Ideas for theoretical "Scariest Horror Game Ever"
- Thread starter Oneirius
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If a game would be able do depict monsters in 3D, which is hopefully next generation, that would certainly help.
Good stuff for horror: Being alone with something. With what? I don't know, you don't find out. You die in the end. That's something that'll keep you asking yourself "What the hell WAS it?"
Also, no guns. I hate guns, they are to strong.
A thing where the Wii could shine with a Vibrationpack attached: You actually feel impact when you hit a monster (no guns remember?).
Good stuff for horror: Being alone with something. With what? I don't know, you don't find out. You die in the end. That's something that'll keep you asking yourself "What the hell WAS it?"
Also, no guns. I hate guns, they are to strong.
A thing where the Wii could shine with a Vibrationpack attached: You actually feel impact when you hit a monster (no guns remember?).
A game involving actual thermographic surveillance of your own house or wherever you're playing it from. Just the fact that the player can prove this is happening could drive them mad with paranoid fears of "why?" and "who else is seeing this?".
One with real life consequences (special edition comes with a free lawyer reccomendation for when you sue!).
"Fail this time trial again, and I'll kill your dog. The beagle. It just took a shit, and if it does again before you finish this game, I'll kill your sister. The marine biologist one. Stop itching your nose, or I'll rip it off, fatty."
EDIT: 1200, yay!
"Fail this time trial again, and I'll kill your dog. The beagle. It just took a shit, and if it does again before you finish this game, I'll kill your sister. The marine biologist one. Stop itching your nose, or I'll rip it off, fatty."
EDIT: 1200, yay!
I was planning to comment on this after hearing Yahtzee's Review of Alien Vs. Predator, and interestingly enough, watching Terminator 2.
Imagine, if you will, going down a corridor of some game in a FPS, and along the way, you get a message that comes on screen, a voice message from one of your crew you had to get seperated from, calling and asking for your help. Not screaming, but freaking out. Suddenly, you go back to find them only to find out that nothing was really happening, but it's your radio screwing up. Now, you can't trust everything your radio says, because it could walk you into a trap. I think it should also go for maps. If you access a map, it'll show one path, then it'll show another, and another. Now you don't know which map is trustworthy, if monsters or what have you will kill you of it's people that might be able to help you.
I think limiting ammo would definitely make games scarier, and then leaving you unarmed when you lose all your ammo. Suddenly, it becomes a matter of paying closer attention to your surroundings. Something could be behind you, and then again, you just don't know.
The last one involves health. I think health restoration is a good idea, but to a point, really. In reality, when you are winded or have been hurt, you get second wind, sure. But to have your health restore almost enough to where you were with 100 full is a bit crazy. Restore five or ten points and that's it. I don't think you need to have your health become full to appreciate it more, but make health seem less and less likely to get back.
Also, when you are injured, make it like real life, where you do things slower. Say you've had half of your health bar shaved off, well now loading your gun takes a few more seconds, maybe 10 seconds or 15 seconds, to even so far as 30 seconds. With creatures all around you, now you can't afford to screw up. Suddenly watching "Terminator 2" makes much more sense, doesn't it?In Terminator 2, Sarah Connor gets seriously hurt, and when she loads her shotgun for the upcoming onslaught of the T-1000, she takes some time to load her shotgun, this takes a painful couple of seconds, unlike FPS's instant ammo loading, where two shells and you are full.
Maybe impliment a "Second Wind" option, where you focus which is more important: Health, Weapon's Usage or Speed. You now can choose to focus your health to restore faster, your ability to load a weapon faster or the ability to run faster. It will definitely make your game scarier to play.
What does everyone think?
Imagine, if you will, going down a corridor of some game in a FPS, and along the way, you get a message that comes on screen, a voice message from one of your crew you had to get seperated from, calling and asking for your help. Not screaming, but freaking out. Suddenly, you go back to find them only to find out that nothing was really happening, but it's your radio screwing up. Now, you can't trust everything your radio says, because it could walk you into a trap. I think it should also go for maps. If you access a map, it'll show one path, then it'll show another, and another. Now you don't know which map is trustworthy, if monsters or what have you will kill you of it's people that might be able to help you.
I think limiting ammo would definitely make games scarier, and then leaving you unarmed when you lose all your ammo. Suddenly, it becomes a matter of paying closer attention to your surroundings. Something could be behind you, and then again, you just don't know.
