How do we fix the horror genre?

How do we fix the horror genre?

me on the left

Capcom just did

more twitchbait furry robots

This but make em hotter

RE7 may have been a good game, but it wasn't much in the way of horror at all.

More atmospheric and mind horror is nice. Unsettling, unnerving.

Jump scares shouldnt exist but the idea of doing something to make the player jump from frieght should.

I still think jumpscares are viable, but the current games use them like fucking penny candy.

Conserve those jumpscares for parts of the game to make all of the fear come to a climax and make those jumpscares truly something to remember.

So you didn't play the game?

So it was scary but an otherwise shitty game?

Genres are defined by their mechanics.

Therefore, 'horror' is not a genre.

Nice rebuttal confirmed for not playing the game.

>>>reddit>>>

1: No more creepy little girls. We get it, Ringu was popular. Fucking stop it. No more "la la la laaa la" no more "then DIIIIE" no more shrill screaming. Fucking stupid.
2: Enough first person perspective. Yes, PT was viral memes much popular, so was FNAF, so was Amnesia and all the youtube numales yelled at them. It's fucking stupid.
3: Stop blowing so much money on janky ass mo-cap and graphics creep. Focus on your aesthetics.
4: Stop trying to make all of your monsters look like something from a Cronenberg movie. The Thing was awesome, Dead Space is shit. Dumb.
5: You're not Team Silent and you never will be. Stop trying to copy Silent Hill.
6: Enough fucking military badass protagonists. I get it, you liked Aliens, we all liked Aliens, but Aliens wasn't scary. Fuck.
7: Holy shit can the industry get rid of crafting systems? These are never fun and only add steps to the inevitable process of having an item. If you want an item to be hard to get, put less of them in the game. Not rocket science.
8: Do you get scared at jump scares? You might have Alzheimer's, stop making games. Old fucker.
9: Dolls aren't scary, deformed people are depressing, and the uncanny valley is a shitty gimmick for your monster design. Shit looks like muppets and it's not scary.
10:Create your tension with the gameplay, not your middle-school level creative writing classes. You're not Lovecraft, if you were you'd be writing novels, not shoveling text into a Unity game.

>here's thing I don't like. insert insult.

I do agree with you on most, if not all of that though.

I am curious though, if you were to create an horror game, what would it be about, how would it play?

I can't begin to trust my untrained instincts enough to design a game but it would focus around the sensation of putting yourself in danger. The times I feel the most tension in horror games is when I know there's a thing coming that I'm not ready for but I have to do it anyway.

It's probably be about mecha. You're just some tiny civilian or a space gypsy and there's a war and war is hell, etc. Giant robots can smash through buildings and have mono-eye faces. Other than that are roaming death squads. You don't have a gun and if you pick one up you are so laughably untrained you get shot to ribbons. Over the shoulder, tank controls, focus on getting from point A to point B and not getting genocided.

The best horror games are the ones that put the player in the characters' shoes. The problem is recent years is that the industry has tailored games so the characters put themselves in the players' shoes. This isn't limited to the horror genre. It's why we've seen a rise in protagonists from more humble beginnings, ones that can't do as much, or have to audibly reassure themselves or call the situation crazy, as the designers think someone would do in that situation. It's not inherently bad to do these characters, but developers do this as a crutch because they've made the character relatable, but the game isn't immersible.

You want games that make the player want the same goals as the character. You want numeric values to represent health you don't want to lose because you might not survive, not just because you're losing the game. It's why older games like Resident Evil 3: Nemesis were much better at horror, because even though Jill was able to survive getting impaled, poison, outrunning a genetically engineered BOW, and more despite being the equivalent of a SWAT member with a bunch of plants, the pressure on her situation translated well to the player. Fearing Nemesis being around another corner, wondering if you can scavenge enough supplies in an undead city, limping to the next safe room, and more all drew the player more into the game, even though it's 18 years old and "video gamey" as fuck.

And it's why Condemned Criminal Origins is the best horror game. In order to survive as Ethan, you have to put yourself in his shoes. To hear or notice enemies, you have to listen as Ethan would. If you need a weapon, you have to frantically look around and grab a pipe like Ethan would. It's all tuned so that the player needs to step into the protagonist's shoes to win, so you get immersed in their situation.

