A Horror Game Idea: can it happen?

[Azernak0]

Horror games are a strange beast. Unlike most other games, the 'game' is targeted at the person playing rather than the characters of the game. For example, everything that happens in Mass Effect is meant to happen to Shepherd. The players may 'be' Shepherd but it the turns and twists are meant to screw with Shepherd and not the player. Horror is the opposite. In Amnesia, the horrors are not there to scare Daniel but to terrify the player. Even Doom shows this off: a bad ass space marine probably wouldn't be truly scared of chain saw armed enemies or demons but the regular human being in the chair might be truly scared. Of course, any game that wants to really push an emotion will do this. Heavy Rain certainly did.

Because of the concept of 'screwing with the person in the chair' (PIC), I thought there might actually be a way to do a truly terrifying experience in a realistic fashion. The problem is that I am not sure if the game is actually possible. If you can accept that a Horror game is aimed at PIC, then clearly something that horrifies the average human being has a natural advantage. And there is one thing that horrifies and disgusts any human being that is not called a true monster.

Could a Horror game be made about the Holocaust? (see disclaimer) It is an event that everyone knows about and is so horrible, so evil, that we in a normal society cannot accept. We can't imagine, even begin to grasp at what something like that was. Imagine a game where the goal was to survive not from demons, devils, or monsters, but from real human beings that hate you for stupid, petty reasons? The character has to survive under constant threat but the PIC has to acknowledge the real horror: regular, law abiding human beings were able to be made to do these terrible things against other human beings. The Horror comes from PIC having to realize what we are. Maybe if it isn't a Horror game, it is something in line with Heavy Rain.

Could this work?

*DISCLAIMER*
I do not believe that video games "shouldn't tackle these kind of issues." I believe a medium can't just be stricken away from topics. No one would say "a movie shouldn't tackle the Holocaust" or "books shouldn't talk about human nature." No one judges Schindler's List or Lord of the Flies based on the medium they are. I am not suggesting that it would be a cheap thing, meant only used for shock. Think of it something like Spec Ops: The Line. That game, which is similar to what I am suggesting, did it tastefully but without pulled punches. "Yes, this is what we humans do to others. Yes, YOU PIC wanted to experience this."

 

[roushutsu]

I believe it could be done, provided if the developer knew what they were doing. There would have to be a ton of time, research, and money invested in a project like that. Plus you'd have to find a publisher who would be willing to take that kind of risk and not cave when the media starts attacking them for it.

I imagine we'll probably see something like this hit the indie scene first. Those guys take the most risks, and as we've seen, a lot of times they work.

 

[SweetShark]

Well, to be fair there are already many games that the only real enemy is us, humans.

In the Game "The Walking Dead" maybe the game have zombies on it, but the game was never about zombies, it was about us.
The games just gave as a "reason" why the humans in general can become terrible monster and act without thinking.
Act only with the instinct to kill before get killed, to help only your family and not the others,kill for the only piece of clear food found somewhere, to steal from others,etc,etc.

So yeah, we already played a game like the one you described, but for a cover the developers just put a sci-fi/fanstasy reason for the humans act like that. To act like monsters, monster that trying to kill others peoples.

 

[SweetShark]

Well, to be fair there are already many games that the only real enemy is us, humans.

In the Game "The Walking Dead" maybe the game have zombies on it, but the game was never about zombies, it was about us.
The games just gave as a "reason" why the humans in general can become terrible monster and act without thinking.
Act only with the instinct to kill before get killed, to help only your family and not the others,kill for the only piece of clear food found somewhere, to steal from others,etc,etc.

So yeah, we already played a game like the one you described, but for a cover the developers just put a sci-fi/fanstasy reason for the humans act like that. To act like monsters, monster that trying to kill others peoples.

thats the best way for zombies to be used as an environmental hazard with the focus on character interaction

And for that reason The Walking Dead is one of the best games I ever played that involve zombies on it.

 

[Lygus]

Of course you can do it. Simply portray the almost same events without direct reference to the ones that occurred in the course of mankind's history. Remember to give some believable justification for the game's content, though.

IMO, DayZ mod was the best online test for humanity. Similarly to TWD, it had zombies that weren't the main object, just an obstacle in the way of human interaction - rough or pleasant - you must survive and carry on.

 

[D-Class 198482]

If I had the ability to make it...I'd probably make the main character a child. I'm not sure why, to make a plausible reason for that you can't clock one of them and swap from 'terrified person' to 'Rambo'?

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Probably, but without meaning to dampen your artistic vision it would probably be a lot more doable if you just changed the names and accents.

With good use of sight and sound (lots of terrified civilians) you can certainly capture the terrible pressure and horror of every second of living under a fascist Orwellian regime which has chosen to scapegoat your ethnicity and is eventually planning on a mass execution of your people... or on the flipside, the horror of being one of the junior officers charged with carrying it out. People will know what it's based on without having to be told.

I caught the second hour of Pan's Labyrinth the other day and the 'real world' segments certainly convey the people's desperation well, the mercilessness of the regime's men making them in many ways scarier than the gruesome creatures in the 'fantasy' segments. And they pretty much win, killing most of the resistance. In such a game, you could use whatever resistance movement there is sparingly and most of the time force the player into a deadly game of hide-and-seek until they're older/armed.

 

[briankoontz]

How about a game where one plays AS the monster and from the monster's point of view. I don't mean a cartoonish monster such as in Overlord or Dungeon Keeper but a realistic one.

So unlike games with "heroes" who inevitably commit mass murder as the player, the goal in such a game is to not commit crimes. Being a monster, it's quite an accomplishment to not murder, not dominate, etc - the goal of such a game might be for the monster to find a way to become human.

 

[RJ 17]

You'd have to be extremely careful in how you pull it off, and I doubt horror would be the right genre to pull it off in. As for your disclaimer, there's a difference between the mediums of movies and videogames. Games are already decried by the mainstream as being one of the roots of all evil. Any time some young nutjob goes crazy and shoots up a school or a mall, there's two things that are immediately attacked: gun ownership and videogames.

What I'm getting at is do you have any idea how BANNED a game about the Holocaust would be across the world? "Play as a Jewish person running from the Nazis!" I'd be willing to bet that the studio, developer, and publisher would all be sued off the face of the planet.

I'll agree that we shouldn't be afraid to have games about or featuring taboo subjects, but there's some subjects that shouldn't be touched just because we think we should be able to.

 

[Mr Dizazta]

Watch this video because it deals on what you are suggesting.