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[Paprikaz]

How can one make 2D game legitimately scary for the player. What are the best elements to make it happen? That is the million dollar question here.

I'm not talking about jump scares. More like psychological horror. Claustrophobia (or the opposite) makes me feel uneasy sometimes, but in 2D games there's not really any sense of depth that would make that kind of element serve it's job well. 

[moi]

search the forums for previous threads about the subject

[mono]

I think a lot of what scary is universal. So don't think the fact that the game is in 2D will hinder it from conveying horror. What I find most critical is perhaps the controls of the game. Games like "Clock Tower" gives the player urgency and a sense of helplessness because control is very limited. Still it's just as important is it would be in a 3D game. I don't think the perspective really matters.

You should read this blog post "10 Ways to Evolve Horror Games" from the masters of modern horror games.

[Shine Klevit]

The first Clocktower is a great example. The game would constantly shift itself to confuse the player. Also, whatever you can't do in graphics you can do in sound.

[Retrogames]

One way is to shift the perspective. You don't mention whether it's top-down or side-view, but either works. In a normal game, for example, the player character is generally centered on the screen. To generate a sense of suspense for a side-scroller, shift the player character to the edge of the viewable area; whatever is behind them cannot be seen unless they turn around. Here's an example;



Not sure how you'd want to do it in a top-down view as the view would have to rotate far too much. Worth a shot though.

For maximum effect, make things happen behind the player a lot; weird noises, traps that don't seem to do anything at first, etc.

Another that draws heavily from Castlevania (where both of these ideas originated) is to have your item-generating features also represent light sources. In Castlevania, you get hearts (ammo for your sub-weapons) almost entirely from candles, torches and braziers scattered around the level. Destroying these objects does not affect the lighting, but what if it did? Instantly players have to make a choice between visibility and survivability, seeing the enemy coming and being able to actually fight the enemy if and when he arrives. Players who dash around haphazardly grabbing rewards will quickly find themselves in the dark.

[initials]

Disclaimer. I don't want horror films. So take my input with a grain of salt.

There is a way of scaring people which is a "jump scare" or a "screamer". You have the player carefully watching the screen for changes, and then throw up a picture of something scary.

I think this is thought of as a "cheap scare" by horror fans, but hey, certain movies are pulling huge box office numbers using this technique.

Something to think about anyway.

[C.D Buckmaster]

A lot of it is atmosphere, the best way to create fear is to put the player in an environment where they expect to be scared.  The thing about monster design, is that the more the player recognises and knows about the monster, the less they tend to fear it, as their imagination builds it up so much.

If you play Slender or Amnesia, you find yourself being scared before anything that could be described as scary actually occurring. 

[golemshaper]

How can one make 2D game legitimately scary for the player. What are the best elements to make it happen? That is the million dollar question here.

I'm not talking about jump scares. More like psychological horror. Claustrophobia (or the opposite) makes me feel uneasy sometimes, but in 2D games there's not really any sense of depth that would make that kind of element serve it's job well. 

I've always found games that have a lack of control are scarier.
When you move slow and think you're doing fine then-BAM! dead.
Like oddworld abe's oddysee:





It may not look scary, but it is if you suck at playing   
The sounds don't hurt either.

lack of control (in a good way) is the reason I find many old PS1 games scary...

[Hima]

Sound effect and narrative really helps. This is the technique that Corpse Party use for a very disgusting or terrifying scene. Making everything goes dark and use sound and let the players imagination go wild.

Example



The one I found scary/disturbing the most is when Yuka, a nine year old character, got her eye stabbed and gouged out. All these are done without nothing is shown on the screen except crying sound and some stabbing and various sound effect. It's pretty effective. At least to me.

[Graham-]

Start with a character that the player can relate to. Then dis-empower him.

Take away his safety, and match this with mechanics. For example, loss is scary. We don't like to lose. The sun in Super Mario Bros 3 scared the shit out of me, or the Lakitu. Why? Because they put me in a position in which I suddenly had very little control. I felt like a toy. Maybe I'd be killed, maybe I wouldn't. It didn't feel like there was a system I could learn to overcome them. I just had to try my best and leave the results up to the fates.

