting for indie developers.

Obviously almost all games, big or small, reuse assets.  For some genres this really isn't such a problem, but I can definitely see how it might be one for horror. 

Then make the reuse part of the creepyness.
"Wait I remember this room... but wasn't it on the floor below? And weren't there three paintings on the wall instead of two?"
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« Reply #27 on: July 13, 2014, 10:10:15 PM »

Trying to do something different I was attempting to make a 'horror' game that was inspired by House of Leaves that played with disorienting the player, unseen menace, and subverting the expectations most players have of mapping a space to control it. I didn't have the chops to pull it off so my game has morphed into just a straight dungeon crawler in a weird setting but I still think a House of Leaves inspired game could be very effective.
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« Reply #28 on: July 13, 2014, 10:18:11 PM »

Another issue that I don't think has been raised yet in this thread, is how does everyone feel about death as a "punishment" in horror games?  

Death as a load screen annoyance doesn't feel very appropriate for 'horror'. I'd think it either needs to be incredibly impactful so something like a roguelike and the player genuinely fears and seeks to avoid it or it needs to be abandoned entirely and the game should make it part of the narrative.

I tend to think horror works best when it isn't paired with a lot of concrete mechanics with hp bars and such. It's too easy to become a resource management situation like most games which is why there isn't anything that affects the player besides jump scares.
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« Reply #29 on: July 14, 2014, 05:58:07 AM »

A section of the game where there is an enemy waiting behind a door is generic and normal. You can only have a few jumpscares before they wear off. But if the player has to return to the area of the game where the jumpscare is, and there *is* no jumpscare where there was before, they will feel empty. Empty and tense, because they know a jumpscare is coming. But what if you don't have a jumpscare? When does the player stop being tense? That's what I want to know.
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« Reply #30 on: July 21, 2014, 08:47:17 AM »

Trying to do something different I was attempting to make a 'horror' game that was inspired by House of Leaves that played with disorienting the player, unseen menace, and subverting the expectations most players have of mapping a space to control it. I didn't have the chops to pull it off so my game has morphed into just a straight dungeon crawler in a weird setting but I still think a House of Leaves inspired game could be very effective.

Oh, that would be fantastic. One of my all-time favorite books, and definitely the scariest thing I've ever read.

Death as a load screen annoyance doesn't feel very appropriate for 'horror'. I'd think it either needs to be incredibly impactful so something like a roguelike and the player genuinely fears and seeks to avoid it or it needs to be abandoned entirely and the game should make it part of the narrative.

I tend to think horror works best when it isn't paired with a lot of concrete mechanics with hp bars and such. It's too easy to become a resource management situation like most games which is why there isn't anything that affects the player besides jump scares.

I loved Amnesia, but one of the things I hated was, when a monster caught up to you... you died. Began the area over again. It made the whole experience a lot less tense.
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« Reply #31 on: July 21, 2014, 03:42:38 PM »

Years ago I played a Quake mod. The walls moved in a rhythm, like they were breathing. When I first saw it, I freaked a bit. Also, the sound of the Shamblers a Voars when they saw you were also freaky.

Then I started modding the game as well, and freaked no more because I was able to make the walls move also.
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« Reply #32 on: July 24, 2014, 02:51:53 PM »

For any of you who play these games, what would you like to see from them in the future?

Variation! Most games seem to rely on similar tropes, and either bog down into psychological mumbo jumbo (Silent Hill 2), semi-directed narrative scares (Amnesia) or ammo-gathering survival horror (Dead Space, RE, etc.).

Are there any of these games that you have as a particular favorite, that you would recommend or hold up as an exceptional example of this genre?

The scariest moments I ever had in a game are probably from the first Condemned: Criminal Origins. I had no expectations of that game, so didn't expect to be scared. But walking around in the mannequin rooms, or examining the farm house ... the atmosphere and the execution of that game was simply brilliant.

I used to read a lot of horror fiction. It's always been one of my favourite genres. And at some point, I also found a very good explanation of what the horror tradition uses to invoke "horror." These are a number of elements that I think are underused:

Helplessness: feeling helpless against the threat or danger that's encountered. (Extensively used in the Cthulhu Mythos.)

Isolation: nowhere to run and no one to get help from. (The classics all use this - old mansions, ships, etc.)

Alienation: that no one understands you or takes you seriously; or that you don't understand them.

Contrast: if there's a light at the end of the tunnel, the darkness will be a lot darker when it turns out to be a train...

