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LOOKING FOR TIPS TO MAKE A HORROR GAME THAT DOESN'T SUCK
Posts
JosephSeraph
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Closeclearly you've never eaten a perfect candy bar
also, either you guys are too obsessed with formulas or I'm too obsessed with being abstract and ;^;
edit: mom i'm the first post of the page
also, either you guys are too obsessed with formulas or I'm too obsessed with being abstract and ;^;
edit: mom i'm the first post of the page
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
author=JosephSeraph
also, either you guys are too obsessed with formulas or I'm too obsessed with being abstract and ;^;
????
I mean, yeah, there's generally ways to use stuff that's better than other ways, but it's not really a formula. In the case of jumpscares, it's a matter of timing, just like "A boss battle generally goes well a while after the player has had some time to get used to the system and level up," or "you shouldn't cram a bunch of extraneous information between the setup of a joke and the punchline." It's not prescriptive, it's just that things tend to work best in a particular way, and it requires some extra workaround if you want to depart from that.
Like, the POINT of a jumpscare is as tension release. If you just toss 'em in willy-nilly, they won't make any sense. You get the audience wound up in anticipation, THEN you give 'em a release. Then you wind 'em up again.
All you need to do is have blood splatters on every wall, a really restrictive lighting system, uneasy music, objects disappearing without reason, objects appearing without reason accompanied by loud booming drone sounds, objects moving around the room without reason, a mummy/zombie bursting out of a cupboard that will kill-on-touch, interacting with objects that have blood splatters/streams come out of them, seeing figures flit past but not knowing who they are, having loud things like windows crash without warning and accompanied by loud crashing sounds, old wills about restless ghosts who used to live in this abandoned cabin house, creepy faces popping out of nowhere, and doors closing intermittently because of irregular wind patterns.
Recipe for success.
Recipe for success.
Preki
3
And let's take a look at one exceptionally famous scene from Metal Gear Solid 2. But hey - it's a stealth game, isn't it? And here's the catch. When I played MSS2 for the first time I didn't expect the Colonel will go crazy and start spewing random, odd sentences, like the famous "Scissors 61" or telling me to quit playing. Not to mention his face turning into a freaking skull, complete with spooky ambient music playing. I thought that my PC (yeah, I played the port, not on PS2) was getting possesed by the game or even that game corrupted the reality. Shit was so scary...
The best thing? MGS2 is no horror game, yet this part scared the crap outta me. Just because I didn't expect something like that in a stealth game. So don't label your game as horror, tell the players that this is their everyday adventure/RPG/whatever. They're gonna be surprised big time.
The best thing? MGS2 is no horror game, yet this part scared the crap outta me. Just because I didn't expect something like that in a stealth game. So don't label your game as horror, tell the players that this is their everyday adventure/RPG/whatever. They're gonna be surprised big time.
To quote myself from an LP I did of a failed horror game:
When making a spooky game, it's as much what you don't show as what you do. It's a keen balance of mystery and building up tenseness (sic). You get the character tense by making them expect something and then pull it away from them. So make them expect something to happen, and when it doesn't, they're like, "Wait, that didn't happen like I thought it would, so now what?" It gets in their heads and makes them think, "OK, so I was wrong about that, what else am I going to be wrong about?" That tenses them up because then they don't know where the attack is going to come from. That makes them think nothing is safe. <cute laugh>
To expand on this, animated mundane objects (tables, books, couches, etc) are not off limits. If they're afraid to use the bed to rest because it might eat them (even if you only do that once, in a dungeon), you've succeeded.
The scariest classic game? Actually not any of the "horror" genre NES games. It was Zelda II. You had to be wary of freaking villagers, lest one turn into a bat and attack you. ...Okay, it wasn't that scary. But it was a hell of a lot scarier than many of its counterparts, except of course... Mother.
The scariest classic game? Actually not any of the "horror" genre NES games. It was Zelda II. You had to be wary of freaking villagers, lest one turn into a bat and attack you. ...Okay, it wasn't that scary. But it was a hell of a lot scarier than many of its counterparts, except of course... Mother.
riderx40
1708
1.Try use a an atmospheric music..like giyagas theme or something..
2.try to make the player spooked all the time(Jump-scares)
3.Make something like a heart-beat system,so whenever something bad happens
the heartbeat keeps going ape-shit..it kinda optional.
4.Atmospheric envirement,A Gloomey house,A graveyard,Twilight Part II premiere..
2.try to make the player spooked all the time(Jump-scares)
3.Make something like a heart-beat system,so whenever something bad happens
the heartbeat keeps going ape-shit..it kinda optional.
4.Atmospheric envirement,A Gloomey house,A graveyard,Twilight Part II premiere..