Then you get fukken spooked because you're at the end of your rope trying to survive against who knows what next

>Jump scares shouldnt exist
Daily reminder you're a pussy that doesn't actually like horror.

>I SAID, LOOK BEHIND YOU

horror is not a genre, it's a theme.

The problem with jumpscares is that they are just a lazy way of scaring the player. Anyone can sneak up behind you and shout OOGA BOOGA BOOGA and make you jump out of pure instinct. Its just cheap.
Good horror is achieved through good atmosphere and world design, which is rarely seen these days because it takes actual effort and talent to accomplish.

OH BOY ANOTHER FUCKING "How do we fix a genre that simply doesn't work outside of literature?" THREAD, I CAN'T WAIT TO GO THROUGH THE SAME OLD TIRED RESPONSES UNTIL THE THREAD DEVOLVES INTO OFF-TOPIC GARBAGE

Make a game that's normal and straightforward the first playthrough and in subsequent playthroughs it get's weirder and more fucked up.

For example if in a hitman knock off the second time you play a level certain NPCs are brutally murdered when you meet them.The player could write it off as a glitch or scripting flub.

The third time most of the nonessential NPCs are dead and dismembered and the others are running and screaming.

After that the levels have no NPCs.
The walls of the level are rotten and after the player explores for a while a killer shows up.

>dogs barking by that one fence
>go throughout this area multiple times
>come back 1 time, silence
>DOGS

>How do we fix a genre that simply doesn't work outside of literature?
Are you literally unironically saying that Horror doesn't work in film?

>This thread

Oh boy, I love this thread, I can't wait until people who don't play horror games start complaining about them in retarded ways, especially when their experience with the genre is playing Resident Evil 2 once and getting halfway through Dead Space.

by stopping with the shitty youtube bait first person games that rely on jump scares.

Go back to survival horror, original silent hills, fatal frames and resident evil did it right.
You cant be scared with a game. Because its not threatening to you unless you believe in paranormal bullshit. But you can be very tense and disturbed. This is achieved by a combination of limited saves and careful inventory management, slow pace gameplay based on solving puzzles and looking at the environment.
Also the cameras need to be separate from the player, modern game cameras are perpetually stuck on the player and while it gives the user more control this is exactly what we dont want in a horror game. Expertly made camera angles help convey a lot of feelings that the regular behind the shoulder camera fails to. And it also allows the environment to breathe and have a sense of scale and immersion that you just fail to get with the modern cameras, your character feels like it's in a world that he cannot control.

Have characters not mutes, have good stories to go along, nothing will ruin the tension like a retarded plot and characters.

Have good background music, most horror games nowadays simply forget that this is the most important thing to enhance atmosphere. silent hill is the one stellar example here.
Silence and ambient noises have their place too. Dont cheap out on sound.

name one good horror movie that isn't the thing or nosferatu

Depends on what type of horror. RE7 was a jump-scare-spook-fest (which is fine desu), but I'm still longing for the anxiety fueling, heart shaking lows Silent Hill 1-3 offered. The only fix to that is passion and creativity. As long as devs rely on ripping off other titles (and then unashamedly calling it an homage), there's no fixing it.

The Thing From Another World

Alien

>none of these released after 2000
I don't really watch horror movies so I can't tell if horror movies are dead or if you two are just too patrician for the current industry. Can someone enlighten me?

Horror is dead. It's literally all Ringu and Blair Witch emulation.

You're just talking about poor execution, not jumpscares.

Pussy.

id say horror is even harder to accomplish on movies AND books because you are merely an observer rather than taking an active role.

I have never been scared with books sadly, although i enjoy reading them. And with movies....nothing in the last 20 years or so.

Someone mentioned the thing but the mosnters are laughable and break the tension, except for the first dog monster that was nightmare fuel. But even still id take the thing over any fucking thing done in the last 20 years

Good sound direction is important for horror. An unseen enemy is oftentimes more frightening than one on the screen.

Another element that I don't see mentioned often is a break in tedium. The best example of this would be in hub based games where the player visits areas or rooms multiple times and changes occur, like a corpse rises and attacks when it usually just sits there on the ground. In other words, creating a false sense of security and then suddenly thrusting the player into a combat event is more effective than just constantly throwing enemies and jumpscares at the player.

