How do we fix the horror genre?

How do we fix the horror genre?

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Make pewdiepie make a horror game. He has played so many of them, nothing existing will scare him. so what he invents to scare him will save the genre.

Remaster RE2 and RE3. That is about as close as you can come to "fixing" the horror genre. Game developers are just like movie makers, they think that cheap jump scares is what makes a horror movie/game good.

Don't get me wrong classic horror movies, shows, and games all have jump scares but spamming the fuck out of them don't make them great. One of my favorite horror movies is Insidous. Not because of the jump scares but because of the music and that unfucking settling feeling you get. The same feeling I got when playing and watching the first 3 Silent Hill games. That sense of hopelessness you got from playing the early Silent Hill and Resident Evil games but moreso Silent Hill. We don't have that in horror games anymore.

I think the no combat subgenre is played out. Devs need to try and make the games scary while having actual gameplay/combat.

Actually, even no combat could still work if the games were puzzle heavy. Most of these no combat horror games are really close to being walking simulators. Amnesia 1 and Soma kind of skirt the line as I'd like more puzzles but basically everything else that was inspired by Amnesia was a walking simulator.

But yeah, bring back combat but find a way to still make the player feel powerless, or at least try and make the game still scary even if the player is rarely in any danger of dying because they can fight.

Could even just not have monsters in your game and go for a more psychological horror angle with human enemies maybe. I'm too tired to try and come up with specifics.

make it not about zombies

>Tfw I know what this picture is, and I'm not opening it.

It's too late

I don't really play horror games but I think I would play them if they kept jump scares at a minimum. I want to see more strange and mysterious kind of horror along the lines of X-files or The Thing.

Copy P.T. and make a 10 hour long repeating corridor, except with different ghosts and monsters during each "stage". I'm a genius.

What? I know I'm probably getting b8ed but go ahead I'm listening.

>Not knowing how to beat it

D Class should not be allowed to use computers.

remove post-processing filterridden shit

It's an SCP that's a creature who will ruthlessly hunt down and painfully disembowel anyone who sees its face, be it in person or through digital means. OP's picture has the creature circled, with it's face approximately one pixel large. It will still hunt people down for something that small, and once it starts up it can't be stopped by mortal means, and even some immortal ones.

It's named SCP-096. The picture is evidence from Incident-096-1-A.

scp-wiki.net/scp-096

Instead of spooky shit nobody is really scared of, make it about stuff like letting down those you look up to.

Instead of twitch-bait simulator, make Jeb! simulator.

Really?

Don't advertise it as a horror game, that way people see your shit coming a mile away, instead use deception to turn a happy go lucky game into a nightmare by subtly changing tiny things everytime the characters passes the same area.

Im sure you saw that picture with the red circle on the wall, but the scary creature was staring at you under the floor boards.
Thats how you do a horror

game, subtle and deceptive.
Not the lel dude jumpscares way.

Chamge the rules a bit, dont make it an in your face horror, that never successeds.

Go into High Cosmic horror. Not stuff like Cthulu, I mean stuff like fucking Neutronium Golems. Go full blown /tg/ and create the scariest world possible not because it's our world with some weird crap, but because the horror is the real world in itself getting fucked over by powers that are not just beyond its reality, but beyond EVERY reality.

You got to think, will the player hive a fuck when he sees this?

Your job is to make them give a fuck.

>That fan entry where a dude on a space station sees it's picture.
>It rockets into the sky, plows through the space station, and tackles his ass out the other side.

Yes.
A game like Silent Hill but instead of monsters its the mega donors you've disappointed as Jeb would make for a way more interesting experience.

Jeb! will make horror great for once.

...

I'd like to see one that deals with real world horror rather than supernatural. Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs is far more terrifying than a monster. Let's face it: if you're still spooked by ghouls and ghosts you're a child.

Not having Scott Cawthon make more fucking FNAF games.