The scariest part was that they didn't break the rules of the game. They took away my sense of control. Normally in Mario I can control the pace, except when those two enemies are there.

[impulse9]

Darkness. A lot of darkness. And unexpected shifts of scenery. Sounds and music also play a great role.

Make the player question his environment.

[Graham-]

There has to be a sense that there is something more powerful than you. There has to be this contrast. There is you being a normal person doing normal things, then slowly, or suddenly, that isn't enough. Normal doesn't cut it anymore. Now there is a force that is going to do something to you that you don't want to have happen, and you must respond to it.

It doesn't come right away, it comes slowly. It takes its time. Sometimes it jumps at you. Whatever it does you have to react. You have to bend to it. You have to guess at it, but no matter how much you try to master it you can't. Any sense of control over it is temporary or an illusion. It is full of mystery. You are often left to imagine what it will do next and how you should react.

What can be taken away from a player? Loss of life? Having to restart a level? Things they have acquired? Character traits? Hardcore Diablo players are scared of death, because they are scared of losing their progress. I'm sure there are some horrific experiences for them when trapped in a position that they can't see a safe way out of, that jeopardizes their hard work, that pits them against a challenge that has a logic to it, that exists in their world, but is dominant over them.

[Azure Lazuline]

This was probably brought up in previous threads of this topic: SA-X, in Metroid Fusion.


- if you played any previous Metroid games, you know Samus (the protagonist) is extremely powerful by the end. You lose all your stuff at the beginning of this game, already making you feel helpless. But, you learn that something else took all of those powerups, a perfect powerful clone of yourself, and it's in the same space station that you are.

- SA-X blows a wall to pieces just for fun, in a cutscene - but it's just seconds after you left that area. What if it went the other way and chose the same path you did? You know you'd be screwed. There are also other times when you hear a loud explosion and something gets blown up in the room behind you, but you never encounter it directly yet.

- as you enter a room about half an hour later, slow tense music plays and all you can hear is footsteps, and then SA-X appears, walking slowly through the room. It's easy to not get seen, as long as you don't do anything completely stupid, but the tension is super high because you don't know that, but you do know that it will murder you if you're spotted. (If you tempt fate by intentionally running ahead or trying to skip past it, you'll die in seconds.)

- next encounter is more difficult: the same music and footsteps sounds play, and it looks like you're safe again. But then it sets a Power Bomb and blows up most of the room while you're still in it. There are a few safe places, but I assume most people get spotted during that part - the escape is fairly easy, but each hit you take is super deadly. There's a save point soon after it so it's not too frustrating if you take some hits, though.

- here's the real kicker. This is a few hours after the previous encounters, when you've probably forgot about it. You enter a room, and hear the familiar music and footsteps. But you can't see the SA-X anywhere. If you wait around for it to stop on its own (which works every other time), it just keeps going. Those slow footsteps, waiting for you. You know you're going to run into it soon, but you don't know exactly when, or if you can avoid it. This is also the only time when you can't dodge it in any way: you need it to see you, and then you need to run like hell. One of the most tense scenarios I can remember in any game.

- as a minor thing, you're told that none of your weapons can hurt it. But once you get the Ice Missiles, you're told that you can freeze the SA-X with them (this is before that third encounter). And, they kinda do - but only for one second. So you're told that you have its weakness, making you feel a bit more confident about fighting it, and then your plan fails miserably. Nice mind trick.



(Kinda) Short Summary: show the player the power of the enemy, don't just tell them. (Forced-loss encounters don't count, those just suck.) Make the player associate something with the presence of an enemy. Once they get that association in their mind, they're on the end of your puppet strings, and you can do anything you want. (The movie Jaws does this with the music too - you associate the music with the shark, so then when you hear the music but don't see the shark, there's instant tension.)

[zalzane]

For 2D, psychological horror is much, much more effective than the "jump out at you" shit you see a lot.

