Survival horror: How to do it.

[Kajet]

Now when it comes to suvival horror games I personally prefer to watch someone else play, at a distance while shivering under a blanket but it seems to me that the big name pioneers of the genre's popularity have for the most part, been declawed, good for when you want something to quit scratching you all to hell but pointless when you do it and then expect someone else to be frightened by it.

Which brings me to my point, granted a new perspective was needed to keep Resident Evil from going completely dead instead of it's current form of mild necrosis but most if not all the elements that made the first really scary is completely abandoned in favor of a cliche action movie, granted a cliche action movie you control and are able to commit a gross amount of hate crimes, but you're still off to save a worthless half assed attempt at a love interest at the end of the day.

So what makes a game actually scary? Nothing really, simply adding stuff like a stone faced emotionless stalker does add a bit of shock and panic but only till you reach that next door. What really makes a game scary is what you don't give the player, Give them a briefcase they can cram an assload of guns ammo and health and they'll rip through the game like a fart going through a furry in an elevator.

What made RE1 and Silent Hill 1 really creepy wasn't just the monsters but the fact that you were for the most part alone with said monsters, without a worthless twat to babysit and scream in your ear and definitely no one around to upgrade your weaponry. Take for example Fatal Frame, the entire living cast could be counted on the fingers of one hand and it's scary enough to make me lose sleep just by watching someone else play through it on Youtube.

And honestly, if you're going the horror route why are you giving the player rifles, magnums, and rocket launchers? A really freaky game by the name of Clock Tower (On SNES DAMNIT, that PSX one made me laugh too much) gave the player very little if any defensive opportunities, granted having to calculate how many bullets you can afford to use under pressure will touch nerves chances are unless you've pillaged the entire game you will find more ammo.

Finally what about seemingly random freakout events? Having to back track through rooms for a freaking key is going to give players a bit of a rest, their nerves will calm down, but isn't that something you should prevent? Make lamps fall randomly, occasionally play sounds from something that will tear faces off, or... kill all the sound in an area that had some noise before, change small things as in "Hey... wasn't there a bodybag here before?" Take away the right thing at the right time and your victim's hair will stand on end.

In summation: Take away unimportant characters, play up paranoia, make the PCs worthless in a fight, or just barely faster than your monsters and give them a shitty armory.

 

[Ecs Wolfie]

Well, I love horror for anything but i've never had any game that genuinely scared me. The RE1 game was good because it was as you said, You against a horde of monsters.

And I agree with you on Fatal Frame X3 That game made me jump quite a few times, Because one, It's again just you against how many things, two, YOU ONLY HAVE THAT GOD DAMN CAMERA FOR PROTECTION >.< Which I mean is fun and all but there's times you wanna just whip out a big ass gun and mow down some ghosts if possible, Third is the fact that when a ghost disappears you have just about no way to tell where they'll appear and swoop in and attack you.

But I do see where you're coming from, It's why I favor old school games to those of the new ones, Because frankly most people (No offense to anyone just my opinion) make games to make money simple as that, They don't have a passion for making good games anymore.

But yeah, As you said, Go with a Fatal Frame kinda setting, You against how many things armed with only a camera or something X3

 

[TwilightV]

I played an "intense" mode to this one grizzly hunting game that scared the sh*t out of me...

 

[Skittle]

You mentioned Fatal Frame. You get my forever love. MY FOREVER LOVE!

I love that game so much. Soooo much.

 

[AlexX]

And honestly, if you're going the horror route why are you giving the player rifles, magnums, and rocket launchers? A really freaky game by the name of Clock Tower (On SNES DAMNIT, that PSX one made me laugh too much) gave the player very little if any defensive opportunities, granted having to calculate how many bullets you can afford to use under pressure will touch nerves chances are unless you've pillaged the entire game you will find more ammo.

