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[Danrul]

"There is no terror in a bang, only in the anticipation of it"

I was actually talking about this with my brother last night, and I think that for nothing to work, it needs to be contrasted with frantic action.  I mean, in Silent Hill 2, its incredibly hard for you to attack effectively, due to the simple system, which naturally freaks the hell out of you.  I found that in Resident evil 4, the second I actually saw an enemy, I stopped being scared, simply because I could shoot it straight off and knew it'd be gone. 

One genre im curious to see explored is that of an open world horror game, as most games i've played have been level based.  Though i must say, this is getting off the topic of nothing being scary.

So, I guess to say what I'm thinking best I should just sum it up with, Nothing is potentially the best kind of horror, though it needs direction, and layers of foreboding EG beginning of silent hill where you are walking around and you can hear the off kilter steps of the flesh strait jacket guys.

too much rambling here.  I'll come back when i come sum up my points better.

[nayon]

Engine configurabulated! Now trying to build a world, at least for testing purposes. This might take a while. I'll post when I have something. Meanwhile, let me post a storyboard for you, without spoiling too much:

Character (let's call him Khrevsu) is at home. Goes out due to necessity. Bright cityscape. Everything looks nice, but place is abandoned. To reach destination, Khrevsu has two paths. One is a long winding road, the other is a shortcut, but Khrevsu doesn't really want to go through the shortcut, bad feelings. What must Khrevsu do?

[nayon]

Super realistic graphics or stylized?

I'm thinking a mixture of both.

[Valter]

Either. I don't think lowpoly would work so well for this situation, though.

Integrating artistic graphics into an FPS could be... challenging, though. Then again, I don't really know enough about them to be sure.

[Gorgoo]

There's a problem I see with 'nothing' being scary, at least in a game. In books and movies it can work (if done well), because people read or watch movies to view a story, and the threat can be completely story-based but still scary. A movie could, say, involve someone finding long-dead bodies, and have the rest of the plot follow their increasingly-desperate attempts to keep themselves safe, without the viewer ever knowing if the threat, whatever it is, is still around. That movie, in the hands of a good director and writer, could be extremely scary, because the audience is watching for the story, and the character's attempts at safeguarding himself and convincing others that there's a real threat could provide an interesting story even if the "thing" never show up.

In a game, though, there's another dimension on top of that. People do often play games for the story, but most players expect engaging gameplay, as well. They expect challenges. A horror game where there's nothing truly threatening would probably turn out boring, at least in the long run (a short game could be great).

For an example, I've never played Thief 3, but from what I've read, the horror in the Cradle seems to work both with story and gameplay. In story, it works because of the various creepy devices used. In gameplay, it works because, until that point, the player has been faced with challenges, with loss as a consequence. Though the Cradle might not feature things as immediately dangerous (at least, from the way this discussion makes it sound. I might be off here), it's in the middle of a game where threats are, in general, real, so the anticipation is both in terms of story and gameplay, as the player doesn't know that they're, in general, safe.

The way I see it, a longer game could be interspersed with moments like this, and those would be the truly scary moments, but in a whole game like that, the player would quickly begin to realize that there really isn't a gameplay threat, even if there's a story one, and a large part of the fear would disappear.

Maybe I'm wrong in that, but it just seems to me that the scarier parts in a game occur in between the intense parts, but that those parts being left out entirely would reduce the impact of the otherwise-scary parts. It's hard to have an emotion be 'on' during an entire long work. Maybe, though, I just haven't seen one that does it well yet.

[nayon]

Well, I think you are kind of right, but then again all these "art games" have near zero gameplay and are conceptual too, so you might consider this an "art game" maybe? An experiment, whatever.

Agh, too early to talk :D

GeneralValter, Red Steel :D

[Gorgoo]

I'm not saying yours'll do badly. Like I said, it can be done really well, especially in alternative or shorter-style games. I was just commenting on the discussion in general.

[Inanimate]

However, one main problem. If you KNOW there is nothing there, wouldn't that ruin the fear? So, any game ideas right now, would they really be scary? Unless, you never meet the cause of your fear, and then it still works. But it would dampen the effect.

[Jrsquee]

I think it's worth looking at some of the works of Ray Bradbury and H.P. Lovecraft to get a feel for this sort of unspoken horror.  Something like The Veldt by Bradbury is a good example, also Embroidery.  His story Gotcha! uses this idea of unseen/unspoken horror as a key plot device.  Actually, that's a perfect example. I'll see if I can write up an excerpt or find something online.

