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[Zaratustra]

SirNiko has a point there. Experienced gamers form a "ruleset" they expect the game to abide by. Breaking that ruleset is one of the most important devices of game storytelling, whether for horror, humor or just an intellectual puzzle.

[Ben_Hurr]

You know what I hate? That thing where a character's writing is repeated a whole bunch to show that they're going insane. The Shining did it once and since then it's just looked ludicrous. It's just looked ludicrous. LUDICROUS LUDICROuS lUdIcRoUs LUDICROUS LUDICROuS lUdIcRoUs LUDICROUS LUDICROuS lUdIcRoUs LUDICROUSLUDICROuSLUDICROUSOh no, a cheesy and overdone trick to get out of writing actually unnerving things!

That's almost a bad designer, no twinkie moment right there.

ALL CLICHE AND NO ORIGINALITY MAKE DESIGNER LAZY
ALL CLICHE AND NO ORIGINALITY MAKE DESIGNER LAZY
ALL CLICHE AND NO ORIGINALITY MAKE DESIGNER LAZY
ALL CLICHE AND NO ORIGINALITY MAKE DESIGNER LAZY
ALL CLICHE AND NO ORIGINALITY MAKE DESIGNER LAZY

Not to mention the only 'crazy' people that write like that are obsessive compulsives.  So scary, they'll stop to turn every door knob 3 times and spin clockwise in a circle while chasing you. 

[Landshark RAWR]

reminds me of how little i could play penumbra (i had to get a friend to play with me) basically when i FIRST saw the wolf at the beginning i ended up just sitting behind a box holding a rock.


that's probably just me though...

[TwilightVulpine]

@Ben_Hurr I don't think so. Usually the victims are the ones to do this in games, not the persecutors. It isn't even used that often in games, and, like Geti said a couple post ago, it is even harder to see value in such devices if you experience them in the wrong mindset. I can't bring off the top of my head any example where this specific device was particularly valuable, but I don't remember it being bad either. It is probably just a matter of preference.

[fraxcell]

I think another problem with horror games is the enemies move so damn slow. In Dead Space, the scariest enemies were the ones that jumped around a lot so you didn't know where they are. Similarly, the spider splicers in Bioshock freaked me out the first few times I fought them because they jump around everywhere.

[s0]

Speaking of Bioshock, that's a great example of a game where the mechanics work against the "horror" atmosphere. Games just kinda stop being scary when the player is some kind of immortal version of Rambo. System Shock 2 on the other hand, with its much more punishing respawn mechanic, scarce ammo and unlimited supply of enemies to boot, scared the shit out of me, and I first played that game some four years ago.

Also, I thought the Splicers were a bit too goofy/zany to really creep me out, but that's a different story.

[gunswordfist]

Yeah, unpredictability can be scary. That's why Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood scares me to death.

Anyway,the best example in a game that I can think of is friends turning into monsters out of nowhere even though you put them through a test to check if they are monsters in The Thing. Besides that, the game's atmosphere is kind of creepy. But besides that, I have no other examples.

[TwilightVulpine]

Also, I thought the Splicers were a bit too goofy/zany to really creep me out, but that's a different story.

What creeped me out about them is that they weren't the usual roaring mindless monster. They are clearly human, but went completely insane(again, not the "now they are monsters" insane). It's more a feeling of tragedy than actual fear. In fact, the environments are somewhat scarier than the enemies, but still, everything seems to be designed around this feeling of tragedy.

[zacaj]

Penumbra scared me so much I stopped playing.     I dont even get scared by horor movies or anything, every haloween we all watch a horror movie in the dark, and theyre all scared, and im bored   I got a friend to play Penumbra, and he screamed really high pitched and ran out of the room.

[gimymblert]

The only "scary game" i had ever played was AVP fps on PC with brightness set to minimum, and with the space marine.

I mean light and sound conspire against you. You can never be sure, if the sound just an elevator or an alien or a face hugger? Does the absence of sound mean no threat or just that there is an alien in ambush? Killing an alien is not safe you better had to stay far away to avoid acid blood and tails whip... which is infeasible in small corridor.

Position is everything ... except you panic and end up in the worst place, a corner! Threat comes everywhere, ceiling and wall are valid pathway for alien. Every place with no light is your enemy really. You can't hide. Firing help you see better as it light up the place, tempting you to use your ammunition, except ammo are a scarce resources.

[Ben_Hurr]

The scariest videogame enemy I've seen lately, unfortunately, was out of a mod for ZDoom.
All it was is a black-skinned imp type enemy, but the trick is that it doesn't immediately charge at you when you see it and it zig zags around.

Scared the crap out of me every single time I found it in a dark room because you can only see the eyes. 


Which brings me to another point;
Why is it that games rarely reduce objects in the dark to unidentifiable shapes?  I can't count the times I've been startled in my own house by muddy shapes in the dark at night.

