Horror gameplay perspective
polycounter lvl 7
I've been doing some research on horror games and have noticed that it's sort of split in the middle between first person and third person. But the 'horror' theme in game titles has also been split up into multiple types such as the action/horror in Dead Space or the fear/horror in Amnesia:TDD.
I think a good horror game addresses the 3 senses.
Sight - Limited/distorted vision or slow then quick movement
Sound - music at certain points or events and enviro sounds
Touch - physical interaction/camera movement etc...
But is that how it's split up?... third person horror games are action and first person get you scared. Would you be able to get the same experience as Amnesia if it was third person?
But my main question is what are peoples opinion in what makes a good horror game and what perspective do you prefer (first/third person)?
And does anyone have a favourite horror title?
I'd like to hear anyone's opinion on this, thanks!
UPDATE:
I finished my research project and put the results into a video.
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sfxE7PHYPc"]Learning - Basic Design of Horror Games - YouTube[/ame]
I think a good horror game addresses the 3 senses.
Sight - Limited/distorted vision or slow then quick movement
Sound - music at certain points or events and enviro sounds
Touch - physical interaction/camera movement etc...
But is that how it's split up?... third person horror games are action and first person get you scared. Would you be able to get the same experience as Amnesia if it was third person?
But my main question is what are peoples opinion in what makes a good horror game and what perspective do you prefer (first/third person)?
And does anyone have a favourite horror title?
I'd like to hear anyone's opinion on this, thanks!
UPDATE:
I finished my research project and put the results into a video.
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sfxE7PHYPc"]Learning - Basic Design of Horror Games - YouTube[/ame]
Replies
Amnesia works because everything about the game is putting you into the mindset of the character. With the heavy breathing and screen effects, not being able to look at the monsters. The game makes you afraid. While Dead Space was often creepy it was never really scary because you never really feel like you are Isaac. Even though I'm not looking at him, I'm still watching things happen to him.
If that makes any sense?
Now that I read that back I suppose the 1st/3rd thing does effect it a bit.
hmmm....
First person games lead your attention and make focusing on certain elements important and I believe this is very effective in games like Amnesia and fatal frame where you can't just snipe enemies, and how easily you can see them directly affects how horrific it is.
Third person games make effective use of space and interaction where the whole scene contributes to the horror. Being able to see yourself in relation to what scares you magnifies the horrific context. Silent Hill. Eternal Darkness, and Resident Evil games make excellent use of this as camera position, location and proximity of usually many enemies heightens tension.
Fear is a broad human emotion and most games only tap into certain aspects of it, it's strange because it is one of the few emotions more affected by a 'lack' of information than presence of emotion. Not knowing or understanding what is happening is half the whole solution.
There is a bit of a battle at the moment for horror fans between survival and action horror, with many claiming that too many games aren't scary because they provide the player with too much power. However I do believe it is possible to elicit fear even in powerful action games by careful design of enemies, environments and contexts.
And the classic
I'm currently writing my research and development on this. It's 40% of my degree so this is actually rather perfect. In a broad sense I'll be covering Immersion, emotions and methodology (of creating the emotions).
Still got a few month's of work on it before I will be posting up Q&A's / professional opinions on it.
Dead space had it going really nicely. I didn't know what was going on, the game left a lot of my imagination to interpret my character and the situations, and the music and atmosphere in the game help me immerse myself into the game, making it easier to get scared. The next games are more wise ass Issacc super hero, hunter and savior of mankind. Which to me is lame. The tone of the game changes radically once you have a nobody have a harsh personality. The only movie i've seen where i have liked the transition of a character like this is in Mad Max. He is quiet and he ends up going mad... which makes sense. Isaac is disturbed... and this should be reflected in his reaction and emotions and maybe psyche... but instead, he has a boost to his machoness by making him more of a hero.
So there are other games that tend to follow this same pattern. I've been watching lately playthroughs of games. I remember a lot of people saying Clock Tower 3 was one of the scariest games. I didn't really feel that scared of it. But seeing a playthrough of a mod for half life 2 called Cry of Terror, really spooked me, even if i was not playing.