Finally, this is just a personal preference, but I'd like to see more genres of gameplay used in horror games than just shooters and adventure games.

>Another element that I don't see mentioned often is a break in tedium. The best example of this would be in hub based games where the player visits areas or rooms multiple times and changes occur,

this is great. Also i enjoy the sense of security you got on the save rooms. They were the holy ground and it made going out into the world so much worse because of the anticipation of leaving the safe place. specially in those giant multiple floor environments with dozens of rooms in silent hill games.

If you wanna be unsettled just look in the mirror.

I know cry of fear was sort of an abortion in a lot of ways, but it had some great ideas.
>the player visits areas or rooms multiple times and changes occur
I know this happened at a few points, not necessarily in hub worlds because there are none, but a lot of different enemies that are disguised as corpses have different behaviors. At one point one drags itself out from under a bed and I'm fairly certain the animation for it is only used at that specific point.
>creating a false sense of security and then suddenly thrusting the player into a combat event
CoF was GREAT at fucking with the player. Near the start there are multiple doors that have fake loading screens and enemies will open them up behind you at some point.
Also when you take the fuses out in the school and you're plunged into darkness, or when you get past the lake in the boat and the serene soundtrack suddenly breaks off when the floor collapses under you.
It had some serious issues, but it also had great variety and some incredible design choices. It nailed the aura of oppressive loneliness and melancholy that Silent Hill seems to have originated and added its own spin on it.

>6: Enough fucking military badass protagonists. I get it, you liked Aliens

You clearly never watched Aliens because the entire fucking point of having the main cast comprise of people from the military was to show how powerful the xenomorphs were by how easily they wiped them out. Swear to god everyone always only remembers that last fight between Ripley and the queen and not the two fucking hours of pure horror before it.

enyone knows how the fuck do i play hellmoo?

Not that guy, but I dislike seeing military people in horror because I feel like there are more tactful ways of showing the monster's power than having it slaughter a dozen highly trained soldiers.

You need a MUD client, then you need to connect using that. Look it up, won't take long.
Doubt HellMOO is still active these days though.

You listed off a lot of whining but didn't propose anything new. We can't fix the genre but just gutting out things.

I'm a fan of malevolent, alive architecture. Things like a wall changing silently behind you, a room smaller than it was before, mysterious doors and rooms that weren't there before, pathways that don't make sense par the design of the place such as a new door opening into a new hallway when the other side of that door should be an open room and you can still go back to that open room the ordinary way. Double so if it's like the house the character lives in and the changes start small and intensify as you become aware of them. Not sure how to make a game of that, but I think it's good horror.

This, It's a genre for film, it's a theme for games.

Your idea kind of reminds me of Silent Hill 4: The Room. It had a cool idea with the apartment hub evolving over time and having events jumpscares happen depending on certain criteria.

BLING BLONG

They had a server reset last year so that was the best time to hop in
Played it for a month but it gets old fast without someone to play with


Was fairly active regarding how niche it is

I think palpable malevolence is important in horror, regardless of where it comes from.

Play Unloved for the GZDoom source port.

what's some good horror lit senpai

Dead Space one was pretty alright though.

When we had the shopping mall threads here I thought about advertising a game in a false fashion. The player would be able to complete the game quickly if he followed the given objective but if he for example slipped through a hole in a fence to get to the abandoned mall the horror part would start without him knowing anything about the story or gameplay mechanics

Invasion of the body snatchers 1978

Take a pop song from the 60's, then use that as the leitmotif of the production.

>mecha horror
Dude...

Your idea is shit

There are no explicit scares
Limited loading - permadeath, lives or distant checkpoints
You can hide
You can fight back
You can kill the monsters
But they keep coming and getting stronger, while you always have limited resources

>played for a couple of min
>got killed by cultist


is ter eny way i can control the outcome of a fight?

I really don't like saying this, but I think this was the best handled jump scare in a long time and still remains that way for me.

Read the wiki

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Motherfucking suspiria bitch

So RE7?

git gud

im sucking alvin dick
does that make me gud?

Fix the players who are playing it wrong then complaining about the game not being scary

scary stories to tell in the dark

>Horror games where it's actually just a shitty action/shooter with bad controls and spooky monsters
>Horror games where you're in some random ass place you'd never go to and you just need to run away from scripted jump scares

Whose stream did you watch?

