A horror genre concept help?

Blur the line between game and reality. (Jhorror: Ring)
If you play this game, then you must get somen else to play
game in one weeks time, or else you are doomed, and bad things
happen to you and your computer!

(ie. games update service starts to play random horror voices while computer is on.)

(ie2. while player tryes to exit game create fake desktop that looks like desktop but is twisted, and flashes out quickly and exits (2s.))

(ie3. game downloads updates from server, that twist world News and make them part of game.)

Grow paranoia. Player cant know who to trust.

Dont explain things to player, just let him live sourrounded by fear of unknown.

(ie. suddenly murder player and dont explain, just leave some mysterius hint that realy dont explain a thing.)

/Tyrian

[Edited by - TyrianFin on October 30, 2010 5:31:59 AM]

Tyrian highlighted the point of fear of the unknown. The player needs to end up questioning their own psycology, if they can't trust themselves, they feel helpless. Having something move quickly out of sight so you think "did I see that?", having long ambience (yay for spelling) filled sections where nothing happens and the player is left to their imagination.

a good way of creating uneasyness is by having something look slightly off, only slightly. say it's someone with no fingers, it'll create this uneasyness that they're similar to this person but something's very wrong, making the player feel tense.

hope that helped and made some sense.

also, you're working on two seperate projects? mind if I ask your age?

I'm not sure how to answer, but I think I know how you could find an answer. Make a list of all the "cheap" scares you can: sudden noises, jumping out of the dark, everything Doom 3 does, etc. Then go watch every horror movie you can find and write anything not on the first list in a new list to actually use.

Well, the initial problem with the suggested approach is that it is exceedingly difficult to pull off without frustrating the player (in which case they will usually quit playing). If you base your game around not knowing what to do next, players will likely refer to game manuals or give up when the frustration peaks. If the user bought or installed your game, they will know what they installed (unless you are distributing as a virus of sorts, which would be hilarious but unprofitable)

You said you are well versed in the psychology of fear (which I admittingly find rather hard to believe considering your phrasing of the question, and lack of ability to answer it yourself, as this information is fairly well established in the fields of psychoanalysis). The easiest forms of psychological fear to implement in an interactive simulation are most likely:

A) fear of the unknown / anxiety:
You see this in games like silent hill, resident evil, or F.E.A.R. You approach a door. You cannot see behind it. There are no sounds, and (importantly) you have already established a precedent that things can pop out at any time. The user is afraid to open the door.

B) claustrophobia
Divide off a zone into a fairly confined space, so that you character feels like they have "nowhere to go", albeit temporally. Its important not to make them get frustrated thinking that they missed something however. Once again you need to do this by setting a precident. A good implementation would be telling the character to stick it out for 10 min in a small abandoned town home in a city otherwise filled with zombies. The player has nowhere to go, but there are signs there MAY be something walking around the house aimlessly, and you have no bullets. Minor changes as previously mentioned. For instance, you walk upstairs and you hear pots crash downstairs, you walk downstairs and no one is there.

C) morally challenging decisions
Behind a glass window you see a bunch of wearwolfs about to feast on a group of kindergarten children. The wolf's have not yet noticed you, and easily outnumber you. The player is practically forced to let the children die, or sacrifice themselves (ending the game). This can provide emotional horror and a sense of helplessness

D) unexplained phenomenon
A ball rolls up a hill. A sliding glass door opens or shuts on its own without any interaction. The key here is to play with memory and contrast. A previous poster hinted towards a man with no fingers, this will only slightly work, because since its a videogame your mind will likely rationalize it as -he was modeled with no fingers - -horrible graphics- -he had his fingers cut off as a child- etc. If you want to get psychological you need to play with the users memory. Your exploring a suburban christian home. The home has alot of crosses used as decor. Harmless enough. You head upstairs and find a girls bedroom. You see a girl lying on the bed, upon closer inspection you discover its a doll. Seeing nothing else you can play with upstairs, you walk back downstairs. Now all the crosses are hanging upside down (don't make a point of focusing on it, just leave the effect subtle). The user will subconsiously question if they are "seeing things". - wait a sec... havent I already checked that out -. You can convince them to question their own established reasoning.

There are more, but I have work to do. Anyways, have fun and good luck.