Clocktower didn't give you ANY weapons. The most you could do in a confrontation was either resist his attempts to scissor you and push him over and run (assuming you have enough stamina left, but even if you do that takes quite a bit of stamina out of you). You had to either outrun him (and he likes to teleport around, sometimes appearing in front of you when you thought he was behind you and all that) or find a hiding spot until he goes away. Of course, if it's an obvious hiding spot like under the bed or the only crate in an otherwise empty room, he's still going to find you...

 

[Dayken]

While it may be completely missing the point of the older games, I'm happy with the direction the RE series has taken as of late. Every subsequent installment between 3 and 4 (yes, I know how weird that sounds) just got staler and staler.

And since when did Silent Hill stop being creepy? Sure, maybe the extreme FOG FOG FOG OH CRAP WHERE THAT MONSTER THAT'S CAUSING THE STATIC COMING FROM I CAN'T SEE ANYTHING aspect didn't really survive past SH two, but it's always been better at handling suspense and a general feeling of unease than the RE series.

 

[Verin Asper]

The only RE Series I liked was outbreak, you were just a citizen of Raccoon City, who is infected but not enough to become part of the undead crowd just yet, who was trying to find a way out and the cure. You find some up there weapons like Rocket Launchers or grenade Launchers but mostly by scenario that would explain why they are around. Ammo Is sorta Scarce but enough for players to not stick together and go off on their own, and your carrying space is small only enough for a gun some ammo a heal and maybe another gun/Melee weapon/key item.

 

[Digitalpotato]

You know what I would like to see a Survival Horror game try to do? Instead of try the whole Startle-Horror technique I'd like to see something that's trying to disturb you. You know, like Silent Hill or Eternal Darkness.

I've stated my idea for a Survival Horror game which is actually playing like Forbidden Siren, in which progression through the story makes your characters run into others, and instead of offering one major division, you get one choice at first that leads you down a different path with another character then another then a few others and they all lead to one path at the end which reveals all the story.

Of course though, the flaw is that in order to get all the story you have to replay a few levels to get to the division, but you can just go back and pick which ones branch out at the end or mid-level. And of course that also means repeated ground but what I would want to do is you not only explore different parts of the level but also don't do the exat same thing as another character.

Now onto the horror...what I wanted to do was that the characters are not really being stalked by anything because the twist would be they are hallucinating everything (Until the end when the thing that constitutes a final boss is a real thing but you don't actually have to fight it). And of course, no one hallucinates the same thing, meaning the monsters vary between the characters' imagination, even though I am more like making them seem like the characters are on an Acid trip considering I would like to try a different kind of scary scene...Remember the "PInk Elephants on Parade" scene in Dumbo? Yeah...that kind. Meaning no nurses with big boobies or Pyramid head.

Something more along the lines of Scissorman...something that's so fantastical so unrealistic it can't POSSIBLY be real and yet it seems to exist to the characters and makes them freak out. Thus that means that the combat is shaky and when the characters get really afraid it's worse since they are panicking. I also wanted to do something that builds up, like say if you enter a room to solve a puzzle but there's a signal causing you to hallucinate, you see something small and then it starts to build up until your character freaks out so much they pass out and you get a "level failure".

And instead of having cookie-cutter strengths and weaknesses like in Siren, it means you'll see different things happening and since they are hallucinating and panicking, they are actually imagining their specific phobias and panicking causes their view on reality to distort. eg one character is afraid of spiders, and if it builds up they start crawling everywhere and all over them. Another is afraid of fire meaning oyu see a small candle flame at first, then eventually the entire room is burning.

