What makes a game scary?

What makes a game scary?

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gay romance options

scary things

total immersion into the world

30fps

Tension. Good audio design.

BR

Tension, audio, atmosphere, player vulnerability, unpredictability.

the unknown

atmosphere above all else

VR headset, nothing else. games aren't scary.

not until we are in them.

Jump scares and loud noises

No joke, jumpscares always manage to get me. I can never see them coming.

This.
Guys who say shit like "atmosphere" and "dude who threw the ball lmao" are just pseudo intellectuals. The horror genre is jumpscares because they are the only way of scaring people.

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these

System Shock 2 is probably the game that scared me the most with ayy lmao as a runner up

>tfw Cryostasis isn't available for purchase anywhere anymore

I waited too long to buy it, now I guess I'll be forced to pirate it.

It's a great game, that part with the dogs in the kitchen is one of the scariest moments in vidya.

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This is pretty much it.

youtube.com/watch?v=4CvjdbQ29qU
Stuff like this video scares me more than any jumpscare because it leaves a sense of unease that just won't go away. A jumpscare followed by a chuckle doesn't leave anything, it's óver in a moment.

Loss/deprivation of power/control

Scary? jump scares
Creepy on the other hand is more complicated

Jump scares are more designed to bring out a human ' natural reaction. It's not fear that triggers it
They're cheap
True fear on the other hand is isolation, the sense of no help, unease, dread

Skellingtons. More like scaringtons.

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Being hunted and not knowing where your hunter is is scary

>Bad To The Bone starts playing

So, procedural generation and no weapons?

When you're forced to go outside and talk to people

No way.

the abject and the Other

Fuck this game, got bugged in one place and couldn't proceed.

The knowledge that something that in your mind you see as malevolent is aware of you, but that you are not aware of it or how to protect yourself from it.

Ya hear that noise? That's the sound of you missing the point user.

Honestly, fucking this. If literally ANY medium pulls this off properly I'm spooked.

Pick fucking related.

Twisted things from our day to day lives, things you do not even know how do deal with, unnerving and disgusting is usually a lot better than jump scares.

The stuff Junji Ito creates could become good games for example, he is a master at creating unnerving and weird shit.

wasn't he working on Silent Hills too?

Yep. It would've been incredible.

Am I the only person who doesn't like this guy's work? I mean, I guess it's above average tier for body horror, but I never really found it spooky or unsettling.

Yeah, just makes me feel even more about fucking Konami every time I remember it.

These

But also thisYou need a combination of the two to craft a solid horror experience. Jump scares by themselves aren't very scary, but they are effective at eliciting a reaction. If you rely on them by themselves, however, you get FNAF.

But the opposite can also be true. Total reliance on atmosphere and tension with no payoff doesn't result in a very scary game either. You get the long periods of Alien, where people start to complain it overstays their welcome. The Alien is the jump scare, but once the player is completely used to its appearance and behaviour, it no longer serves the purpose of breaking the tension.

An ideal horror experience uses atmosphere to build dread. Like putting more and more tension on a string the player becomes more stressed and anxious. Then once you've built the stress high enough, you give a payoff, a jump scare or a creepy reveal. These are the memorable moments of horror.

I don't want to be reminded of this.

I would put him in the same tier as Lovecraft. Not horror as such, more "Weird Fiction."

Lots of things!!

I don't know, maybe we are used to gore and edgy shit like that, that is why most things don't seem too unsettling, but eve I had time where I felt unpleasant, most of the times the "monster" was once human, and it always seem to be in a lot of pain.

Well, if anyone is interested, his whole collection is up on piratebay, I believe it is worth it.

Welp, I guess I'm not sleeping tonight.

Making you afraid of what could be there, that's what P.T. did, after that bitch grabbed you, you didn't know when she was gonna turn up again, turning a corner each time left you wondering what would change the next time, and because you process this in your head, you panic.

Significant consequences for dying.

Yeah, checkout this trailer, you can clearly see a bunch of stuff that probably came from him.

youtube.com/watch?v=tVylTfkDP5c

Lack of security. Familiar things being evil, twisted or betraying you in some way. I'm not talking about just things like monsters or somesuch. Imagine playing a game where you use a flashlight to keep a monster weak to light at bay. Then suddenly, the method stops working and the monster slowly approaches you through the light, suffering, cowering it's eyes. Give player a chance to either avoid combat or stun the enemy momentarily with some melee weapon. Lull him into the security of beating a monster and running past it. Make the melee weapon break without warning him. Granted, stuff like this only works once per idea.