Monsters in RE7 don't come back indefinitely and are killed by hiding behind a door, so no

By not having it be a walking simulator.

I've played on and off for a few years.
1 Stop typing like you're twelve. it's infuriating to read.
2. Pick a weapon, and only one weapon. I recomend fists.
3. Join a corp I dunna who the fuck is on anymore so I can't really help you on that. but they'll hook your ass up and help you out.
4. Be prepared for the long haul. it can take months to get decent and start to really have fun with the game. It's worth it.
5. So help me god if you tag fuck I will find you and gut you like a fish. There are already too many sexhabbers. one more won't help.

Walking simulators can be pretty alright if the atmosphere is good enough.

babadook

Me on the left.

Not him, but you don't know what you're talking about.

He's completely right. The last time I was legit frighten was with Alien Isolation, and even though I finished it several times it still unsettles me.

There's no jump scares in that game. World and good atmosphere is king.

more bears

Alien Isolation was boring as fuck and padded to hell and back.

...

Why hasn't the horror genre focused on cryptids? There's so many untapped story and gameplay material you'd think there be a shitload of games about them by now
>tfw STILL no mothman game

>Yfw this was cancelled

Guys I'm worried I might have lynks disease, should I see a doctor?

...

Bethesda already gave it a good shot with The Evil Within, and they were far more gutsy considering they've tried with a new IP instead of a something already popular.
Unfortunately people really love their fucking hide and seek and movie simulators so they had to push them in anyways.

More jumpscares.

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>Limited loading - permadeath
pick one. being easy to be killed directly translated into lots of loading screens

...

Restricting play movement and contol. Just a slower movespeed from being caught in a trap would be enough. Personally I'm very afraid of anything water related so a monster that makes dripping noises or just underwater segments scare the living shit out of me.

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>The Evil Within
>gutsy
they chickened out at every corner until it was nothing but another bland resident evil

Take away weapons. Weapons are the exact reason why horror games stop being scary
Look at RE7, not scary at fucking all because you know you can blast the shit out of everything. The only scary part of that game is going through eveline's room - that's what horror games should be more like, not knowing what's going to happen, being pretty much unable to fight back.
Like Alien Isolation, sure you get weapons but you can't do fuck all to the alien (until late game flamethrower and even then you have to do shit like crawl through the alien's nest and you're too shit scared that they might burst out at any moment because you know you wouldn't be able to get them all)
Nothing wrong with jumpscares either, stop buying into the "jumpscare = bad" meme, use them sparsely so that the player always feels tense as fuck, like they might get ooga wooga'd at any moment like in outlast.
No friendly NPCs that follow you around either, you have to be alone for at least the majority of the game

Did you play Soma?

You can have a good horror game without jumpscares if everything else is done well however putting jumpscares into a game doesn't ruin it if they too are done well. Jumpscares have their place in horror and can be used as an excellent payoff at the end of a long buildup, saying they shouldn't exist is pants on head retarded.

They've tried an old stile survival horror trusting devs with no experience in the matter and using an entirely new IP so they had free hype train ride.
Usually publishers don't even dream of taking such risks.

Has any director experimented with almost cartoon like principles? Stuff like loose consistency in proportions of objects, buildings and people. With houses it could add to a feeling of nauseousness and claustrophobia.
I don't know about all of you but when there's a bending stretching cartoon house recreated irl I find it more unsettling and eerie than anything.
Same shit with living beings, one moment some dude's eyes are normal and the next his pupils contract to an unrealistic size, in cartoons this type of stuff happens and we don't think about it but if it were applied to live action it could make for unsettling imagery.
We have the technology for it.

This shit doesn't even look scary, it just looks weird. Sort of reminds me of those old PS2 ads

No, I'm a massive fucking coward. I'm gonna download it and also Condemned: Criminal Origins that some user talked about a few posts up. Time to not sleep tonight.

Can confrim the grind

It was too boring alone and couldn't bring myself past it

But it is a neat game. The oprhanage cult quest with the nun's photo was cool

But it was just farming orphans, then seniors and then crackheads from there on

Also I trained cutting weapons which turned out to be shir according to the wiki