I know a lot of people suffer from arachnophobia and I believe them when they say they stopped playing that game and uninstalled it because of spiders. The closest to this I have is ants. The look of a single ant in a still picture or in a documentary about nature, I might look away, I might Alt+Tab or Ctrl+W to close the tab when it comes. Or approach it slightly. There is something in the single ant imagery, the way it moves, the mucky material, it's form, I can't say. And then, many creepy ants, maybe because they can crawl into your body and you don't know. Both the idea that we are surrounded by these or a single image of one. Can't explain it, logically they are more harmless than spiders or scorpions but I have more repulsion with ants than spiders.
And then again, that's the paradox. Even if in real life photos and documentary videos it makes me look away, I have never found a game that has the same effect on me. Maybe they are not realistic enough? Maybe they miss the elements that makes me hate them in the first place? The closest might be Fallout 3 ants, and still I could play, feeling only a little unease. Respectively, every other bug in game, no problem with that. I can feel the creepiness with some (Borderlands bugs) but didn't got it so hard in games as my friends with spiders.
Other games with realistic ants that could maybe make me feel this?
p.s. If they could create this feeling with more realistic ants, maybe I wouldn't like it. It would be interesting to try it just once. But there are other positive fears in games that I truly enjoy. Scary dark places, horror games, like Amnesia, Penumbra, Alan wake or even SCP and stuff. While I get the chills and walk slowly and think maybe I should stop, I love testing my fears with these.
p.p.s. Maybe with Oculus Rift, their antenas and parts of all bug creatures getting out of screen, maybe it would work terrors?