I think its easy to nail the atmosphere and tension in a game easily with graphics... the hard part is to make the player to be immersed in the ocurrences and relate to the character enough, where they put themselves in the character shoes. If this happens, then the game starts to become really scary... throw a lot of unknowns and bam... a great horror title. That is just my opinion. I've been playing over 20 years of games, horror being my favorite... and that is just what i think would help.
I do like the thread tho. I can't wait to see what else people talk about in here.
Awesome, I totally want to see how it goes. I absolutely love horror games and have a keen interest in how they work and how to design them. I'm a strange case though as I tend to keep my distance from horror movies.
Oddly relevant. I feel like it comes down to empowerment and management of resources in the game. A game can go so far as to include weaponry, but if you only have limited amounts of ammunition you find yourself ina panic at the thought of using it. "Oh god, what if I need these 5 bullets later on...can I just run past this zombie?" Also, the sound design helps immensely. I remember loving the radio static in silent hill 2 and how it would immediately send me into a panic at 2am.
Also playing through Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth on Xbox, you didn't even get a gun until about 75% through the game I think? Up until then you're just running and hiding from enemies and trying to not go insane. The game literally had an "insanity meter" that would change the way the screen looked as well as the character would start muttering to himself and all inn all go crazy. it was awesome.
This is one of the reason that there's an awkward distinction between survival horror and action horror. Many people believe that restricted supplies in survival horror is the best system, but I don't like it so much as I become an absolute hoarder and even start to refer to guides in order to avoid being trapped without supply. The problem with a player reacting that way is that they end up never using systems the designers built for them to succeed, and miss out particular parts of the gameplay.
I personally believe it is possible to make a game where the play has complete capability to defend themselves, but remains horrific by using various other elements, be it visuals, sound, story, gameplay, or other contextual influences.
Someone mentioned it as well in a Cracked article: A subtle horror game. A game where everything seems reasonably normal except for a few creepy things, and then as the player further investigates, their horror slowly creeps in. Somehow, it must be done!
I'm all for the psychological horror game.. Just being overly cautious because your afraid of getting a game over from having limited resources or being un-armed doesn't make something scary or a horror.
healthbars should in a sense be irrelevant.
Clever use of sounds, atmosphere and direction. Not just running away from stuff.
Although I cannot think of a sufficiant example of a good horror game, truthfully I don't play many because they are so hard to find. Many may claim to be good genre makers but in reality most aren't.
Cry of Fear? Man, that game's overall design was pretty terrible... Unless it's a sequel that you're referring to.
My observation is that in most games death is the primary loss condition, yes - be it Chess or Mario - so long as there is a theme that suggests the game piece as a person or life: King or Plumber.
So death should be avoided and so the game begins - don't die.
Most video games also thrive on inducing a flight or fight panic response. The same adrenaline pumps into my system during a particulary tense round in an arena shooter as the beasty that pounces on me as soon as the elevator door opens in Deadspace.
Panic is a human survival mechanism. fight or flight says that if i have the means to fight I will, if i lack those means i will run. either action is little more than a response to stimuli and situational factors - and not inherently scary. It is essentially the same mechanic in any theme of game from Assassins Creed to Silent Hill.
Fear is a survival mechanism as well - it is that voice in our head that measures risk to determine our response - fear is the cause of panic, not the other way around. If the risk is great then it should be avoided so fear tells us to avoid it. In doing it anyway either because we choose to or because there is no other choice we engage in "owning" our fear - being brave, and thus remove its power .this is the fight. By avoiding the risk we bow to the fear and escape or attempt it. this is the flight - and the fear is assuaged, removing its power. Here lies the first problem with using fear as a narrative. Forcing a player react to fear is the very thing that steels them against it.
HORROR is something completely different.
Horror is not a survival instinct, not a response mechanism, not rational. Horror is the thing that freezes a deer in the headlights. It stops the fight or flight response in it's tracks - it is the thing in a game that makes you pause the game because you're heart is beating too fast and you have to escape the moment to remind yourself that it's not real.