I imagined one sequence based off of real life to screw with the player's point of view. It's sunset and your character's walking on the road. For some reason you see lights reflected on the ice like a truck's getting closer to you. And eventually you see it all light up and even hear a truck but then you turn around and there's nothing.
I also imagined a reverse-Bathtub-Eternal-Darkness-scene, like where you hear a scream and of all things it shows an image of flowers and birds. XD



Honestly I liked Clock Tower, especially the first one. Scissorman is just awesome even though Clock Tower 3 deserves some brownie points for tryign the whole "Over the top" villains (See: Corroder, Scissortwins). Sure I know the game really isn't that great but still it has its moments, like when you pwn the Corroder or make Scissorwoman dive into an oven. Psychotic but for some reason it was a little fun to push them back in a little more unusual way. (Personally that'd have probably beaten the boss fights if you could have finished them off anime-style and pwn Scissorwoman Hansel & Gretel style)

 

[lupinealchemist]

I think Yahtzee explained it pretty well in the Silent Hill:Homecoming review.

American horror focuses on action and gore, while Japanese horror focuses on psychological trauma that actually makes you scared.

 

[Jelly]

I think Yahtzee explained it pretty well in the Silent Hill:Homecoming review.

American horror focuses on action and gore, while Japanese horror focuses on psychological trauma that actually makes you scared.

And then followed up by saying "I pretty much just described Resident Evil 4, so maybe I'm just talking out of my (delicious, uneaten) ass."

 

[AlexX]

I think Yahtzee explained it pretty well in the Silent Hill:Homecoming review.

American horror focuses on action and gore, while Japanese horror focuses on psychological trauma that actually makes you scared.

Yahtzee's reviews are generally about parody, so just about anything he says has to be taken with a grain of salt. Besides, I've seen Japanese horror films and they're really not any more scary than American horror films (even if for different reasons).

 

[Digitalpotato]

Anyone ever see Tetsuo? >.> I think that was more of an action or gore...or was Tetsuo korean?

Still, you gotta admit that seeing some guy's dick turn into a drill while having sex with a girl is disturbing but then again this comes from the same country where watching people having a full bladder is supposed to be erotic.

 

[CrystalTigress]

Hmm... I don't think you'd enjoy playing Dementium: The Ward.
That game isn't graphically scary as it is psychologically. The game makes it so that without a flashlight, you can't see anything five feet in front of you. When it comes to actual combat, you have to switch from flashlight to the weapon and thus there goes your light and you're forced to wait till they're in your personal space.

The scenery is also quite creepy. Blood spatter, decrepit furniture, and the fact that it's in a old fashioned mental asylum.

The music is usually piano and done in such a way that it changes depending on where you are through the game. It's still very creepy.

The creatures aren't 'so' bad. But with the other elements it does make them intense.

I'm a huge RE fan. But only of all the games up till 4 and 5 which are not really Resident Evil in my opinion.

I'm planning on buying Left For Dead which is coming out soon. <333 when I finally get my 360.

 

[Sylvine]

Now onto the horror...what I wanted to do was that the characters are not really being stalked by anything because the twist would be they are hallucinating everything (Until the end when the thing that constitutes a final boss is a real thing but you don't actually have to fight it). And of course, no one hallucinates the same thing, meaning the monsters vary between the characters' imagination,

Congratulations! You just described Silent Hill.

XD

~Sylv

 

[WolfoxOkamichan]

SIREN was less science-fiction more occult. I suggest looking up to that.

The main character isn't even good with guns!

 

[Inices]

I think that some games that aren't even survival-horror do an excellent job of being scary. Metroid Fusion for example. The SA-X made me want to stop playing the game because I was paranoid that it'd come out of nowhere and kill me. The fact that there's a version of you at full strength stalking around the space station, and that you're completely alone creates a really freaky atmosphere.

Also in Mother 3 there's a brief part where you have to avoid an invincible enemy which can appear in any room and one-hit you. What makes it scary is that fact that the music stops and is replaced by the sound of that enemy making noises and making the entire area shake. I thought that part was scary, though it may just be me.

 

[Kajet]

Whatever way you go to scare people sound makes a REALLY important part of it, I remember one specific hallway in RE2 that scared me because unlike everywhere else there was no music. Compare to the first Clock tower, where there's only music when scissorman is chasing you, the rest of the time the only thing you really hear is the character's footsteps.

