-DEADLOLI-'S PROFILE

author=NeverSilent
@bulmabriefs144:
That is not at all what this topic is about. You are free to have your own ideas on how to approach magic as a phenomenon within a game's world, that's fine. But that is not what the OP was asking about, or what I was talking about, for that matter.



Regarding the other points about magic/magick in real life: This is exactly why I started out my post the way I did. Because, no offense, I think that those kinds of approaches are exactly the romanticised or skewed perspectives that prevent you from seeing things from a professional perspective, instead of just the way you wish them to be.
Again, all of you can obviously believe whatever you want, and I neither can nor want to tell you you are not allowed to have those views. But as far as I'm concerned, at least, all things supernatural, paranormal and occult are superstition and wishful thinking. And while that doesn't mean those ideas can't be incredibly fascinating, they are not a good basis for discussing concepts and ideas that are more or less universally perceivable and logically graspable to humanity.

Besides, as said before, it has pretty much nothing to do with the topic of this thread. If you want to keep talking about this stuff, don't let anyone stop you. But I would strongly recommend moving that discussion to its own thread, where it actually belongs.



Other than that, I agree with a lot of Kylaila's points. On the most basic and dry level, the "magic" in experiencing a story or other work of art is a result of some abstract form of communication. It's something that is created by someone and perceived by another person. Indeed, emotions and individual experiences have a large impact on how this act of communication plays out, and you can never guarantee that it works the way you wanted. But in general, the better you are at crafting your means of communication and anticipating what its effects will be, the more likely your work is to resonate with the recipient. And that means taking into account both the rational and the emotional side of human perception, experience and thought processes.

If this wasn't the topic for that, then why did you bring it up in the first place? You were the one who started it by bringing up how real magick isn't in your belief system.

And, yeah, the full color spectrum isn't universally perceivable to canines, and what would you do if one of them started talking and demanded that you prove the existence of "green"?

Electromagnetics. History. Geometry. I don't know how to de-romanticize this very real phenomenon any more than the way I'm approaching it here, but you want to think of anyone who thinks differently than you as a romanticized, unprofessional bubblehead, so I doubt I'll change your mind, but...

Those of you who don't know will soon, anyways.

You know what I *do* think is romantic? Chaos. And when people start to realize what's going on, there's gonna be LOTS of it.

Any of you self-styled "patricians" reading this better enjoy your heads while they're still on your necks.

And to those who have no idea what I'm talking about, sharpen your axes, because shit's about to get crazy.

Magick is delta time and related to gravity and neutrinos.

The world around us is here as much as it isn't here. From our physical perspective, it flickers on and off between particles and antiparticles - latter of which which may or may not actually exist in reality, but our scientists measure things using that terminology.

If you are moving around, whether you're a planet, a squirrel, or a human, you are somehow recycling energy between "time" and "space". Learning to control this is "magick".

If you want to know how it works, I would recommend this book and this site.

I'd also recommend staying the fuck away from New Age material and channeling material in general, including sites, groups, and "expansion packs" based off of the above material, because most of it's bullshit, and also to be careful with the black magick until you know what you're doing. And also take everything with a grain of salt, because out of thousands and thousands and thousands of pages of occult material, the above are some of the only 100% honest material I've found. (Practically speaking, as some of it may be symbolic.)

author=Sooz
Those sure are some great horror games there!

Your sarcasm can't be a reference to the fact that what I posted are not, in fact, horror games, because I never thought they were horror games, and you are (probably) intelligent enough to realize that.

So I have to assume that your implication is that we should only be talking about horror games in this thread, and not anything else... but that can't be right, either, considering that you didn't respond like that when people talked about horror fiction like Lovecraft, or horror in general, and I was clearly talking about how to better draw inspiration for making horror games.

The only other alternative, then, is that you were disturbed by the content in question.

So... point proven. Even linking to real horror on a web forum can set people off. Obviously, I didn't expose poor Sooz to any real violence by linking to those articles, but it put imaginary images in his (her?) head that were enough to elicit an emotional response, and the point of fiction is to elicit an emotional response. Make a game channeling that, and you're set.

This is what Dungeoneer and the Dooms series did right, and which you rarely see in horror games at all, because... well, it scares people.

author=halibabica
I feel it's important to note the extreme subjectivity of horror when it comes to audience reception. In some ways, horror is even harder to pull off well because different people are scared of different things, so there's an extra layer to consider beyond mere taste.