Here is where i think It follows more with Ryswick's post - the things we instictively recognize as dangerous without knowing why.
lots of things are scary to the "collective consciousness" - predators, darkness, hights - and the thematic suggestion of these things in the darkness or around the corner. They induce a heightened state of awareness, and readiness for panic response - a sudden or sustained rush of adrenaline.
But when things frighten us for no reason - that is where Horror lives. Why is pyramid head scary? what is it about the way a monster looks or moves or sounds that is frightening? if those questions arent immediately answered then you're approaching the mark. can i easily say it's because it has sharp teeth or is some sort of abomination that wants to eat my face? or is there something more that i can't quite pinpoint or won't look long enough to try.
A deer will run from a lion - that's fear. It freezes in front of a truck in the darkness - that's horror. It's light. light shouldn't be frightening in and of itself - but this one is and it doesn't know why.
it's beyond lack of information, but that is a large part of it. It's an instinctual response without reason or obvious cause that is sabotaging rather than survivalist.
fear of the unknown is survival instinct.
unexplainable but undeniable fear what you THOUGHT you understood goes beyond that
and ofcourse the success of all of this depends on the players investment in the character and the narrative - something that is well practiced in any genre.
my two cents...
Sounds good, I'd definitely check it out.
Completely agree, and I have yet to experience this in a game. All of them are either fighting or running and for the ones I've played there hasn't been a single part where I 'froze'. That's the main thing I'm wondering. For humans, what would scare us that much that we just froze? I know people have fears (spiders, heights etc...), but we react to them, we run or hide... Would it be a combination of many things? Example: A situation we are in that we've never experienced before and we know that no matter what we do, it's going to end bad.
For gaming specifically I think It HAS to be believable. By that I mean you are completely immersed into it, you don't realize it's a game, you are the player, and you believe what is happening to you. Although you might not understand it, you still believe it. That's what I think most horror games are missing.
Example: left 4 dead. It can have zombies, monsters etc...but can I really hold 300 rounds for an AK... and can I not be tired after beating 20+ zombies to death with a frying pan. Although it's a fun game and has good co-op, I don't really think it's classified as horror.
I still remember a bad dream I had of a girl screaming with the whole dark eyes, pale skin and long open mouth thing. I woke up really cold and just froze for a few seconds before realizing what happened. I'll never forget it. I know it's not possible to experience this while playing a game but I think it's possible to get really close to it. And for that to be possible I think it's not a game.
How many times did you see that one guy, from his body language and such, know they were going to fall, or you see them fall and don't help them up because "Oh, they got up too quickly for me to do anything", when infact you did have time to help them, it's simply that fact that your dilated the time on your accord, and faked the unwillingness to help.
In games on the other hand, you're allowed to experiment, so the entire Freeze don't move approach doesn't hold water, especially on gameplay level where the player is confronted with an element they need to tackle, all the time.
The only game I can genuinely say that forced me to 'stop and freeze' was Amnesia, but that usually included me hiding behind a door or in a closet and holding still so the enemies wouldn't notice due to the door swinging open due to the flimsy physics, so it was more of a gameplay mechanic that forced the player to approach things in a certain way.
Same with Metro 2033, in the game, there are sections where you have to stop and not move so Anomalies and Ghosts don't get you, but they're only shown once or twice, in scripted events, so again, it's becomes a routine thing, the one time they're part of the game, they don't explain how or why it needs to be done, and actually misplace the element idea behind it.
Games inherently don't allow you to freeze, and those few that do, force you do it, not give it as a alternative method of experiencing the game.
I however agree on one thing, almost every single iconic 'monster' in our ages, was almost always a pale human being, with sunken eyes, elongates mouth and emancipated but built body, with sharp teeth and fingers, and even if each one has their 'own' way of doing things, they all follow the same formula, hell, even Aliens did that in one of the movies, and it was freaky as fuck.
Slenderman, Rake, P-Head, all the way from movies, to game, to memes...
Makes you wonder what's so ominous about said design that has been passed from generation to generation, and still scares everyone...