See: yume nikki

[noumenus]

Making the player feel vulnerable. Having the player know something bad could happen, but they don't know when.

A perfect example of this in a 2d game would be the yeti from the old ski game for the windows 95. As a kid it scared me but not in a horror sort of way, but it did give a sense of panic.

Even though this isn't a game, all the creepy fan stories revolving around the old Pokemon games are the closest things I know of a 2d game that is horror.

Maybe if you combined the creepiness of the freaky Pokemon stories with a game mechanic such as yeti in the old ski game, it could make for a convincingly scary 2D game.

[Fegon]

Warning! lots of poor english in this post.

I think in horror games as well as in any other game if you want the player to  experience somthing then you need to make the player investigate in the game. Simple and often used tricks are for example to have specifik save points, resident evil, silent hill, phantasy star 3. If you have a safe room then the further away from that point the more suspence.

The strong enemy that trick like Azure Lazuline mentioned also used in RE3: nemesis.

Personly one thing i liked about silent hill was that they used a character that spoke to me. It was nice to some kind of special forces cop in RE but the guy in SH was just a normal guy, looking for his kid. They did the same thing in Sweet home where all characters are normal people.

Punish the player, in sweet home suspence also came from permanent death of characers in your party. punishing the player for messing up or not paying atention builds more tension. I think that is important because you are not trying to make a casual playing experience.

Iv have never actually made any horror game but as 2D graphics might not be as scary as 3D because of it´s "limitations" i think it is even more important to get the game play right. Realy thinking about what you are trying to do.

[Azure Lazuline]

The strong enemy that trick like Azure Lazuline mentioned also used in RE3: nemesis.

Yeah, that too - the big zombie shows up and you're given the option to kill it or run away. And when you shoot it, it looks like it's taking damage, but it's not. It shows up 3 or 4 times, and you never know if you're strong enough to fight it yet. You don't even know if you're SUPPOSED to fight it, or if running away is just making it worse.

[Sir Raptor]

If you're making a side scrolling game, use Lone Survivor as reference. If it's a top-down RPG style game, use either Yume Nikki or Ao Oni for reference. Especially Ao Oni, since that game actually manages to take jump scares and make them genuinely scary.

There's a side scroller flash game I'm also trying to think of, where the main character was a guy with a flame thrower sent to clean up a destroyed facility, and the monsters were all aliens. That game had some great atmosphere.

[Kegluneq]

I think one of the biggest factors in scary 3D games is the camera. In a first-person view, you can only see what's in front and nothing else. If you want to watch for anything behind you, you need to take your eyes off of whats in front, leaving chances for terrible things to happen.

With 2D games, that feeling is gone, it's easy to see everything around you. Retrogames mentioned shifting the camera so the player is always on the side of the screen, but unless you can still see at least a little behind you I've never really liked that. Pressing one key to turn around is too simple compared to moving your mouse the right amount as in first-person games. Personally I just end up tapping left-right-left-right a few times, making it more of an annoyance than anything else.

I've always loved the way the camera in Soldat (a sidescrolling shooter) works. The camera is centered on the halfway point between the player and the mouse. This way you can keep the mouse close to the player to stay aware of your surroundings, or you can move the mouse to the edge of the screen and see farther ahead, but be unable to see anything even slightly behind you. The sniper rifles take this a step further and let you move the camera far away from the player for those super long range shots.

I think if you were to add a "depth of field" blur you could really recreate the feel of limited vision, but with a 2D twist. Have a moderately sized circle where everything is clear, but everything outside of the circle (aside from the space immediately around the player) would be blurry. Throw in an enemy or two that avoids the circle and I think you have the start of something promising. Bonus points for harmless environmental objects that move due to wind or whatever to really taunt the natural instinct to look at things that move.


tl;dr
Play with and restrict the camera.

[Blink]

Whatever it is the re-deads have in Ocarina, that's what you want. Taking away a sense of empowerment from the player, grabbing them, limiting their controls, that stuff is terrifying and doesn't need 3D at all.