Key Elements for THE Scariest Game Imaginable

[marurder]

Randomness, you KNOW there is a (or several) nasties in the for-coming area, a big issue is that you know WHERE and WHEN they will pop out. Make it so there are a possible 10 spots A creature could pop out. But each has a 50% chance of doing so. So it's possible nothing happens OR that several come out quickly.

If nothing happens - a player is shitting them-self because they don't know what is out there or when, 2 - if all 10 pop out then a player has a massive fight on their hands which will keep the blood pumping.

It also adds replay value. I should also mention that this chance changes if you reload.

 

[johnstamos]

atmosphere and pacing, say a game starts you off in say a completely empty town covered in fog and occasionally you see a shadow or hear a spooky noise that makes you piss yourself a bit, great scary game. on the far other end you have a game that starts your off with loud noisy things with with noodles coming out of there backs yelling at you as the game also tells you to RUN STUPID and gives you a flamethrower an hour in, thats not really horror, if you play any horror games you can probably tell what I'm talking about here.

 

[Chaza]

It'll have to include something like this:

http://comic.naver.com/webtoon/detail.nhn?titleId=350217&no=20&weekday=tue

Have that in some sort of gameplay form and bricks shall be shat.

That was horrible. I totaly agree just this in a game would make it bloody scary. Only if done right, the only thing that made it scary was I wasn't expecting it as I thought it was a web comic so you'd have to find a way to portray that in a game.

 

[Proverbial Jon]

It'll have to include something like this:

http://comic.naver.com/webtoon/detail.nhn?titleId=350217&no=20&weekday=tue

Have that in some sort of gameplay form and bricks shall be shat.

Jesus-Mother-Loving-Christ! I'm so fucking glad it's daylight outside right now otherwise I'd have screamed. Did NOT see that coming.

You know, what probably made that so scary was the subversion of expectations. The reader is comfortable because they feel in control, I mean you can always stop scrolling, right? Then that control and security is ripped from them suddenly and without warning. It's hard to capture that same feeling in a game, but it could probably be done.

Yes and this is the very thing that developers of so-called "scary" games (FEAR, I'm looking at you) miss. Most games would just stick that same scene in the game and fully animate the whole thing and then say it was terrifying. But they miss the point.

This is what made Silent Hill so scary for me. You never knew what was going to happen. Areas where enemies could jump out simply never had any enemies, only that tense music. The possibility of enemies was there all the time so you could never be sure, even though you KNEW SH disn't use jump scares. Condemned did this well too, the AI was quite impressive in that it stalked you from the shadows instead of making a direct bee-line for you.

As I always do in these situations, I direct people to this SH3 moment:


This is probably the reason why I find it hard to look into mirrors...

 

[somonels]

Make sure there is cereal all around the floors, so every step sounds like a thousand little crunches and is heard from afar.

 

[IrisEver]

I'll make my own list.

-Unexplainable. There needs to be something that, for the whole game, is unexplainable. The story progresses and you start finding out why what's happening is happening. Something quite complex and disturbing.

-Unable to defend yourself against some monsters in the traditional sense (pew pew). Amnesia did this really well, but I would limit it to just being defenseless against certain enemies rather than 'all'. Perhaps you could confuse them, hide from them of course. Perhaps the noise from your attacks on other enemies would lure the invulnerable ones, so you had to be careful what you attacked and when. Being able to rush into a game all guns blazing doesnt make for much of a scary game.

-Atmosphere. Eerie. No 'funky music'. Subtlety in this sense is key.

-Innocence. There must be some sort of innocence at stake. Even those of us not too concerned with the concept of 'innocence' still tend to get a rise from the corruption of, on a very primal level. Ghost children would be fine.

-Enemies that look gnarly.

-Corruption of familiarity. Setting a game in a dark and gloomy castle is great, but I would imagine something that looks more like your neighbour hood getting more and more messed up as things progess. At least, it starts off quite familiar and by the end of the first chapter in the game, it's not anymore.

-A good number of health packs, but healing is 'hit and miss' (you find a health restoration item, and there are many of them, but it works sporadically). Worrying so much about your health in a game takes your mind off the fear. Everyone is so used to dying in a game, now, that death isn't really whats going to scare us. The respawn point doesnt bother us, its being attacked that does. When we have low health in a quite moment though, we will keep a huge eye on it, being distracted in the process.

 

[Aprilgold]

Sound.
Exposition.
Tension.
Narrative, no matter the story, the narrative MUST be compelling.
Feeling helpless.
Hating every encounter.
These are the components, use them well.

 

[willofbob]

I've been playig around with thoughts about this for a while and um, yeah I thought of a sort of town where humans slowly become.. what was... sorry... slowly become twisted, except for a small group in red who you occasionally see in passing, all of which are burnt slightly and... I'm sorry, I just can't think about anything after that link posted by anthony87. I mean, holy shit that's terrifying. The japanese sure know how to scare the shit out of me.

I'll probably post again once I've composed myself. @athony87 I tip my hat to you, good sir.

 

[Dutch 924]

No weapons, if you have a means of defending yourself that takes away the fear. Maybe you could just have a "push them away" mechanic.

