How do you make horror games nowadays that aren't walking simulators?

How do you make horror games nowadays that aren't walking simulators?

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using a computer

By giving player the ability to fight back and not relying on
>le you can't hurt the monster XD
memes.

By making it multiplayer

This.
If you cannot fight the monster and can only run away? shit game.
Also a horror game needs to have multiple paths so it can "Mind fuck" you several times after experiencing a first playthrough

He asked how to make horror games not spoopy games with no suspense or real threat.

Resident Evil 7 isn't a walksim, if that's what you're implying, it's clearly inspired by Alien: Isolation.

DBD is getting a competitor, Last Year:

youtube.com/channel/UC4B_HfxNxbfsfxJGfKVu8Xw

Think of a game concept or idea that has nothing to do with horror, and then make the aethestics of it creepy.

Something like pic related

I strongly disagree.
I remember playing Dead Space thinking "Oh this is shit, I can just shoot those spooky zombies in the head."
It stops being scary when you can have the upper hand.

>alien isolation isn't a walking simulator.
@@@#$&!/!$$!!!!

I think RE4 or DOOM are more of your thing where you can blast anything in the game to oblivion.
Now move along, we are discussing how to make a HORROR game.

just copy resident evil remake

you are trapped in a place and have to solve puzzles to get out.

combat is limited but satisfying and the story is mostly based on likable characters interacting with each other

or you go the eternal darkness route by having it all be episodic based. each episode taking place on a different trapped place

Dead space was a dudebro shooter with horror themes, not an actual horror game
You can fight back in silent hill and it's still a scary game

Not him, but I think it's fine if you have rationed access to things that let you strategically delay the boogeyman from getting you.

Make the player do things that while is justifiably the right thing to do, it is still harrowing.

As a quick, cheap example: Say you get demons possessing ordinary people and turning them into terrify abominations. You fight them in order to not die, all the while the 'human inside' is screaming and begging for their own body to stop or for you to somehow save them. When they die by your hands, they scream out in agony and writhe as the demon exits their body hastily to avoid being destroyed, leaving a mangled corpse of a person with seconds of life left in their eyes.

>Make the enemies extremely dangerous
>give the player weapons with very little ammo for that false sense of safety
>creepy as fuck ambience
>doesnt have to be super dark just gloomy
Add interesting, exciting gameplay,story and some shit on top
As an example I would take stalker misery mod, you are always scare for your life since pretty much anything could pop out and kill you

>It stops being scary when you can have the upper hand.
Wrong. Hide and seek simulators appeal to the lowest common denominator. The whole "it's scary because you cant defend yourself" shtick is used by brain dead hacks who aren't talented enough to develop a logical combat system. Hide and seek simulators aren't frightening because every time the monster appears you know you can only run or hide. Since how this genre appeals to simpletons? So the solution is always insulting obvious because the designers know their target audience is composed of 13 year old children. All you have to do is crouch down in the corner of a side room or hide in a cupboard/locker/insert variation of closed space here.

There's no tension, no fear, you know how to respond to every single enemy encounter. A game with combat is frightening because when a monster appears you think holy shit I'm supposed to deal with that? Then a lot of horror games change things up where on some occasions you have to run away from the monster, Fatal Frame 3, Silent Hill 2.

Not only this it takes talent and skill to implement a good combat system in a horror game. If the combat is too easy the enemies aren't intimidating and the game loses it's tension. Too difficult and it's just frustrating. Takes actual talent and thought to implement an effective combat system into a horror game. Alien Isolation was the only good hide and seek simulator because the Xenomorph AI was decent enough and you could actually fight back.

tl;dr you're IQ isn't high enough to comprehend what makes horror effective, you just follow Pewdiepie Let's Players so they can tell you what you should pretend you're afraid of.

/thread

genuinely scary elements in non-horror games are fucking top tier and entirely too rare

i wait for Outlast 2

You don't know what a walking simulator is. Walking simulators are games like Gone Home in which you do very little, or nothing, other than moving around and being exposited to.

AI is a stealth game with combat, you may move at walking-pace for much of the game but you do so to avoid detection.

>Dead space was a dudebro shooter with horror themes

The 2nd game wasn't a dudebro shooter, let alone the 1st.

The first two are going to come off as "One Shot Bullshit Enemies" and "Artificial Difficulty."
Your second point is dependent upon what your general user finds to be creepy. There's stuff that I observe as creepy that's completely acceptable behavior by others.
And your final point is heavily reliant upon the setting.

Those are some hot opinions user. Honestly the only parts of Silent Hill or Fatal Frame that are remotely spooky are outside combat sequences. Being able to defeat the horror element destroys any fear I have.

virtual reality

using VR even Doom 3 is able to get you scared, and that used to be one of the most laughable examples of jump scare ridden fucking shit horror games

Immersion, but more extreme. Great sound design and atmosphere are a must, but there's one game that either just came out, or about to release that forces a player's mic to be used and causes the creature of the week to home in on them if they're going full on sperglord like Youtubers tend to do, and punishes them for their fear.