[Glaiel-Gamer]

One review of my game stated:
"I got the feeling of one of those horror games without having to worry about enemies."


The trick here wasn't giving hints about enemies or showing them, it was just setting up an atmosphere. There was NOTHING in the game that was a danger to you. No enemies, no consequence of death. Just puzzles.

The fear here comes from the fact that the person playing the game has a predisposition that the game will be scary. The preloader and the music and the graphic style all allure to the same types of games that are normally survival-horror, so people EXPECT stuff to jump out at them. This isn't something I had to go out and say in the game, it's built into the mind of the person playing it. As a result, some people overthink the whole think, and when they think they see something its actually just a bush, and was always a bush. That is 100% psychological, as I never try to surprise or scare the player with stuff in the game. It is also what most real-life fear is. The reviews show that people do get scared when they play it.

The trick is you have to know what the player is thinking before he even starts the game. If the character goes, "I don't want to go to the basement, I'm scared", the player will be like "ok, why do I care?"

Set up an atmosphere and leave it at that. You can have VERY compelling game under a creepy atmosphere. Let the player scare himself with his own expectations.

[acidBatterie]

Maybe I'm wrong in that, but it just seems to me that the scarier parts in a game occur in between the intense parts, but that those parts being left out entirely would reduce the impact of the otherwise-scary parts. It's hard to have an emotion be 'on' during an entire long work. Maybe, though, I just haven't seen one that does it well yet.

I think it's worth looking at some of the works of Ray Bradbury and H.P. Lovecraft to get a feel for this sort of unspoken horror.  Something like The Veldt by Bradbury is a good example, also Embroidery.  His story Gotcha! uses this idea of unseen/unspoken horror as a key plot device.  Actually, that's a perfect example. I'll see if I can write up an excerpt or find something online.

if i were trying to make a horror game i would study "call of cthulhu: dark corners of the earth."  in fact, that's what i've been doing these past nights (i'm at the refinery, in case you know what i'm talking about). this game pulls off some really great ideas, like the sanity of the protagonist, and yet fails at other aspects such as the gunplay. 

for those who don't know, call of cthulhu is more of a first-person rpg/survival horror game than an fps, even though the latter half of the game adds weapons into the mix.  if done better, the guns could have destroyed some of the scarier elements.  because the gunplay is so shitty i still believe i'm incapable of killing monsters.  so it doesn't feel like you're in control which would ruin the scare factor if i felt like an unstoppable monster-killing machine.  unlike silent hill, i think this was more of an unintended design flaw. 

call of cthulhu gets the scare done at times.  whenever confronted by corpses, mangled and gutted, jack (protagonist) begins to go a little crazy.  the more shit you see, in a longer duration, the more insane you get.  you can go through a level looking a bodies and begin having hallucinations.  even whenever you have a loaded gun, if you're too "insane" then you'll blow your own head off.

i really thought this was done well.

[nayon]

[Kegluneq]

However, one main problem. If you KNOW there is nothing there, wouldn't that ruin the fear? So, any game ideas right now, would they really be scary? Unless, you never meet the cause of your fear, and then it still works. But it would dampen the effect.

Not necessarily. Say you come back from a horror movie, its night time, no one else is home. You know the movie is just that, a movie; there are no real monsters or... things at your house, but your still paranoid. You turn on all the lights in the areas that you'll be walking through, and any random sounds will definitely startle you. You KNOW that the creatures from the movie aren't real, but your still afraid of them.

Also, great environment, but farther off and around the corner it looks real hazy and mysterious. Intentional?

[Inanimate]

However, one main problem. If you KNOW there is nothing there, wouldn't that ruin the fear? So, any game ideas right now, would they really be scary? Unless, you never meet the cause of your fear, and then it still works. But it would dampen the effect.

Not necessarily. Say you come back from a horror movie, its night time, no one else is home. You know the movie is just that, a movie; there are no real monsters or... things at your house, but your still paranoid. You turn on all the lights in the areas that you'll be walking through, and any random sounds will definitely startle you. You KNOW that the creatures from the movie aren't real, but your still afraid of them.

Also, great environment, but farther off and around the corner it looks real hazy and mysterious. Intentional?

Yeah, but we explicitly know from the creator that there is nothing there. However, what this thing does is going to scare us.

In real life, it is always possible...

[Valter]

I don't think that Nayon will be telling people that the game has no enemies in it. We know 'cause we're discussing the ideas, but he won't be advertising the fact.