 

[Digitalpotato]

Congratulations! You just described Silent Hill.

XD

~Sylv

The concepts are similar enough, but instead of covering everything with fog or having stuff like say, pregnant girls holding gods inside them, we're thinking stuff like Pink Elephants on Parade. It's not THAT kind of disturbing where you suddenly see blood veins covering up the walls...

 

[Emil]

This is probably just me, but I hate helpless protagonists. I have trouble connecting with them on an emotional level. Mostly because I feel that if youre an adult, who is incapable of defending yourself, or even making a fucking attempt, then you *deserve* to die =\

I mean, pick up a rock or a stick or something. At least kick a motherfucker in the balls! DO *SOMETHING*!!!

 

[CoyoteSmith]

This is probably just me, but I hate helpless protagonists. I have trouble connecting with them on an emotional level. Mostly because I feel that if youre an adult, who is incapable of defending yourself, or even making a fucking attempt, then you *deserve* to die =\

I mean, pick up a rock or a stick or something. At least kick a motherfucker in the balls! DO *SOMETHING*!!!

The main character in Rule of Rose is a lot like that.

Granted, there is -- rather awkward -- combat, but outside of what the player may decide to do, once those cutscenes kick in, that girl may as well be a kicked puppy for as much spine she shows. The game itself is nice, but on multiple playthroughs, you really start to question her reactions.

Though, maybe I'm just missing some deeper meaning.

-Dan!

 

[Bambi]

Now when it comes to suvival horror games I personally prefer to watch someone else play, at a distance while shivering under a blanket but it seems to me that the big name pioneers of the genre's popularity have for the most part, been declawed, good for when you want something to quit scratching you all to hell but pointless when you do it and then expect someone else to be frightened by it.

Which brings me to my point, granted a new perspective was needed to keep Resident Evil from going completely dead instead of it's current form of mild necrosis but most if not all the elements that made the first really scary is completely abandoned in favor of a cliche action movie, granted a cliche action movie you control and are able to commit a gross amount of hate crimes, but you're still off to save a worthless half assed attempt at a love interest at the end of the day.

So what makes a game actually scary? Nothing really, simply adding stuff like a stone faced emotionless stalker does add a bit of shock and panic but only till you reach that next door. What really makes a game scary is what you don't give the player, Give them a briefcase they can cram an assload of guns ammo and health and they'll rip through the game like a fart going through a furry in an elevator.

What made RE1 and Silent Hill 1 really creepy wasn't just the monsters but the fact that you were for the most part alone with said monsters, without a worthless twat to babysit and scream in your ear and definitely no one around to upgrade your weaponry. Take for example Fatal Frame, the entire living cast could be counted on the fingers of one hand and it's scary enough to make me lose sleep just by watching someone else play through it on Youtube.

And honestly, if you're going the horror route why are you giving the player rifles, magnums, and rocket launchers? A really freaky game by the name of Clock Tower (On SNES DAMNIT, that PSX one made me laugh too much) gave the player very little if any defensive opportunities, granted having to calculate how many bullets you can afford to use under pressure will touch nerves chances are unless you've pillaged the entire game you will find more ammo.

Finally what about seemingly random freakout events? Having to back track through rooms for a freaking key is going to give players a bit of a rest, their nerves will calm down, but isn't that something you should prevent? Make lamps fall randomly, occasionally play sounds from something that will tear faces off, or... kill all the sound in an area that had some noise before, change small things as in "Hey... wasn't there a bodybag here before?" Take away the right thing at the right time and your victim's hair will stand on end.

In summation: Take away unimportant characters, play up paranoia, make the PCs worthless in a fight, or just barely faster than your monsters and give them a shitty armory.

Exactly.

Alternatively, you could also use good story telling and give the game enough back history to keep the player hooked, but upping the paranoia definately helps.