>Just garbage scp shit

I thought it was gonna be an actual story

true. i find most horror games to not be thoughtful horror. i don't even mean "deep" when i say that, i just mean that most simply SIGNAL that they're a horror game. they just implement "horror things". not that those things can't be effective, but you must do more than use them to signal one of the typical structures of horror.
i think pathologic does horror very well (but i wouldn't call it a horror game).
it's a strange world from the start, and it builds on it very slowly and patiently. it makes suggestions here and there about the nature of certain things but for the most part does not try to scare the player outright. then something utterly absurd happens, both player and player character are completely confused, things are making less sense than usual. due to the building of various elements the player may begin to feel there's a larger sinister force behind the events in the game, and perhaps behind the game itself, as these things are bound well with the gameplay. they may notice something strange about a quest or two, and feel like they aren't really in control. then they recall something strange an NPC said that seems to reflect that, and... well it's just built in a very smart way.
many things are very unpolished and lacking, but its fiction, and pacing, and how the gameplay ties with that are very effective as horror. and unfortunately, it's the only game i know of that succeeds so well at this sort of thing on a large scale.

SCP is the most autistic fanfiction bullshit of all time and that in itself is a serious
accomplishment.

>that way people see your shit coming a mile away
Internet killed any chance of this. Reviews not allowed to discuss it, no videos allowed to be uploaded and tons of other shit.

Just can't work in today's world.

One issue is "real world" horror can only exist in cheesy movie flicks. Carry a gun and you solve 99% of anything that can happen in real life.

But to expand on this. I'm trying to find it but there's this wild west story of a mountain man that ranchers accused of killing cattle. Law men came to question him, he wouldn't talk, only made animalistic sounds and ran off. They tracked him for days, couldn't catch him even with horses, the distance he covered would have taken like 5000 calories. When they finally did he attacked and they shot him. They don't even know if he was the one killing the cattle.

I remember when the movie From Dusk Till Dawn came out and me and my friends all assumed from the advertising that it was another pulp fiction/reservoir dogs type Tarantino deal. Then, fucking vampires. Outta nowhere.

Horror these days should only exist in film to be honest. There hasn't been a horror video game to break the mold in years and years.

I would genuinely like to see a game where you play as a child walking home at night and you have to look out for pedophiles and kidnappers

I think this is a good example on how not to do it.
Apparently it's been getting popular but it's been mishandled in such a way that its honestly sad to see, considering the fantastic artstyle and I do love the idea behind it.
Also something like Bioshock 1 works well. You don't go in really expecting a horror game, and for all intended purposes, it's not meant to be one, but coupling the resources for ammo, roaming splicers, an oppressive environment and how everything is connected to this way of objectivism life, it manages to get some fantastic organic horror moments.

Happened to me as well although it was just last year. It was one of those movies I'd been meaning to see but never got around to it. Also went in expecting some Tarantino/Rodriguez movie. I'll admit, the vampires and everything from there on out took me by surprise.

nah, don't be ridiculous, there's way more autistic stuff than SCP
have you forgotten there's a super smash bros fanfic which is over 4,000,000 words long? it's like the longest piece of literature ever written, and it's about a nintendo party game. now THAT's autism.

He doesn't have the creativity to even make a good jumpscare

But smash Bros fans don't know any better, you should.

This is something I've thought about before. Imagine something like Cape Fear. How would it work in a game. The only reason the lawyer doesn't shoot Max Caddy on sight is because he's meant to be a normal person. The player is never a normal person.
I guess this happens with every medium, certain works or concepts are just to abstract to properly demonstrate, but I wonder if the interactivity inherent in games ends up being detrimental, if only because certain stories are nearly impossible.
At least without every significant moment being within custcenes, which I feel kinda defeats the purpose.

i agree about bioshock. i think it helps a lot for the game to not be entirely dedicated to being a horror game. give the player a lot to think and worry about, instead of leaving them only to wonder when the next monster will pop out. i feel many recent horror games just feel like haunted house simulators for that reason.
but about bendy, how is it mishandled? i don't know much about it except the very basic premise.

Get actually good writers.

