Your Horror level?

[Susano]

Mine would have a large focus on the psyche cracking. It would be set in either an abandoned asylum or a "normal" abandoned city complete with "normal" houses, schools and daycares. kind of like the Maddest March Hare's level there would be breathing, changing lights, pieces where lights go off and you see distorted room you were just in, maybe with a black figure in it, lights go off again and everything returns to normal (Something along the lines of the shadow realm in Trilby's Notes, except shorter) , strange shadows in your field of vision. later on in the level/game you'd start finding bloodstained objects.

I think some of my ideas would work better in real life, With some of the stuff I've thought about but haven't mentioned, I'm fairly sure I could make someone lose their sanity.

EDIT:

A game that consists of a normal house at night. In this house there is no background music, there is no inventory, and it is NOT an FPS. While in this house you must try and find an escape, but escape seems near impossible. Strange things happen here, doors will open unexpectantly but nobody will enter. People stand behind you in reflections who are not really there. Every time you re-enter a room something is different, but often it is mild enough to need a moments though (ie. the bed is now unmade). At random times a very low-key haunting melody will play, which cuts off for no reason but gives the impression something is about to happen.
Items are realistically carried in the sense you can only hold what can rationally be held, usually such as hammers and crowbars to try various potential exists. Some items only appear after other events have activated (as many Adventure games do). Much less subtle events can occur, such as entering a room and a body rising from the bed- only to suddenly jump back to the moment of entry with no body in sight. Little girls slowly walking into rooms and staring at you, vanishing as soon as you look away or open a menu. Jump moments should be few, but present. Many people would find this game boring, but a game that replaces lives with "how long can you bear it" factor is a creepy game in my book.

This is very close to what I had in mind, except in the "Insanity" moments, you would get a much stronger feeling of bring hunted, so maybe remove the little girl leaving. Instead have her reach out to you slowly with her outline and shadow getting bigger and more vicious and demonic, then cut to just outside the room you just entered.
I've found that Yahtzee is very good at this whole horror stuff, what with Chzo and the Tall Man. If you haven't played his games, PLAY THEM NOW.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Footsteps in the dark.

Glowing red eyes, watching you. You only see a glimpse when you turn. Too big, too off-center to be human. Gazing at you, THROUGH you. Waiting. Planning. Anticipating.

Your flashlight would be fine, if only the darkness were normal. Your weapons would be adequate, if only you faced a direct threat. Your senses, your very mind betray you- a room that played home to a vicious, blood-spattered firefight three minutes ago is spotless when you next walk inside. You hear sourceless, frightened whispers. Shadows move. Doors slowly open by themselves into empty rooms. Windows shine moonlight into otherwise pitch-black rooms- do you stand in the light, fearing being stolen upon, or do you stay in the dark, fearing being seen? Lights flicker, creating crazy outlines on walls that just might show the silhouette of some impossible, hideous creature.

Others have been here before you. Stronger, more skilled, more alert. Their weapons litter the ground next to their carcasses; some were never even fired. Bloodsplatters and expressions frozen in horror tell silent tales of agonizing death. Some may be still alive... but will the constant pressure, the fear of being prey, have broken their minds to the point that you become as much of a threat to them as any monster?

You pass a computer monitor. Green static resolves into a clear image. Words form, with no hands at a keyboard to type them.

[small]whatever
you
do

don't
turn
around[/small]

CLANG

You whirl. A piece of metal has fallen from the ceiling- no threat. Breath in your throat, you turn back to the screen angrily, only to catch for a split-second the face of something inhuman, loathsome, grinning at you. The image disappears, and the screen turns blood-red.

[small]ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha[/small]

You people had better hope I never get off my lazy butt and pick up some Modding tools.

 

[relish]

The Dunwich Building in Fallout 3 scares the shit out of me... and anything similar in any game

I agree with this.

 

[open trap]

no game has really scared, only when i was little and something would jump out at me, thats it. infact not much scares me at all. when movies do a good job scaring they make it impossible to see so it actully startles you. so no

 

[roflchopter]

Innsmouth from Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, up till the point the game breaking glitch stopped my progress dead, I found the entire game scaring as hell.

omg that game scared the shit outta me. its pretty difficult too..