Richard Cesar

Good answers seriously.
Well, would this be a cool concept?
It starts in a hospital, assylum, elderly home called the Warwock Triad.
(skips forward a little)
It is surrounded by forest, inwhich the player can try to escape.
You may eventually notice a building in the distance, you find out you just went in a circle. Hard to explain. Or, they go in the forest, and eventually, they see a figure of a little girl... They walk towards you, and, Boom, a screach fills the air and a large faceless female, with no facial features, just a dark hole. Then the gameover screen.
I want' to seriously put fear into the person playing.

Dead space- It was scary at first, but the repeditive chiken scares got played out and weren't scary at the end.

Resident Evil- Scary, but to an extent. The only thing I found fearful were enemies that ran at you and are hard to kill...Hunters, crimson heads, lickers...

Silent hill- Perfects ambience thriller, but after a while, it calms down.





I love the ways this servers members help me. Thank you guys
Well, I am versed in psychology of fear, but I was more or less what you guys have found fearful, or what to you, would scare you.

Well, I'm 20 years old, but please don't dwell on the age. I also have an I.Q of 126, my psychologist said I'm greatly enlightened, but he won't tell what that means...o.o

I have been working on my video games since i was 14, using multiple RPG makers, and eventually contacting certain young VG developers. They said I would be an invariable asset to them, but I need some sort of formal "training."

Anyways, if you have more questions on me, just ask please and I'm sorry if I sound arrogant, wasn't my idea to claim that.

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Original post by o0odin0o Good answers seriously. Well, would this be a cool concept? It starts in a hospital, assylum, elderly home called the Warwock Triad. (skips forward a little) It is surrounded by forest, inwhich the player can try to escape. You may eventually notice a building in the distance, you find out you just went in a circle. Hard to explain. Or, they go in the forest, and eventually, they see a figure of a little girl... They walk towards you, and, Boom, a screach fills the air and a large faceless female, with no facial features, just a dark hole. Then the gameover screen. I want' to seriously put fear into the person playing. Dead space- It was scary at first, but the repeditive chiken scares got played out and weren't scary at the end. Resident Evil- Scary, but to an extent. The only thing I found fearful were enemies that ran at you and are hard to kill...Hunters, crimson heads, lickers... Silent hill- Perfects ambience thriller, but after a while, it calms down. I love the ways this servers members help me. Thank you guys Well, I am versed in psychology of fear, but I was more or less what you guys have found fearful, or what to you, would scare you. Well, I'm 20 years old, but please don't dwell on the age. I also have an I.Q of 126, my psychologist said I'm greatly enlightened, but he won't tell what that means...o.o I have been working on my video games since i was 14, using multiple RPG makers, and eventually contacting certain young VG developers. They said I would be an invariable asset to them, but I need some sort of formal "training." Anyways, if you have more questions on me, just ask please and I'm sorry if I sound arrogant, wasn't my idea to claim that.

you listed a number of cliches there, whilst I think you've got the set up and the pacing there quite decent I feel you have listed a number of cliches there.

The player will lose that feeling of the unknown if you're listing things they've seen before. Sit and think about what scares you the most, uncliche things, and then I think you can really develop your basic stuff into some truly brilliant ideas.

I can't remember what game it was exactly but it was an excellent concept where the monsters trying to kill you were invisible so you had to judge where they were by things moving around in the environment. I'm not sayin "do this" but try and go with something original but effective.

finally, 20? I'm 16 but I've been designing stuff since I was 10, honing my ideas, self-teaching etc, so we're kind of in the same boat here.

Let people catch glimpses of the monster.
Make the player's character do something, then switch over to the monster's point of view and have it watch the player doing it. Might be even more effective if teh player's in a hopeless situation.

And lastly... put in Barney. Psychological horror right there!

Fear depends on a potentially bad outcome. Spooky lighting and loud noises and barely-glimpsed horrors vanishing into shadow are cool and all, but not really scary. FEAR had these dream sequences where crap would jump out at you, and it took a few sequences and a few magazines of ammo before I realized that they were hallucinations and couldn't send me back to the previous checkpoint, so the first few were scary, then there were a few that were just entertaining (and plot-exposing), but then there was one where the ghoulies actually could (and did) kill me, which not only made that one terrifying, it ramped up all the future ones, because those scratching noises and swells in the music could indicate a threat to my character.

I'm not a psych guy, but it's my understanding that less reliable feedback is more powerful for training. A rat that has a "dopamine injection" in the cage will hit the level when he wants a boost, but a rat that has a "3% chance of dopamine" lever will hit that lever until he can't raise his little paw anymore. It's the principle behind slot machines, speeding tickets and girls who are prone to headaches.