Good horror fiction is not about a brief shocking moments created by a cheap jump scare that die away almost as soon as they have occurred. It's about establishing an unease in the mind, a lingering dread, a niggling doubt about the world around us. That's horror. The paranoia, the urge to check if there's something behind you, the decision to leave the night-light on for a night. You don't get that with jump-scares. You get that with slow-boiling tension, genuinely unnerving atmosphere, and insight and relation to everyday human life that will have people scared long after they finish.

Right now, horror fiction in general is filled with schlock trash, from literature, to movies, to games (probably most of all).

I think it could be done. Restricting the player to a certain area could easily remedy having access to a firearm. Something like being trapped in a secluded mountain resort in a snowstorm where a serial killer is present. Blood trails, mutilated bodies, etc. You could have plenty of spook without resorting to retarded monsters.

>Episodic
>6 bucks for each chapter
>2nd chapter is twenty minutes long
I'm honestly botheres when I see good, interesting ideas not being handled right. The game opens itself up to so many possibilites yet its just a typical indie horror game. Locked door, find three switches, listen to audiolog, do painfully obvious puzzle, chase scene, end.
The game oozes ha personality yet its so bog standard that its bothersome to even think about. I get that its mostly a one man project but god damn, I see the potential, but I think the guy is trying to be the next FNAF instead of being his own thing.
Sorry for the rant.

>tfw no David Lynch involved video game

I wonder if a studio has tried to get him involved. It seems like a project he'd like to experiment with.

Focus more on either being fun, interesting, disturbing or unsettling rather than straight up scary. I barely find any horror games actually scary but I still really like them.

They always have the option to turn them off
>NO I WANT TO LEAVE THEM ON SO I CAN BE MAD >:(
Fucking autist.

Just to add, credit where credit is due. Bendy is a nice character, has a very memorable Mickey-esque aspect that works well, the voice acting is fantastic, it captures that almost cartoony 1930's voices quite well, the artstyle, when its not the same exact hallways over and over again is also done well. The writing ranges from alright to painfully standard. And I hate how they jump straight into there being a cult of Bendy. Also the second chapter introduces a female character which feels like the dev is trying to have his own FNAF line-up for the sake of feeding the fandom/fetishes instead of being a natural progression, like Minnie to Mickey.

he would certainly be very interesting in games. i would only hope for it to be a bit of a longer project, instead of something short. i feel his ideas and his ability to create genuinely nightmarish feelings comes out very best through a long series of events

>twitch-bait
So is this Sup Forums's newest hot buzzword?

people shit on pewdiepie but he has pretty good taste. he played through yume nikki and ib after all...?

POST

>scary games you've played
>scary moments in games you've played
>scary game ideas
>real world inspirations

I think the only genuinely unsettling segment of any game I've played was the Thief: Deadly Shadows level The Cradle.

Definitely, Lynch's movies usually take a long time before something happens but everything before it sets-up the mood.
I could see the guys behind Outlast reaching out to him. Have Lynch co-direct just so it doesn't end up being a bundle of concepts without order or gameplay.

>a bundle of concepts without order
Sounds like someone hasn't seen Inland Empire.

We don't, we let it die and carry on

I actually spent a whole lot of time one night reading though some of the entries in this because I was bored
my favorites were the "thing" that can't be killed and all the different ways and items they've tried using to kill it and the fetish that has to be kept in total light and anyone that has seen it must be killed in the event of it being out of light

Something with abandoned malls. There was a thread long ago where people were just coming up with possible gameplay and stories for this setting, which lends itself quite well. The idea of a still working mall, lights working, intercoms working, hearing the alarm from a nearby shop going off, etc.

>posting the resized one
Shit taste desu

>researchniggers talking shit

don't you have some ridiculously unsafe experiments to carry out?

Actually haven't. Although movies tend to have more freedom to be as abstract as they want, specially when the viewer knows it'll be about 2 hours of it.
A game can only hold on for so long by being weird all over the place. Deadly Premonition has that Twin Peaks feel but it keeps the player focused with the murders and more immediate threats while keeping the weirdness surrounding every action and spoken line.