The last one involves health. I think health restoration is a good idea, but to a point, really. In reality, when you are winded or have been hurt, you get second wind, sure. But to have your health restore almost enough to where you were with 100 full is a bit crazy. Restore five or ten points and that's it. I don't think you need to have your health become full to appreciate it more, but make health seem less and less likely to get back.
Also, when you are injured, make it like real life, where you do things slower. Say you've had half of your health bar shaved off, well now loading your gun takes a few more seconds, maybe 10 seconds or 15 seconds, to even so far as 30 seconds. With creatures all around you, now you can't afford to screw up. Suddenly watching "Terminator 2" makes much more sense, doesn't it?In Terminator 2, Sarah Connor gets seriously hurt, and when she loads her shotgun for the upcoming onslaught of the T-1000, she takes some time to load her shotgun, this takes a painful couple of seconds, unlike FPS's instant ammo loading, where two shells and you are full.
Maybe impliment a "Second Wind" option, where you focus which is more important: Health, Weapon's Usage or Speed. You now can choose to focus your health to restore faster, your ability to load a weapon faster or the ability to run faster. It will definitely make your game scarier to play.
What does everyone think?
here's my idea,
You're trapped in a room with no doors or windows, just a room, you can hear people outside, but they can't hear you,and you're not alone in the room, you're trapped with a final fantasy 7 fanboy and a CoD4 fanboy, arguing eternally about which game is better and which one is a masterpiece while the other is a burning pile of shit, you realize you're set up to a life support system so you can never die, you can't kill yourself, and you can't speak.
That my friends, is both the most terrifying idea ever.
You're trapped in a room with no doors or windows, just a room, you can hear people outside, but they can't hear you,and you're not alone in the room, you're trapped with a final fantasy 7 fanboy and a CoD4 fanboy, arguing eternally about which game is better and which one is a masterpiece while the other is a burning pile of shit, you realize you're set up to a life support system so you can never die, you can't kill yourself, and you can't speak.
That my friends, is both the most terrifying idea ever.
Make death something to REALLY fear. There are reasonably spaced save points in the game, or instant saves if you prefer. But to save, is to quit out of the game. None of this "I'll save here, and see what's down the hall, then reload my game" You save the game to store your progress when you are about to turn the system off. If you die in the game, it deletes the save game entirely. Basically, the way Diablo 2 works in hardcore mode.
With this one addition, even a realitively forgiving game would be terrifying. Sure, you feel pretty good about the amount of ammo and herbs you have. But what is down that hall? are you sure you have enough ammo to take it down? What if you slip up in the attack, what if you drop your only grenade in the wrong place. Use the last of your flame thrower fuel on that zombie, or save it in case there are even more dangerous things waiting.
Do not make this an option. Don't let the player choose to play the game on easy first so they can map out the dangers and be ready for them in a hardcore mode. Just give the option as to how relentless the AI is and how tough the monsters are be the only difficulty curve.
With this one addition, even a realitively forgiving game would be terrifying. Sure, you feel pretty good about the amount of ammo and herbs you have. But what is down that hall? are you sure you have enough ammo to take it down? What if you slip up in the attack, what if you drop your only grenade in the wrong place. Use the last of your flame thrower fuel on that zombie, or save it in case there are even more dangerous things waiting.
Do not make this an option. Don't let the player choose to play the game on easy first so they can map out the dangers and be ready for them in a hardcore mode. Just give the option as to how relentless the AI is and how tough the monsters are be the only difficulty curve.
Hey what if a game did the classic horror movie thing where you have a group of people, and only one goes off at a time, which you are in control of. Basically, each member of the group represents your lives. If you die, you end up taking control of the next group member... this way you know that shits fucked up, and are rather afraid of taking on whatever the hell killed you.
Also, I love the idea of the distant stalker. That shit's scary.
Also, I love the idea of the distant stalker. That shit's scary.
A few games have done this (RE Online, a game which probably should be remade for modern consoles now that we can actually talk to each other online, comes to mind). However, you probably don't want to do that with entire save. Maybe just force them to start from the begining of the chapter. There's a fine line between fear and frustration.xbeaker said:
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My personal addition falls into a very effective element of horror: 1 degree off normal (i.e. taking something that everyone is familiar with and changing the setting ever so slightly). It's the tactic used to create the dread in Silent Hill 2 and some of the best horror games.