I think FNAF's Sister location actually did a pretty great job toying with ways to screw with players, and could be expanded upon in a more fleshed out title where there are goals and objectives, but the player is clearly being hunted, and each location has its own perils to keep players tense and on edge. Be a prick and make a mechanic like REmake's zombies busting through doors and have horrors chasing you through someone else's domain if you fuck up bad enough, and have it become a war of attrition on the player's sanity and resources

Conversely, have a game where everyone thinks they're the killer, and have it where they're using abilities on each other to psych out the competition. Like, each player is essentially like a Freddy Krueger or what have you on their screen, and the other players are teens, but the reality is that everyone is actually the killer with their own customized abilities to screw one another and warp reality / set traps, to flip the genre on its head

I somewhat agree. If a game can scare you even if you have weapons at your disposal, it's pretty good.

System Shock 2 is good example I think.

>Being able to defeat the horror element destroys any fear I have.
I already deconstructed why that type of horror fails in vidya.
>Honestly the only parts of Silent Hill or Fatal Frame that are remotely spooky are outside combat sequences.
Nuh uh, Pyramid Head chasing you down the hallway of the hospital basement was intense as fuck.

Horror setting messes with perception. Give the player control of the situation. Let the player think they're safe and comfortable, then spring whatever on it, taking their control of the situation away.
There are those that say that's a bad game choice, but real horror is losing power and having absolute control ripped from you. You're now at the mercy of whatever wants to kill you.

Not spooky, just adreniline pumping. No different from PvP in ArmA or such games

It doesnt have to be one shot enemy just make taking damage an actually bad thing that affects gameplay, making you slower aim worse fuck with your vision, whatever
And if you dont like the difficulty of killing the monster noone ia forcing you to do it, pick your fights correctly, maybe you see a a monster patrolling around some medical supplies you need, sneak up on it and fuck it up using the advantage of the surprise

yeah sounds great

imagine a horror game in which every enemy you encounter is a small mini boss which you sometimes can actually out run which changes the story

That sounds like Dark Souls with health packs.

Combat of some sort is a necessity. Clunky is fine, it's just excessively retarded when I play a horror game, and there are literally no means of defense. A person will find some goddamn way to lash out and attack something that is pursuing them after too long, it's the epitome of immersion destruction for me when I play a game like Outlast and pass by dozens of tools I could use to at least impede most enemies, yet the protagonist evidently is too retarded to comprehend this.

I felt like the Siren series handles this moderately well. Your character is never by any means a wrecking machine, you fight like shit, and nothing actually dies for good. But you at least have the option to fight back if you get yourself cornered, which heightens the tension. Meanwhile if I make a wrong turn in one of these no combat horror games, I usually just let the enemy kill me so I can restart, which isn't scary so much as exasperating.

So just make it more immersive. Combat of some form is more immersive than none at all, unless I am playing some form of Stephen Hawking horror game. Then I could imagine combat would be difficult, but that is often not the case.

Playing the little girl in Forbidden Siren, chased by a huge infected dude screaming my name. Think I finally lost him, use the capacity to see trough enemies eyes, see myself trough his.

Scary game that was. You could shoot everything but you knew they were bound to come back soon.

Best horror moments in vidya are never meant to be horror moments.

Just play it on harder you gimp

Is that a bad thing tho?

With System Shock 2 being a blend of genre, was the horror aspect entirely intentional ?

Anyone here played Fear 2 demo, with the jumpscare that you miss near the end of the level because you don't turn around ? They didn't put it in the final game, which is a shame.

Also, speaking of jumpscares, it's been done to death and almost every time poorly. But a few well placed ones are a good idea ( eg REbirth )

>implying you couldn't kill zombies in all the earlier Resident Evils
>implying you couldn't fight the monsters in Silent Hill
You're a massive retard. There's a difference between having the ability to fight and making it difficult or inconvenient and thus forcing the choice upon you and what Amnesia clones do with 'here's a monster and your arbitrary chase/run away and hide sequence'. Having the option to fight makes the game more tense because it isn't immediately blatant that, like in said Amnesia clones, whether you should be fighting at all and included with that comes the dilemma of conservation of materials like ammunition, healing items, or even whether you choose to carry a weapon. It plays with the fight or flight sequence instead of 'ho hum another monster time for their scripted monster sequence'. Go posture somewhere else faggot.

Horror games ought to play more on the expectations that come with conventions in gaming, as opposed to just aping film horror.

Nothing's creepier than ROM read glitches and such.
youtube.com/watch?v=unhrHJWueeg&t=193s

Come to think of it, coherence is an everyday expectation of reality that's also an important part of game convention.

Primer isn't a horror film, yet it's more horrific than one.