I've found a lot of stuff on the uncanny valley and I agree. In a horror game, the uncanny valley works very well. Take the silent hill monsters, human limbs deformed and mutated into weird creatures, but still reminds us of...us.
Another topic I want to bring up is suspense/terror. Without these reactions, could horror be possible? I'm leaning towards no. Many people have said that horror is the moment you confront the thing that you're afraid of. The unknown thing that's chasing you, the unknown events that are occurring. The thing about most AAA 'horror' games today are that mostly all are in-your-face shocks. Maximum entertainment for minimal effort, and I don't really think this works well for effective horror.
I think this is why in Amnesia the scariest monster in the game is
Likewise, I think this is why games become less scary as they give the player more power to cope with the enemies. You know that an enemy might be around the corner, but you know that you won't be in this frantic "I HAVE TO PUSH THE RIGHT BUTTON RIGHT FUCKING NOW BUT WHICH BUTTON IS IT OH GOD" state when you encounter it. It might be a tough fight but it will be on your terms.
So, I find Doom 3 less scary than, say, Dead Space, even though they are both action/horror. In Doom 3, there are plenty of jump scares and levels where you walk into dark rooms, but there's never any dread because the fights don't reliably induce that panic response. You've got lots of guns and most enemies aren't that much of a threat. But in Dead Space, even though it still relies a lot on jump scares and dark rooms, most fights are pretty panic-y because the enemies are very fast and dangerous, and fights often evolve in surprising ways as enemies are scripted to drop out of air ducts behind you, or whatever. So you're not going to have time to process the situation and deal with it ideally - instead you start to panic. Once you know that is going to happen during most fights, the idea of encountering more enemies becomes scarier and you dread it.
Also danpaz3d, this might help with your project:
http://unbirthgame.com/TheSelfPresenceStorytelling.pdf
It's a paper by the creative director of Amnesia (Frictional Games) that talks about some of his ideas on story-driven gameplay and encouraging a connection between the player and the player character.
Glad to see this pop up again aha.
I have another 40 or so days till my final hand-in date for my three tier research paper, project and assets. I've actually been creating a short three challenge survival game in Udk based around the same premise of horror and immersion.
I highly recommend you look into these areas for your project/plus some observations I've made;
-Head mounted tracking, other peripheral interaction such as force feed back systems.
-For methodology/
Degrees of control, anticipation of events, degree of movement perception.
Isolation, interface awareness, consistency, the physical environment that the user plays in.
-My early test's showed the actual environment that the user plays in, affects greatly to the immersion level the user reaches.
-HMD's exponentially increase the immersive level with head tracking.
-You must test user vulnerability to immersion.
Anticipation and consistency is greater than realistic graphics, Look at slender man game for some worthwhile observations.
-Paul Cairns reports are a very good read.
I think that should be enough at any rate, i can't give away all the goodies and deprive you of work now! Hope it helps and all the best with it mate! I'm on final implementation, data gathering & testing
Keep us up-to-date on your progress/ research areas if you don't mind. Quite unique & interesting to run into someone else in the same field when no-one else in my University has any remote experience with it.
All the best.
Stumbled upon this vid a while ago and its really really good imo, definitley recommend you check out some/all of the games listed.
Highlights some indie (mostly japanese) horror games that you've probably never heard of before and are pretty bizzarre (surreall/terrifying ^_^). But there's a good mix of games in there, SCP is pretty frightening too.
[ame="
@LazerusReborn Good to hear your still working on it! Thanks for the tips and those Paul Cairns reports are really helpful for immersion. Your working on a small game? Be sure to share it when its done. I'm going to put together a 'presentation' type video and possibly an article as well as I only have about ~6 weeks for it.
Came across an interesting article today on Gamasutra called "Fight or Flight: The Neuroscience of Survival Horror" and on page 2, Maral Tajerian (Neuroscientist) starts talking about Mirror Neurons.
That last part really got me interested. This part of the brain apparently functions a lot when we are observing someone else doing something, (playing piano, running...). So I'm guessing this is emphasized when playing a game, it is the border between observing and doing. We are watching the character (we see what the character sees) but we also control them.
