How to make a horror game

[KEM10]

I'm gong to have to disagree with the no knowledge part. You need to enter with no knowledge of what's happening and slowly figure it out with journals, notes, and other things that are around.

Also, no sequels. If you do make the best horror game in the world, the basic knowledge that will be passed on from playing the first will ruin parts of it.

This is definitely not universal. Silent Hill has the perfect mythology to completely change the horror elements just by the fact that every protagonist is someone new.

That is the exception rather than the standard practice. More often than not what happens is that they take the regular enemies and add one or two new ones that are stronger and weirder looking than the previous ones and throw those in the game. Resident Evil survived by this for so long that the only way to get through their standard enemies was to become a bad ass fighter and turn the game more to action.

Now also look at FEAR and I am willing to put money that they will do the same with Dead Space 2. If the mythos can change the monsters and still be new to the player, then go for it. But if it is just the same cast and crew with only a new protagonist, the player will remember everything from the last game and most of the horror will be lost.

Too much knowledge is damaging to the scene.

 

[KEM10]

These are all valid points, but the only problem is that they've all been done. I could be wrong (in fact I dearly hope I'm wrong), but I think it safe to say that the horror genre for gaming is dead. Gamers have been exposed to every type of scare now, to the point where nothing is original anymore. Back in the days of Resident Evil, Silent Hill and Clock Tower, the concepts were new, the gameplay was new, the idea of scaring people through the form of games was new. Almost 10 years later it seems that every source of frightening material has been exhausted, and although companies try to pump out scary games, and even though some of them get close to succeeding in making us sleep with the lights on (Dead Space, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, the "Lost In Memories" DLC for RE5), nothing these days seems to emulate that quickening of our pulse and the desire to hide like the first time we met the Pyramid Head, or when zombie dogs came crashing through the window, or when some decrepit kid fell through the ceiling and stabbed us with over-sized garden shears when we thought we had found a good hiding place...

That being said, I'll still play horror type games that release in the future, and I still hope that one day some game company will get it right, because we're long overdue for a good scare.

I will name 2 games, one truly horror and the other gives me chills while I play just because how well it was designed.

Amnesia: Dark Decent
This game is everything horror should be. You are a nobody in a crumbling castle and all you know is that there is the shadow of death following you because you wrote a note to yourself. The only weapon I have seen so far was a jar of acid (gained from a puzzle and one time use to open a passage), a small explosive (gained from a different puzzle and used to clear a hallway, impossible to use on a bad guy), and a crowbar (broke on use and cannot hit an enemy with it hard enough to kill them before they kill you). Hell, while playing I did the tried and true throw anything on the table at the enemy in hopes I can run away fast enough move while running from a zombie? ghoul? low demon? I have no idea what they are.

Metro 2033
Yes, it is a first person shooter. But it has more survival mechanics and less bullets in your inventory than Fallout on hardcore. I am scared for my life while playing this game. And it is more than just the Doom 3 style of dark room and something pops out at you. And speaking of Doom 3, you have a miner's helmet that you need to pump up every now and then so you can carry a gun while walking around.

 

[hinataxemnas]

Maybe we could have a mechanic like the invisible sanity meter, and when the meter is depleted, the player starts seeing enemies that are not really there and hearing whispering voices that tell them to kill themselves... Not sure if I am ripping anything off here...

 

[Sensenmann]

I would say my biggest horror turn off, which was a key flaw in Dead Space, was knowing when something was going to attack you and then how easy it was to dispatch an enemy. Resident Evil Zombies are cheap one shot one kill enemies which slowly shamble towards you which works because there are hundreds of them in any given battle and you have to work to clear them out before they swarm you. In Dead Space the most enemies you ever encounter at once is about four- and they?re usually all lined up in a row anyway, thereby allowing you to hold down the trigger button until they?re all a pile of severed limbs.

The scariest films/games for me are those which have proper atmosphere. The kind of games where you can walk around for the first 20 minutes weaponless either with things being creepy but safe or with demonic horrors attacking you and your only choice is to run for the hills. That is a good opening.

The biggest example of this is the difference between the openings of the US made Resident Evil film and the UK produced 28 Days Later (I know they?re not games but just hear me out).

In 28 Days Later they have a 3 minute intro in a secret lab showing monkeys being experimented on and tortured. The creatures are then released and infect one of the people who then starts murdering her friends. It fades out to a guy waking up in an abandoned London who then walks around for 10 minutes before finally encountering a zombie and understandably legging it. The guy is then only saved when some survivors arrive and blow up a Petrol Station with Molotov?s! That?s what made it good- pacing and making the enemies seem properly dangerous and give the player/protagonist a reason to fear them.

In Resident Evil by comparison we have a 5 minute intro in the secret underground base in which the AI kills everyone which doesn?t make sense since surely if it?s a lab designed specifically to house dangerous biological agents they would have a better containment strategy than gassing everyone and leaving the doors wide open! Milla Jovovich then wakes up naked in a shower, throws on a mini-skirt and 2 minutes later a Special Forces team break through the windows and open the door to a secret underground base she shouldn?t even know existed due to her plot convenient amnesia! She then spends the rest of the film being escorted around by people with Semi-automatic weapons and despite her apparent unwillingness to do anything but stand around and remember plot points about 10 minutes after they would have been useful the first time she finally picks up a gun she drops half a dozen mutant dogs with one shot each to the centre of the head and kick drops the last one with a Karate move which I?m pretty sure defies several laws of physics and proper fighting form.

If you want to make true horror games don?t fill it with blood and chainsaws and demonic horrors. All you need to do is simply put the player in a dark room with some messed up scenery and let their warped, child like imaginations misinterpret the mailman delivering this morning?s post as a serial killer peering through their mailbox!

I agree with this post. Excessive gore is no way to get horror. There are better plot starters than amnesia (though it is alluring as the player knows nothing of the plot either). The Resident evil films aren't like the games. They've removed the horror and think we'll be content with lookalikes of the characters or ones who share a name.

I once discussed this on other forums (I hope it's ok to post my link, if it isn't remove it). I am dared1111 here.
http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=159446&b=19

 

[nuba km]

snip

same for movies but their still are some that are scary (paranormal activity) but guess what YOU ARE SCARED MUCH MORE EASILY WHEN YOU ARE A CHILD ahem sorry but that's why nothings as scary as it was because you are braver if you played through the old games they aren't as scary as you remember part has to do with you know what's going on but most of it is that you are older. I am 99% sure that if you travelled back in time told yourself not to eat yellow snow and then made your younger self play amnesia you will remember it as the scariest game ever.