There would be an opening where you're walking through a very public, indoor place (train station, airport, etc.) in the first person. Everything is normal; lot's of people, children laughing, bright/normal lighting, etc. Then, as you're walking down the hall, quick flashes (at random time intervals, no more than a quarter-second for the first few) to that same hall, except it's filled with bodies, blood strewn in long archs on the walls, the lighting having a distinct cold-blue filter that makes the scene almost sterile. All you hear in these initial flashes is white noise of varying pitches and sounds. In the "bright" interspaces between the flashes, people are starting to stare at you with looks of concern and moving children away from you. You keep walking forward.
As the flashes begin to get longer (1-to-2 seconds now), a man dressed in a completely black suit with black sunglasses, hair, and gloves appears standing straight and professional surveying the scene. In the second flash, he's staring right at the player. In each subsequent flash, which are getting much closer together, he's standing (as if he wasn't moving) much closer than it is physically posible to move, until the man is standing right in front of the player and he grabs the players right wrist which stops the flashes... in this darker world. The player is now barely able to control himself. He tries to move and the camera barely moves in that direction and the arm tugs slightly but not truly away. The man, who has a face without any distinct details, starts to talk but the player cannot hear him. With a slight smile, he lets go of the player and he flashes back into the normal world. The player holds his right arm close to the "camera" (so that it is the only thing in focus) and pulls his sleve down to where the man grabbed his wrist. On the skin where his hand made contact with the wrist is a black splotch and it slowly begins to expand.
Suddenly, there's a scream and the player's arm goes down to see that everybody is staring behind you and are begining to turn and run. As the camera, now almost completely in control of the scripted sequence, begins to turn, the sound of an explosion and twisted metal comes from behind and the camera lurchces forward (as if hit by an explosion from behind) and blacks out.
Cue title screen.
It's so subjective. For me the ultimate fear game would be one in which there actually is no visible monster, but your player character may see it, and you find the evidence of its horrifying handiwork everywhere (like Silent Hill, but you never see any monsters)
The only way to win is to survive a trek across a completely abandoned town, while crazy shit goes on all around you, but you never see what's causing it, just what it does.
Handled well, that would terrify me into sleepless nights.
The only way to win is to survive a trek across a completely abandoned town, while crazy shit goes on all around you, but you never see what's causing it, just what it does.
Handled well, that would terrify me into sleepless nights.
Polybius?
But in all seriousness
The game would be first person viewpoint, much more closer to the action forcing the character to deal with the horrors and scenes in a more personal way than watching a mere avatar wander around.
It would start with no explanation, no back story, no plot exposition and start you in abandoned asylum, waking to find not only blood all over the walls but the scrawling of a madman. hypnotic and constantly moving imagery, writing that melds and reforms in various ways, all scrawled, carved or written in blood on the walls. And the occasional screams or moans of people in the background. Though the place appears to be abandoned.
The point of this game wouldn't be a survival horror, but a puzzle-horror as you attempt to escape the asylum and its nest of horrific abuses. You would meet various characters, nurses, Doctors, even a patient or two, all seemingly slightly unhinged in some ways. The Doctor has a tic, the nurse constantly tries to administer your shot, you find people tied to the beds their arms bleeding from the repeated injections to their arms actually forming gaping wounds.
You attempt to restore power, find your own medical files, and discover various reasons why you were admitted, flashbacks of maybe walking in and finding your wife cheating, the police interviewing you over your crimes yet not knowing what you did, only it was bad, horrific even.
The constantly flickering emergency lighting, shadows disappearing into the background or flitting across the screen for no other reason than to put off and distract the player. Peering into the cells of other inmates through the slides in their doors only to find them singing crazily, or slamming into the window as you attempt to peer in.
You never find a gun, you never get a weapon any stronger than a hypo you have to apply stealthily to knock out the occasional deranged inmate, your weakness would make you feel more vulnerable and act more careful of the next thing around the corner, and as you wander deeper into the asylum it steadily becomes more organic and more horrific. Shortly it all stops making sense, the doctors are performing freakish experiments, horrifying transformations. You yourself were worked upon yet the simple terror is you don't know how or what. Til the last seen is you seeing your own face in the mirror.
It would sorta be like Myst, but horrifically crippling and disturbing...
Edit: I want to be a writer... no one steal.
But in all seriousness
The game would be first person viewpoint, much more closer to the action forcing the character to deal with the horrors and scenes in a more personal way than watching a mere avatar wander around.
It would start with no explanation, no back story, no plot exposition and start you in abandoned asylum, waking to find not only blood all over the walls but the scrawling of a madman. hypnotic and constantly moving imagery, writing that melds and reforms in various ways, all scrawled, carved or written in blood on the walls. And the occasional screams or moans of people in the background. Though the place appears to be abandoned.
