Horror Games and Linearity

[Lesd3vil]

Now, I won't profess to playing all recent horror offerings, or even many of them, having been restricted to what I can get off Steam or play through in one massive overnight Xbox over-heating session at my friend's house; but, I just had a thought about recent horror games I have played (Dead Space 2, Alan Wake, Amnesia, Silent Hill Homecoming, stuff like that basically) and realized that all of them follow a very linear path through their environments. The earliest horror games I played were the Resident Evil series and I admit I was only a young'un at the time, so given that my older, more mature (ha!) and much more jaded mind probably wouldn't find them half as terrifying now, I may be looking at this through rose-tinted spectacles but does anyone remember that part in Resident Evil 3 where you're coming back down from the STARS office and the Nemesis busts in through the window - and scares the living Jesus out of the player?

It seems to me that THAT's something that's missing in modern horror games... Taking somewhere that you've been through before, that you automatically assume is safe because you've reduced every last zombie/alien/nazi/fluffy bunny to a quivering homogenous lump on your first visit, and dropping something in that you wouldn't expect. Imagine if the developers had made the Nemesis able to get into a safe room, for example. You walk in, the calming music starts playing, you go to the chest to whip out your ink ribbon and save and... Creak! SLAM! RRRUUUUUAAAAAARRRRRRR!!!!! Heart attack. The stakes have been raised and you know it because now NOWHERE is safe. (Although that would have defeated the object of having safe rooms in the first place.)

Being fair, Silent Hill 4: The Room did something similar with the titular room; for the first half of the game the Room is a haven, you wake up in bed after your (mis)adventures and heal over time... Then about halfway through the Room itself becomes unstable and threatening.

The thing is, if you choose to backtrack in a game like Dead Space 2, not only is it completely unnecessary (and often impossible) but there are literally no monsters waiting to jump out and give you a good fright. If you've cleared a room, it stays clear, and you won't be coming back anyway so who cares? The problem with that is that you always know you're going to be moving into danger, so the tension is always at a certain level - unless you stop to have a little cry and ingest some of those magical healing jelly pots when you've tenderised everything in your current locality. That seems like a waste to me.

On the other hand, if you're in a situation where you allow yourself to relax a little, that's when the biggest frights are the most effective and ramp up the tension to maximum... Imagine you just used up the last of your ammo, but you can choose your route from point A to point B. Route x is a part of the area you haven't explored; route y is an area you know you've been through and cleared of enemies. Now drop in a randomly spawning enemy type. You choose the 'easy route' because you're low on ammo, but halfway through your 'easy' progress is suddenly impeded by things you didn't expect were there, and you have no weapons to fight them off! The tension suddenly explodes and the risk becomes much more imminent.

Of course, what this also does is to enhance the atmospheric effect of the game by adding in a level of uncertainty. Horror games are much more tense when you DON'T know what's round the next corner, or even if there's anything there at all... I think it's all just a matter of pacing, really... I'd love to see more of that 'familiarity becomes frightening' effect in horror games

 

[ZeZZZZevy]

While putting a monster in what was a "safe" room may scare the crap out of the player the first time it happens, you are doing just that, making a "safe" room "unsafe."

Does this ramp up the tension? Yes, it ramps it up a lot. Will the player ever be able to stop an relax? Not at all. Therein lies the problem. Example: In the original Dead Space, just about every room had vents from which necromorphs could pop out and attack you. And usually they did. So much so that playing the game (especially the first time through) became exhausting. The only place where the player was given any rest was in elevators, which tended to be few and far between. How was the tension here? Very high, hence the exhaustion. But the pacing was terrible. If your player is always scared they'll be attacked, they become paranoid and might stop playing entirely, out of pure fear. As odd as it sounds, "safe" rooms are a necessity, just so the player can take a moment and breathe.

Side note: When I played Dead Space 2 and a necromorph popped into an elevator I was the most upset.

 

[lacktheknack]

The usage of this in Silent Hill 4 was brilliant. In ten minutes, the apartment went from "Oh thank God, I'm safe" to "OH GOD I DON'T WANT TO GO BAAAAAACK" (and yet it was still safer than the outer world).

Wrecking familiarity is a great idea for horror games. Even Amnesia did it, there was one room where you got attacked immediately, and then you had to go through it again later. It was the second most pants-crapping room in the game (after the effing "Choir").