What I'm goin for is that the designer HAS to emphasize all key aspects of the game so the player can believe it. For example, we can't actually smell an old piece of cheese in a game, so we have to emphasize what the player sees and what the character does. Put flies around it, give it mould and a bad colour and have s small 'sniffing' sound and camera flinch of the character accidentally smelling it. Use all senses in the game to make the event/interaction believable. In regard to gameplay, As soon as something happens that the player doesn't like, it will throw off their thoughts about the character+environment and be back to 'what key do I press for this?'. I recently saw a video where someone was really into the game, then rage quit because picking up objects was ridiculously difficult.
What you can see but don't understand.
This is easy because since most games let you fight your monsters you get to see them easily. Silent Hill, Penumbra, and Fatal Frame are good examples of how important it is to see something that clearly that is still not comfortable. Silent Hill's creatures are twisted abominations with no easy meaning. Penumbra combined seeing your enemies with their perceived threat; seeing them confirms that you are in danger. Fatal Frame forces the player to look at and get close to your opponent, but they are ghosts that defy physics and represent a most basic fear. The player is forces to make sense of something that has no sense, this process is uncomfortable for the brain and defaults to interpreting it as dangerous in order to enforce avoidance. eg: you are lost in a foreign country and do not speak the language, feelings of anxiety and danger build up and a desire to avoid interaction with the locals, culture shock.
Not just that but subtle horror and creepiness relies on the player to see something. A scene in it's whole will be seen and processed quickly, what's wrong with will only work in the players mind.
What was seen and now isn't.
This grows out of the above. Once a threat is perceived, our inability to keep it in check is frightening. The best games for this are Fatal Frame, Slender, Penumbra, Amnesia. Fatal Frame may force you to fight the ghosts you encounter, the nature of the encounters is scary itself: they can disappear at will and go through walls, some can knock out the lights and most importantly - they can attack at any time, nowhere is safe.
Slender's main mechanic is to be chased by Slenderman as the player progresses. Incredibly well scripted sightings of him when the player turns too quickly leads to a fright that affirms the tension when he is not visible.
In Penumbra: Black Plague, one of the scariest parts was the dog kennels. Players of the first Penumbra now had a healthy fear of dogs and the kennels made for an environment where players were tensely expecting a dog attack the whole way through. (and indeed whatever was in there could not be seen.
Amnesia did this obviously by allowing the player to steal glimpses of their enemies and then avoid their nearly never seen patrols. But a really good example is the thing in the basement, that is literally invisible: a threat most dangerous, and unseen even when directly looking at it.
Lastly a very interesting game to look at is Siren: Blood Curse. In this game you survive by telepathically linking to your enemies to see through their eyes. Here we have a game where enemies may well be visible and indeed you may know everything about them through what they see. In this way it plays a lot like a stealth game. I think this game does an excellent job with this as it is another whole type of fright to see yourself walk into the vision of your monsters.
I think that the idea of seeing from the view of the monster at times can be incredibly scary. Even though it's not that scary of a game, I felt like there was a small cutscene in Resident Evil 4 that used that to great effect.
it was one of those 2 creepy big man sized guys that would attack from the darkness in the ceiling.
I think in third person games, the ability of seeing stuff that happens behind your character can have a weird ability to scare as well, since it offers a weird mix of confusions where you as the player can see something that the character you play at is technically unaware of. Stuff like seeing silhouette move passed the camera and whatnot could be pretty nice elements that could be put to use in a third person horror game.
What do you think about elements that take something that people normally tend to find comfort in and distorting them to become more of a fear? Like taking a teddy bear or something, and turning it into a symbol of fear, like if a scary monster can see through the eyes of all teddy bears or something. Or I guess taking something as comforting as a light source and turning it into something that makes the player fear it? Would those be more like cheap scares or is that something that lots of horror games already do?