The point of this game wouldn't be a survival horror, but a puzzle-horror as you attempt to escape the asylum and its nest of horrific abuses. You would meet various characters, nurses, Doctors, even a patient or two, all seemingly slightly unhinged in some ways. The Doctor has a tic, the nurse constantly tries to administer your shot, you find people tied to the beds their arms bleeding from the repeated injections to their arms actually forming gaping wounds.
You attempt to restore power, find your own medical files, and discover various reasons why you were admitted, flashbacks of maybe walking in and finding your wife cheating, the police interviewing you over your crimes yet not knowing what you did, only it was bad, horrific even.
The constantly flickering emergency lighting, shadows disappearing into the background or flitting across the screen for no other reason than to put off and distract the player. Peering into the cells of other inmates through the slides in their doors only to find them singing crazily, or slamming into the window as you attempt to peer in.
You never find a gun, you never get a weapon any stronger than a hypo you have to apply stealthily to knock out the occasional deranged inmate, your weakness would make you feel more vulnerable and act more careful of the next thing around the corner, and as you wander deeper into the asylum it steadily becomes more organic and more horrific. Shortly it all stops making sense, the doctors are performing freakish experiments, horrifying transformations. You yourself were worked upon yet the simple terror is you don't know how or what. Til the last seen is you seeing your own face in the mirror.
It would sorta be like Myst, but horrifically crippling and disturbing...
Edit: I want to be a writer... no one steal.
Make a game out of Marble Hornets. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarbleHornets]
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I like it, but I disagree with the third person view. It'd be much more terrifying if it was first person. The hallucination envelopes the entire screen. At the sides of the screen, you see those bleeding mannequin people you were talking about, especially the one that walks right by you. You turn to face him and he's normal going "...Is something wrong?" That's what I was picturing while reading it.Kharloth said:
You click the button to start the game, and get a box that says "Error 4550: System file not found. The game may not run properly". Then it seems to do nothing, while the program secretly runs, and secretly keeps your volume high.
You go and do whatever you do on the computer, while hearing strange sounds - a knife scraping on glass, voices outside the window, chains dragging a body across your lawn. It gets worse throughout the night, culminating in unholy, bloodcurdling, inhuman screams.
It's the ultimate immersion. You can't even tell yourself, "it's only a game". As far as you're concerned, that game failed to start. You don't know that the game is on your computer, making those terrifying sounds.
Once you figure it out, it stops being scary, but until then there could even be panicked 911 calls from people frantic to find the source of the sounds.
You go and do whatever you do on the computer, while hearing strange sounds - a knife scraping on glass, voices outside the window, chains dragging a body across your lawn. It gets worse throughout the night, culminating in unholy, bloodcurdling, inhuman screams.
It's the ultimate immersion. You can't even tell yourself, "it's only a game". As far as you're concerned, that game failed to start. You don't know that the game is on your computer, making those terrifying sounds.
Once you figure it out, it stops being scary, but until then there could even be panicked 911 calls from people frantic to find the source of the sounds.
Anything capable of scaring me would have to be so terrible it would probably be banned for its potential to cause insanity.
I'm not at all easy to scare. The few things I find to be universally scary would be bad enough to test the sanity of even the strongest minds. Also, I'm not sure I'd even want to play a game like that. I'm not talking about simple scare tactics. I'm talking about pure screwing with a person's mind to the point it could justifiably be called brainwashing material. Anything less than that doesn't even register with me. I'd elaborate on what I find scary but I would probably get moderated for it.
That said, I do enjoy some so-called scary games. I enjoyed Dead Space. I didn't find it at all scary but it had a fun story to it, though it was a bit short and the PC port was buggy to say the least.
If a game wants to get my heart pumping, it's better to do it through fast paced action than to try to use cheap scare tactics.
I'm not at all easy to scare. The few things I find to be universally scary would be bad enough to test the sanity of even the strongest minds. Also, I'm not sure I'd even want to play a game like that. I'm not talking about simple scare tactics. I'm talking about pure screwing with a person's mind to the point it could justifiably be called brainwashing material. Anything less than that doesn't even register with me. I'd elaborate on what I find scary but I would probably get moderated for it.
That said, I do enjoy some so-called scary games. I enjoyed Dead Space. I didn't find it at all scary but it had a fun story to it, though it was a bit short and the PC port was buggy to say the least.
If a game wants to get my heart pumping, it's better to do it through fast paced action than to try to use cheap scare tactics.