Ignorance: always missing the last piece of the puzzle and feeling one step behind the opposition. (This is where the nemesis sniffs out your hiding place, or when you can't figure out how to open the puzzle box.)
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TwistedJenius
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« Reply #33 on: July 25, 2014, 03:14:45 AM »

@Devain
Very good observations and suggestions! 
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« Reply #34 on: July 25, 2014, 05:33:03 AM »

That last part just gave me another idea:
if there are going to puzzles, make one of them appear when you *know* there's a monster outside the room you're in... and make it completely impossible- and the monster comes once you even attempt it.
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« Reply #35 on: September 27, 2014, 06:26:53 AM »

There are a bunch of old themes that are overused, and I think that something fresh would be cool.
Things like "asylum" or "graveyard" sure are no longer scary to the average gamer. I went through Steam's "horror game" list, and found a lot of things with gritty gore imagery, asylums, catacombs. You know, the stuff we all know from movies. And it struck me that game developers (mostly indies in the horror game genre on Steam actually, except for the few big ones) are just taking things from movies they like. It's probably not a bad thing per se, but to me it seems like they're copying someone else's copies. You're trying to remake something that was already watered down for the sake of entertainment.

An example of a game that doesn't even try to be a survival horror 1st person game is Minecraft. It just is scary to some people, because "the sounds the spiders make" and "dark caverns with endermen". It's not the old boring asylums or graveyards, yet sometimes it manages to be scary.

DayZ is a survival horror game where you're more afraid of other people than of the (well not really supernatural) zombies. And that's something to consider. One moment you are in control. A second later you're scared of being out in the sun. A variation of themes could work, and it'd be a welcome injection of fresh blood into the genre. I like Lovecraft as much as the next guy, but cmon when you've read all of his works a lot of his stuff loses it's punch. And so do games that rely on it.
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« Reply #36 on: September 27, 2014, 07:31:39 PM »

There are a bunch of old themes that are overused, and I think that something fresh would be cool.
Things like "asylum" or "graveyard" sure are no longer scary to the average gamer. I went through Steam's "horror game" list, and found a lot of things with gritty gore imagery, asylums, catacombs. You know, the stuff we all know from movies. And it struck me that game developers (mostly indies in the horror game genre on Steam actually, except for the few big ones) are just taking things from movies they like.

What I find interesting is that even many well worn horror themes that you see in movies are often neglected in games. For instance, ghosts and zombies are extremely common, but it seems like you very rarely see monster animals as the main antagonists in these types of first-person survival horror games. This is a trope that has been very common in Hollywood throughout the years, but has been largely neglected in this genre of gaming. I elaborate on this a bit more in this entry of my devlog-

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40780.msg1028167#msg1028167

I definitely agree that many of the indie horror games on Steam tend to get a bit repetitive and formulaic. I'm hoping that the game I'm working on will be more unique in at least the way of having a different setting and monster than what you typically see; if also not different gameplay.
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« Reply #37 on: September 28, 2014, 01:39:41 AM »

Quote
And it struck me that game developers (mostly indies in the horror game genre on Steam actually, except for the few big ones) are just taking things from movies they like.

i think it's more accurate to say they take things from games they like, haha
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« Reply #38 on: September 28, 2014, 04:54:17 AM »

(questions, including...)
What are your biggest complaints about games in this genre?

...

And most importantly, how do you think the genre should evolve? What do you think would make these kinds of games better?

My biggest complaints about horror games these days that they don't try to engage the player, instead they try to present a simulation to the player. It's surprise, suspense, and shock value - devoid of any emotional attachment or grounding in the virtual world. None of the characters cry out in terror, or if they do, nobody else is there to listen. Which is a common thread, artistically, since FPS and 3D became common, across most genres. Half-Life syndrome, everywhere. Few games bother to create a story and character you can empathize with anymore, it's all about presenting a simulation either directly through the fourth wall, or via a transparently avatar 'character'. The problem is that if you're trying to scare the player instead of communicate fear to the player, the strength of the game relies entirely upon the player's ability to be drawn into their mechanical interfaces, and very little, artistically, from the developer.

I feel a complete emotional disconnect in horror games. Did you know that the first time you see the monster in Amnesia and you have mobility, you can walk right up to him and poke him in the face?
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« Reply #39 on: September 28, 2014, 12:19:07 PM »

Did you know that the first time you see the monster in Amnesia and you have mobility, you can walk right up to him and poke him in the face?

Yeah, I often try to do things like that in horror games, and in a lot of cases it totally breaks the suspense. Don't let me go and make friends with the scary-looking monster. If I try, do something to stop me and make the threat real.
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