Yeah I remember that part, one of the scariest parts in the game. But you just said it, they attack from darkness in the ceiling. You can't see them and your health result is purely on quick reflexes to avoid an attack. Scariest part in RE4 for me were the regenerators, because without that scope, it would take a long time to kill them.
Yeah this has always been used, especially in all Silent Hill games. But as Snacuum said, it can sometimes have a bad effect of being comical instead. What I think would work effectively is getting a person comfortable with a game, getting them think that the whole game will be like it has been so far, but then to completely switch it around and have them scared to look around every corner. Although not horror, Bioshock Infinite does this really well. The first few minutes of the game are kind of relaxing, but when you first get the skyhook into the guys face you end up saying "holy sh**" or wtf. And from then on you are on your toes, looking at every person to see if they will attack you. Because you are wanted, you don't know who will try to kill you. Again, not really horror but infinite works really well in making the player think and learn about the environment and npc's in it.
An important part I've come across is the replay value of horror games. For me at least, Amnesia doesn't really have the replay value that I'd like, specifically because it's very linear and you know everything that will happen. Other games such as Slender, although really short, does have a bit of replay value as the player never knows when he'll show up. However, after a few times I was getting over it because the events (although random) still have the same resulting effect. A looping event of suspense to a jump scare and running away. Although this is effective, it would not work for a ~6 hour game.
-No quick time events and never take full controller away from the player
-hybrid system of random and scripted events.
-Slowly add more and more stuff that does not make logical sense. Make the player feel like they are insane.
-Hidden stamina and adrenaline system.
Every time you lose full control of the game, you are taken out of the action. You no longer feel like you are in danger, or you are already dead. It's more tense if you don't know if you will be able to struggle your way out of a bad situation.
If you die in a game, the area you died in loses any surprises. You are not afraid when you know what will happen.
We work in video games, the enviroment doesn't have to make logical sense. Have hidden portals and loops. Think antichamber like logic puzzles, but introduce them slow enough that the player might think they themselves are crazy. It'd be even better if some of it was actually random.
Skyrim and Dark Souls always feels more intense when you are low on stamina, and it could work just as well hidden. Having a adrenaline system would allow people to escape situations they didn't think they could escape. I'd also like it to be like skyrim where you can fall over, scrambling feels more scary, it'd be better if you weren't like a normal video game character, stuck upright at all times.
On 3rd vs 1st person. First person is good if you want the main character to be the player. 3rd person is better if you want to tell the story of the character. It really just depends on what story you want to tell, and how you want to tell it.
clock tower 3 is one of my forever favorites, on par with iconic silent hill 2/3:
[ame="
(sorry I couldn't find any gameplay without clever narrating remarks, but this one seems less annoying than many)
and before from software switched to dark souls (which I love), they made echo night:
[ame="
which I also love very much & miss games like that in ps3/xb360 generation.
When it comes to new games, I think there has been a 'standard' which all follow yet they are simple camera controls. I think over the past few years there hasn't really been any significant innovations when it comes to camera control in games, especially horror where it's more significant. For first person, there isn't much that can be changed as it is what it is, but 3rd person cams especially. They are still over the shoulder or at the same point throughout the entire game. They've introduced cut-scenes, but they're just purely for cinematic purposes. I think the fact of such a wide FOV in a lot of 3rd person games really restricts level design. New Dead Space particularly, just about every place has wide corridors or high rooms/areas so as to not jump the camera around too much. But, if the camera was closer to the character this might achieve a better result...
but before i go,My quick two cents.
Fear is a physical danger/threat,while horror is a psychological fear.We have evolved and learned to deal with real world dangers,fight or flight.But we arnt so good at dealing with psychological fear.You cant run from psychological fear,its part of you,it knows what your scared of.allowing it to grow into what your scared of the most.