 

[SeanTheSheep]

I don't scare easily in games really, or films and havent had a "horror level" exactly.

If I had one then it would probably be a level early on, why? Because you haven't gotten any really good weapons and don't have ammo coming out of your ears, possibly only a pistol and an SMG/Crappy rifle.
Anyway the place has creepy music and you just saw some creepy as f**k thing out of the window, but just for a second, then every now and again, something passes by a window in rooms as you make your way through the creepy as hell place, with just a noise every now and then that makes you jump, e.g. scraping, a drop, drip, drip in some rooms, whooshing sometimes, creaking floorboards etc. not repeated too much and not stuck together, strung out slowly. Also it's cloudy outside the windows, and it's getting into the late evening, so the lights aren't on, but you still can't quite make everything out really easily.
Then as you just start to get used to it there's a cutscene, your character goes around a corner and he moves down the corri- SCREECH! he whirls around, nothing there, SCREECH! again, he backs up against a wall so it cant sneak up on him and something drips on him form above, he looks up and theres the face of some person he had a few words with earlier, and then you split up. he looks back down and there it is!
Boss fight starts.

EDIT:

-Snip- Find it your own damn selves

Or that

-Snip- See above

Or that

 

[Ganthrinor]

My horror level.. hmmm.....


Probably something along the lines of a Fatal Frame-esque large abandoned house and property. Nothing overtly wrong until you spend a little time there and then the Negative Energy infusing the place pulls horrors from your own mind to hurl them at you at the most inconvenient times.

The real ***** being of course, that there's nothing to fight there except your own demons and imagination. No end boss, no random encounters, no reliably working lights, even simple mechanical objects like doorknobs and window latches are unreliable and uncooperative.


That sort of thing.

 

[ZombieGenesis]

This thread actually gave me an idea for an adventure-game based around horror aspects that aren't widely seen... I may not be a programmer, but I'm designing it anyway
Thank the lord for creative boredom.

 

[Littlee300]

The Ancestral Tombs in Morrowind.

Enough said.

This, and since ghost are my only fear.
*looks around* I'm still scared there hiding in my room somewhere...

 

[maddawg IAJI]

A dank,rotton sewer. Ever since I played that level in F.E.A.R, I have been scared shitless of them.

 

[Spitfire175]

The Ancestral Tombs in Morrowind.

Enough said.

I still get nightmares of them. *shrudder*

 

[Americow]

Heat, Modern warfare on Veteran.
Not the conventional scary, but it sends chills down my spine when I remember how long it took me to do it.

 

[Aesir23]

Mine would be the worst kind of fear, where something totally normal and commonplace has been twisted ever so slightly by the corruption of the evil spirit within it. The old haunted house trick, except it's not dark and deserted with lots of cobwebs, that's too generic and you would be expecting it. Say it's just a normal suburban detached house. For whatever reason, you are walking through it, you have no weapons, you have no reason to have any, it's just a house, the lights are on and it's not even very dark outside yet. But then things slowly start to fuck up..you hear the sound of breathing coming from somewhere, and it seems to follow you, but whenever you turn round there's nothing there. A tap on the shoulder, you turn again to see what it was, still nothing there. You walk past a mirror, if you turn to look, you see a shadow behind you suddenly move away from your line of sight. Then, you enter a room, and the door closes quietly behind you. No creak, no slam, just the quiet, final click of a lock being carefully turned. You're trapped. And there's a scratch along the door from the lock, made by something with very, very sharp claws.

You are alone, and trapped, and completely helpless.

With the right story behind it, and a well enough told game for you to be immersed in that situation, that there is real fucked up horror, because it drills straight into the basic terror reactions of the brain and suddenly you feel alone, and defenceless, stuck in the room with something that wants you dead.

O_O Meep

 

[hippykiller]

The Dunwich Building in Fallout 3 scares the shit out of me... and anything similar in any game

hey did you see the flashback?

 

[Skuffyshootster]

Your trapped in a room with a fat guy, and you're covered in barbecue sauce.

[small]The fat guy's naked, too.[/small]

 

[SnipErlite]

Anything with flickering lights =/

 

[owner276]

I dunno...sounds kinda like Doom to me...