Like, the problem I have with the argument made earlier about the importance of being able to fight is that it depends on the type of game it's being applied to. Combat as a mechanic is more important for some types of games than others. Including it certainly adds a level of interactivity, but it can also detract from the game's other effects on the player, particularly immersion since game mechanics that are blatantly such are a constant reminder that you're playing a game.

What makes a successful RPG Maker horror is something more complex. I think the important points have all been touched on so far: atmosphere, art direction, character investment, dread to slow you down + curiosity to push you forward. It's sad that the genre has such a bad rep from all the failed projects that are barely worth a mention. It can be effective, you just have to remember that games create tension in different ways than other mediums and that the tools you use will only be as effective as your ability to use them.

Well... people are generally scared of the same basic things... horror generally boils down to exploiting fear of the unknown, exploiting fear of pain, or abusing our reflexes (jumpscares).

The latter doesn't really work on anybody anymore. Everyone's too used to it. It's been too many decades of movies exploiting jumpscares, games exploiting jumpscares, flash animations ("SOMETHING REALLY COOL WILL HAPPEN IF YOU STARE AT THIS DOT FOR TEN MINUTES!") exploiting jumpscares, and "clever" people hiding behind doors exploiting jumpscares.

As for the other two, they still work, but the stakes have been raised a lot by the fact that we live in such a genuinely horrific world. Bela Lugosi in a cape is no longer enough to trigger our instinctive fear of the unknown, and the vague threat of a killer raising a knife before the screen cuts away doesn't make us fear and feel pain the way it did forty years ago. (And people who say that "less is more" when it comes to gore in horror fiction are sometimes right, but more often than not, just squeamish.)

Nowadays, it takes the likes of cosmic horror and splatterpunk to bring us to a level that actually makes us feel anything. When was the last time you were genuinely afraid of a vampire movie or a Jason film?

That's what horror game makers these days have wrong, and not just the indie ones.

Atmosphere, art direction, character investment, slow pacing, etc. aren't going to do you any good when you're essentially trying to emulate shitty PS1 haunted mansion/town games from the 90's. You need something that's either disgustngly visceral or psychologically disturbing enough to keep you paranoid long after you've turned off the computer and into the late hours of the night.

author=Liberty
Or maybe most devs don't go in for the hardcore blood and guts stuff because it's usually seen (and comes off as) as juvenile, silly and over-the-top.

That's not what I meant.

Why was NBK was given an NC-17 initially and require over 100 cuts to get an R, when dozens of films far more violent had come out that year with an R rating? Why did Hatred get an AO rating despite being less violent than a lot of M-rated games? Why does Megan is Missing (the ending, at least) bother people on a deeper level than Jason Takes Manhattan, even thought the latter has a lot more "hardcore blood and guts stuff"?

Because those three things had an element that most mainstream horror doesn't have, and they touched a nerve as a result; they actually scared people.

A bunch of over-the-top gore is fine, but it's the context that makes it horrific. Neither Dooms 2 nor Dungeoneer were really that gory, but they're RM2K horror classics because of the direction they take their violence. Because they explore pain, which is what makes the violence scary, and psychological aberration.

You can't get too deep into that realm in Hollywood films or AAA games or anything like that. Even stuff like Saw and Hostel that "disturb" all the normies are pretty watered down and tame. You have to, again, go to some REALLY uncomfortable places to make that genre work right.

And when you do, the end product is anything but "juvenile", because your art reflects real horror.

Most RPG Maker horror is bad, that much is true. The ones that ARE good are the ones that are truly psychologically disturbing; say, Beautiful Escape: Dungeoneer, or the Dooms series.

I remember playing Dooms 2: Seas of Blood when I was 12, and it scared the piss out of me. That series is more genuinely disturbing than most commercial AAA horror games, for the simple reason that it can get away with a lot more, and the same goes for Dungeoneer.

Gothic horror, psychological horror, Lovecraftian horror, and splatterpunk/torture porn work pretty well in an RPG Maker game, especially mixed together.

I feel like most RM horror developers are just trying to make a scaled down version of what they see in AAA games, which aren't very scary to begin with, because they're limited to an M rating. Making a good, successful RPG Maker horror game requires going to uncomfortable places.