Anyways,great thread,ill be back
[ame="
you guys might want to try this,
it still demo WIP ( got some checkpoint bug), but has so much potential if you like fatal frame style game
they also raising money with indiegogo
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/dreadout
demo download
http://www.atomicgamer.com/files/103563/dreadout-demo-pc
But the thing is, true horror, still has no recent titles in mainstream. But I believe that a slow transition is being made as the original Dead Space proved. Survival horror is still popular, but it has to be mixed with current gen action type games for audience appeal. Silent Hill type puzzles just aren't as popular in mainstream as they used to be. People want minimal games (not dumbed down or basic), but easy to play, easy to think, good looking and interactive games. This is still why FPS's are still reigning in console sales. Because of Run/Shoot/Interact gameplay. But as proven recently by Bioshock Infinite, generic shooters can be changed and players can really enjoy a unique experience (which is what every game should be).
Variety.
And that goes for any genre of game that is going for 'lengthy'.
Being scared by the same thing for hours on end gets tiring and less scary. This is why I enjoy Silent Hill's multiple enemy types. You could have another zombie game like all the others but if there is literally nothing but 1 or 2 types of zombie then yawn.
TombRaider.
Yes I know, it's not a horror, or a survival, it's an action game with a heroine who knows what she's doing and is capable of surviving in a hostile environment.
But I remember when I got to the "lost valley." I took out some wolves at the cave opening like it was nothing, waltzed out into the middle like I owned the place and saw something I honestly was not expecting. A tyrannosaurus rex.
I wasn't familiar enough with the controls to be able to put up a fight. I didn't know where to go, how to hide, and this thing moved so fast it could outrun me. I was completely powerless, exposed, and utterly vulnerable. I was so terrified that I was sweating, the controller nearly slipped out from my hands. Bullets did nothing. Running only kept me alive for so long. I was in utter panic.
Every time I had to traverse the center valley, I knew it was there waiting for me. I dreaded it. I was practically traumatized. I didn't know what I was supposed to do, and I would deliberately go around the long way to avoid the dang thing. It had my heart pumping so fast my brother could hear it.
It's the only game that ever gave me nightmares as a kid.
I've had similar experiences with other games that had creatures like that. I recall the first Dead Space had a necromorph that would regenerate so fast that you couldn't kill it, only slow it down. Did about the same thing for me, it was terrifying because I was so helpless, and nothing I did seemed to work, so I was forced to RUN.
So for me, the first or third person perspective are not so important. But the feelings that you get from circumstance ate. In a horror survival, it's your job to make the player feel vulnerable and weak in such a way that it's terrifying and not frustrating.
This exactly what I'm trying to say, horror is not just bloody gruesome and violent.
Feeling comfortable, capable and strong like nothing can stop you, and then...
You weren't forced to run, I'm sure you had guns or something, but you knew that you would eventually die if you tried to fight. So now you run.
I think that's very important in a good horror game, giving the player power to fight, but nothing they do is effective and (even with weapons/defence) they are still scared.
I've finished my research project and summarised the info into a video.
Thanks to everyone for the help!
[ame="
http://danpaz3d.tumblr.com/post/49998429680/basic-horror-video-game-design
Yes, this. The first Penumbra game was much more frightening than Amnesia to me because you were able to kill some things (spiders, dogs) but not everything. Humans are not completely helpless, and making the player super-weak doesn't make it more scary, it just turns it into a chase puzzle. Keeping the fight or flight choice/dilemma is very important to create actual tension in the players mind. Should I stay or should I go?
Below shows the classic pattern, audio / visual and atmosphere manipulation, progressive suspense = pressure and in your face "shock" moments. It is a true balancing act but also a formula !
Doom 3
[ame="
F.E.A.R 2
[ame="
F.E.A.R 2
[ame="
Condemned: Criminal Origins
[ame="
DeadSpace
[ame="
Dead Space 2
[ame="
Metro 2033
[ame="
Metro 2033
[ame="
Though technically the term horror might apply because it's a post-factum startle, this is not what people are looking for and arguing about. The discussion here is about fearing what comes next, and in most of those videos there is nothing to anticipate.
The only example I saw was in Dead Space; the flashing shadow and then a fake-dead monster on the ground. But there are only 3 seconds or so of tension in between - and only if you actually notice the somewhat feint shadow flashing.
I mean, sure, these are great additions, but they're not what really makes the game.