So do that with the danger. Have (non-boring) scary areas that are almost always totally safe, but every so often have them kick a player right in the butt for not treating it as a threat. Nine times out of ten, you'll stroll across the foggy moor and nothing will happen, but that tenth time it's the Hound of the Baskervilles all up in your business, and if you aren't ready for it and looking for it each and every time you head out, you're going to get your ticket punched sooner or later.

I agree with Iron Chef Carnage.

Write a list that scares you or annoys you or just makes you tremble with fear or what makes you tick. You grosses you out in the tenth level of nausea.

I would like the creature walk across the screen while the Main character is at the other end of the corridor trying to figure out where to go from where the main character came from.

For my survival horror board game genre, I am putting in my life experiences as a security officer who worked in the cemetery and have seen and heard things that will make you do a double take and give you the willies weeks on end. But it all depends on the person.

I have seen dead people before from relative passing away and on live television. But I won't go in that direction.

With all that information, I also put my experiences as a paranormal investigator and as a sensitive to the paranormal study within the game design.

So in any game design or story writing, write and design on what you know. Also do lots and lots of research for your projects. Ask family and friends what their fears are. Ask them how they handle their fears as well.

Hope the last paragraph helps you in some way with your game design.

Ghostknight

Okay good, thank you guys for the feed-back.

Okay, how about this.

In my game, there are sequences inwhich the Triad (see above) rejuvinates it'self and almost becomes normal, de-rusts, and de-ruinates itself into it's former glory. You don't get hurt in these sequences, instead, you end up understanding why one new monster is arround.

So instead of introducing the monster or boss after the restorations sequences, what if I randomly, after making the player feel comfortable, have the monster attack him during the sequence.

In these sequences, nobody can see him, it is almost like he is a ghost...But I will leave that out heh.


Okay, how about bosses? Never have I fought a boss that was scary...EVER!
It is aggrevating. How can I do that?

Example. In the basement of the nursing ward, there are chained hooks hanging from the ceiling, and all you have is a flashlight and a nightstick, baton.
The only way you can see him is to point the light on him, but you will have to use your ears to sense him out, which could be scary because, while relying on your audio perception, loud noises tend to scare you easier.

After the fight, a chase scene happens in which you run from him. Then he becomes an annoying monster that is undefeatable, and chases you randomly.
He doesn't last the entire game though, only the nursing ward which will also make the player afraid of going back into the nursing ward!

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Original post by o0odin0o Okay, how about bosses? Never have I fought a boss that was scary...EVER! It is aggrevating. How can I do that?

Never played Diablo? The Butcher scared the living daylights out of me.

Well, I don't mean looks scary, I mean which can literally make you jump, and even nervous to face him

Well, I don't mean looks scary, I mean which can literally make you jump, and even nervous to face him

Quote:

Original post by o0odin0o Well, I don't mean looks scary, I mean which can literally make you jump, and even nervous to face him

Scissorman from the first Playstation Clocktower game.

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Original post by o0odin0o Well, I don't mean looks scary, I mean which can literally make you jump, and even nervous to face him

Again... never played Diablo? Seriously, I don't know if there was anyone who didn't go "OH ****" and ran for their lives when they met the butcher. Not to mention, he's faster than you and can kill you in about 5 shots when you normally reach him.

There was a post recently asking about this you should look it up. Personally I think you can classify fear in 2 basic categories..

There is the psycho-personal fear which involves fears pertaining to your personal existence and culture (ie losing a love one, getting lost, nuclear annihilation, awkward social moments, ghost, demons etc..). That's more a slow burning fear which you have to build up too if you want it to have "dramatic" impact.

Then there is the physiological fear.. which is basically hard wired fear, ie fear of creepy crawlies, fear of big monsters, fear of the dead/rotting things, fear of sudden loud noises, fear of bodily fluids, etc.. That fear is hardwired because of some evolutionary advantage to having them.

Alot of games just go for the cheap physiological fear, but those games never really linger with you and you get "acclimated" to those type of stimulus either way making you less "fearful". How many times can u see a zombie/monster and be afraid? esp if you blow its head off with a shotgun..

As for the psyho-personal, few games utilize that well and probably no recent game uses this method..To utilizes this fear you have to psychologically pick at the player..That requires good writing and design..

-ddn