Ideally, anything that distracts the players from thinking that they are playing a GAME with certain set rules works quite well.

There's a video a lot like this that starts out like a normal news channel and then goes on to an emergency message about the moon.

Anybody got that?

horror games are hard to balance since you have to make the player feel vulnerable, but if the game is too difficult then dying/restarting just ruins the immersion. the best level would be to have you feel like you're one step away from death at any point, but in actuality it's almost impossible to die.

Same fucking local channel you silly goose.

Lighting is so important. The first Fnaf has some flaws but the lighting of the room you stayed in and the rooms you watched easily set the tense mood of the game

Oops, looks like I fucked up and confused things myself. youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdGl5mi0XeW0rOb8Ahw4L3kGflHJ9IdqF

Yup, Hideo Kojima, Guillermo Del Toro and Junji Ito had their hands on Silent Hill.

Then it was cancelled, I legitmately hope every one involved goes broke, loses their homes, families and will to live only to suffer until they die like dogs in an alley.

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?

Tried searching that. Got nothing. I know it's something like 'Local News Channel #' or something. Just forgot the number.

not effective without sound

A few deaths are fine.

Actually going back to non-generous auto-saves, or even save points, might be a solid method.
You can have deaths that affect things as well. losing resources could work. But so could having deaths change things. Obstacles move, monsters are placed differently etc.

I think, in the end, more than most other genres, horror games need an extreme amount of love and care and attention in order for them to be considered good. Almost every complaint about the horror genre these days COULD be executed well. Jump scares can be executed in a way that is satisfying. Hide and Seek games can be executed well, so the player is actually threatened. Resource management can be executed in a way that has the player both low on resources, but with enough to actually finish the game. It just takes a lot of effort, and a willingness to say "some people just won't be able to finish this"

youtube.com/watch?v=rLy-AwdCOmI

I always thought the uncanny valley was the greatest way of scaring someone. Take something that looks human, then alter it just slightly so that it doesn't look 100% human anymore, but is still recognizable as a human.

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Aw shit nigga that's it.

Weather Service always gives me goosebumps.

my peanus weanus of course!

haha

Yes this. People are always trying to shit on jumpscares but, for example, PT needed the moment in which lisa rips off your head for the first time. This let you know, that for the remainder of the game, she could appear again at any moment.

If a game just continuously kept telling you "something could kill you at any moment!" but never follows through, you'll start to think "nah, shut the fuck up, game, clearly nothing is fucking coming."

I am not completely sure, but i recently started monster hunter and on a quest after defeating a monster, a warning appeared that a new monster is in the area and the music became pretty ominous. Not knowing what monster came and the music made the whole situation extremely scary

black people

Well what was it? Was it a scary monster?

Yeah, these worked pretty well for what they are. Even the sound was well designed. You knew they were around, and it was a jarring and annoying sound amongst the mostly silent station.

youtube.com/watch?v=LnkMSmLc6mM

This, take any scene where a figure is moving but not using their legs, like as if they're floating of something and I'm on edge.

A character who tries to make it clear that he's not smiling of his own volition.

It was a Zinogre, far to strong for me yet and very scary.

i got emulated p3rd before it was translated. standard bullfango hunt, then suddenly a loud warning siren, W A R N I N G appears and gets crushed by teeth, and japanese text pops up with eerie ass music. eventually after a minute a roar echos around the music changes again. the hunt music is also special

youtube.com/watch?v=qxtDVyJb6hg

Ever see that movie A Tale of Two Sisters? There's a scene at the beginning where the stepmother starts walking towards the two girls. It's extremely subtle; I almost didn't notice it the first time I watched the movie, but as she walks her head doesn't bob up and down. That one tiny detail was one of the scariest parts of the entire movie for me.

I've heard of it, Sup Forums seems to like it, but that sounds scary, taking natural and removing a piece of it so that your brain doesn't know how to process what's wrong with it.

Nah, i'm the same. It's better if you go in not expecting to be spooked. Good art, though.

I read your post thinking there was no way MH could be scary, but if that video suddenly happened to me after 1000+ hours of hunts ending when they're supposed to I'd probably be quite unnerved.