Like this:

[SirNiko]

Because if you play the game with the brightness on the TV too high or too low, the monsters are either invisible or stand out like it was day.

I was having so much trouble with Shadows of the Empire on the N64 when I was a kid. I got into a dark room and couldn't get out, and assumed I needed a flashlight or something. It was only later that I learned the brightness was down. I turned it up and suddenly those dark rooms were pretty easy.

That said, you could probably make it work with a little thought and effort.

-SirNiko

[Ben_Hurr]

Ah, I've had that problem too with that game. )=
Silly broken TVs.


And no, I just mean shading things in the dark differently.  Old games like Doom and Abuse games do it like this.  ...unfortunately, it seems like its only possible with palettized sprites. 


notice how the sprite is shaded in different lighting?




Stumbling around in a pure black screen is really no fun at all at any rate.

[Zaratustra]

You could probably do it in 3D with a decent shader.

[s0]

One substantial aspect of horror games that we haven't discussed yet is the sound design. Dead Space worked some real magic in that department by making the monsters' groans and roars sound relatively similar to the environmental noises. I stopped countless times to check whether those were really just Isaac's footsteps and breathing or whether something was sneaking up on me. I think it's safe to say I developed a heightened awareness of sound, at least temporarily, during my time with that game.

Another interesting example is Silent Hill where the music is substantially louder during the Otherworld parts so it gets harder to detect enemies by sound.

[sugarbeard]

I agree with Sinclair. I was going to pipe up and say something similar but you beat me too it.

Sound Design. It's the KEY to any good horror. Game or movie. If the sounds aren't working right then no one is scared. Visuals are all fine and dandy but it's the sound designer that turns things into real horrors. Being a sound designer, I may be slightly biased though.

One of the more freaky indie games I've played, which also had great sound design, was Amon26's The Hunt. I played that in the middle of an interface design class I was taking, while the sun was filling up the room, and I was just pretty shaken up by it. Sound design. Yep.

[Ben_Hurr]

One substantial aspect of horror games that we haven't discussed yet is the sound design. Dead Space worked some real magic in that department by making the monsters' groans and roars sound relatively similar to the environmental noises. I stopped countless times to check whether those were really just Isaac's footsteps and breathing or whether something was sneaking up on me. I think it's safe to say I developed a heightened awareness of sound, at least temporarily, during my time with that game.

Another interesting example is Silent Hill where the music is substantially louder during the Otherworld parts so it gets harder to detect enemies by sound.

YES! Exactly!

Making it hard to tell what you're dealing with through visuals and sound would make for a very scary game! 

[gunswordfist]

One substantial aspect of horror games that we haven't discussed yet is the sound design. Dead Space worked some real magic in that department by making the monsters' groans and roars sound relatively similar to the environmental noises. I stopped countless times to check whether those were really just Isaac's footsteps and breathing or whether something was sneaking up on me. I think it's safe to say I developed a heightened awareness of sound, at least temporarily, during my time with that game.

Another interesting example is Silent Hill where the music is substantially louder during the Otherworld parts so it gets harder to detect enemies by sound.

Whoa, that's some ingeious use of sound design. I gotta play those games.

[Jad]

You know what I hate? That thing where a character's writing is repeated a whole bunch to show that they're going insane. The Shining did it once and since then it's just looked ludicrous. It's just looked ludicrous. LUDICROUS LUDICROuS lUdIcRoUs LUDICROUS LUDICROuS lUdIcRoUs LUDICROUS LUDICROuS lUdIcRoUs LUDICROUSLUDICROuSLUDICROUSOh no, a cheesy and overdone trick to get out of writing actually unnerving things!

But when it's people SAYING the same thing over and over?

Yes, then it's very very very unsettling.

[Paint by Numbers]

One of the more freaky indie games I've played, which also had great sound design, was Amon26's The Hunt.

Amon26's Au Sable and All Of Our Friends are Dead, along with Kikyama's Yume Nikki, are my personal favorite examples of sound design. I like their sound design more than any other game's in the whole world.

One of the best moments in All of Our Friends are Dead, in my opinion, is the very final level, which has some of the most foreboding music I've ever heard - even if it is just one long drone. My favorite example of sound design in Au Sable is in the credits. The music right there is just so sad and unlike the rest of the music in the game.

If anyone has played Yume Nikki, they'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Its soundtrack is honestly the best-designed and best-tailored soundtrack to any game I've ever heard. Special mention goes to the Famicom areas, which include some vibrato-laden chiptunes that strike some strange chord of nostalgia in my heart.

Anyway, yeah, I think games that can make you feel sad or scared with their sound design are to be desired.

And another good sound design - LSD: The Dream Emulator's. Not strictly relevant, because the sound is not scary, but what other game uses procedurally generated drum'n'bass?