Less jump-scares, more paranoia scares. This was the problem Dead Space 2 had.

Lack of prestine, state-of-the-art graphics. This is the reason Amnesia and old Silent Hill games are scary and Dead Space isn't.

No defined route. If you make the way forward difficult to find without it getting annoying, it will make the player even more paranoid.

I'll probably think of others later.

 

[Justice4L]

It'll have to include something like this:

http://comic.naver.com/webtoon/detail.nhn?titleId=350217&no=20&weekday=tue

Have that in some sort of gameplay form and bricks shall be shat.

I can't figure out how to get the video to play, and now I'm RIDICULOUSLY CURIOUS 0.o

It's not a video though....

Or do you mean that you scroll down and nothing happens?

Oh, hehe, derp. Didn't see you could scroll down...

*scrolls down* AAAH THERE IS NO GOD D:

Not falling for that again.

OT: Relating to that, the Japanese style of horror is very scary as it concentrates on atmosphere instead of scary enemies. So the best horror game... should be Japanese

 

[Kursura]

It'll have to include something like this:

http://comic.naver.com/webtoon/detail.nhn?titleId=350217&no=20&weekday=tue

Have that in some sort of gameplay form and bricks shall be shat.

You know, what probably made that so scary was the subversion of expectations. The reader is comfortable because they feel in control, I mean you can always stop scrolling, right? Then that control and security is ripped from them suddenly and without warning. It's hard to capture that same feeling in a game, but it could probably be done.

That's a good way of phrasing it, I recall the game Zeno Clash had a moment like that, though it wasn't trying to by horrifying.

Another way to try horror could be to keep the player in control, in a situation with a predetermine outcome, so they can try to struggle agenised the inevitable. Anyone who's played Shadow of the Colossus to the end should know what I mean.

 

[automatron]

It'll have to include something like this:

http://comic.naver.com/webtoon/detail.nhn?titleId=350217&no=20&weekday=tue

Have that in some sort of gameplay form and bricks shall be shat.

Holy fuck that was scary

 

[TheFloBros]

Theres this one mod for the original Half-Life (not source) and it's called Afraid of Monsters. Its pretty god damn scary. Like you need batteries for your light, guns and ammo are extremely hard to find. The zombies are just fuckin weird and they're very hard to kill.

OT: I think games need more survival, and psychological stuff, insted of just jump scares. Kind of like Amnesia, but with very limited weapons. And it's more scary if you don't see a monster, and imagining what it is, then just seeing the same guy over and over again so it's not scary at all.

 

[mb16]

It'll have to include something like this:

http://comic.naver.com/webtoon/detail.nhn?titleId=350217&no=20&weekday=tue

Have that in some sort of gameplay form and bricks shall be shat.

as im in a place where bricks arent allowed to be shat (an office). would someone care to explain why everyone is so scared

 

[Angry Camel]

Sound would be a big part, especially the lack of it. If you get the player used to being in an environment with a lot of background noise (cars, planes, neighbourhood noises), taking them away would strip away a lot of familiarity very quickly.

It'll have to include something like this:

http://comic.naver.com/webtoon/detail.nhn?titleId=350217&no=20&weekday=tue

Have that in some sort of gameplay form and bricks shall be shat.

If they use that, I'd be worried about people dying from heart attacks. And I'm really glad I went to the bathroom 2 minutes ago.

 

[Nouw]

The game saying 'fuck you.' As in, you try and escape but it forces you to confront the enemy.

I'd shit my pants if all I could do was wait for my death.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Just a few more ideas

Use of a condition. Alan Wake and Alone in the Dark use this to great effect with the you are in danger if you're standing in the dark issue. Or even Amnesia and the water section.

I know my ex got the most scared when he was exploring in an alone in the dark game and suddenly the all the lights went off and when the lightning flashed there was a monster standing right in front of him. He almost had an accident I think.

Subtle changes in environment can be quite creepy aswell like the topiary animals changing position in the Shining.

Things suddenly noticing you can be alarming aswell. Like you see a ghost through a camera monitor then it looks straight at you and starts moving purposefully down the corridor. NOES.

 

[Unia]

Now for a game to get under your skin it needs more story than "There's monsters out there, good luck getting out alive".

- Give the protagonist a strong (if not wise) reason to push on. Give them questions to ask, but as you progress, you start to worry you won't like the answers...Silent Hill games do this well

- Make the monsters relatable in a sense. Part of what makes Project Zero/Fatal Frame effective is every ghost has a history and many of them are victims if you think about it. Bioshock isn't horror per say but the way the splicers talk to themselves remembering better times or wallowing in self-pity makes them eerier than if they went oogly-woogly-boo

- This has been mentioned before but twisting a familiar setting works better than haunted castle number n. Say you're in a kitchen. It's in good order, if maybe there's some dust on tabletops and such. Nothing out of the ordinary. Until you take a closer look on a shelf and recognize the shapes in those pickle jars.

- Hinting to the player failure means fate worse than death. Like in System Shock, where you can see your corpse used as core component for another cyborg. Or maybe whatever malady struck the populace will consume you too. The parts of Deadly Premonition with timed puzzles in rooms filling up with madness-inducing mist...those actually creeped me out.