For those who were in the horror thread last night, here it is.
Is dying a good thing in horror games? I think it's not because it offers relief, and worse, it generates repetition, which causes anger/boredom.
So what do you do if you remove death? Do you simulate it? Should the horror game be a huge play where you think you died but you actually were meant to die? Then where is the challenge? Should there be challenge in a horror game? The player will also get bored if he knows that dying means progress. Then it's all in the execution. But is that enough?
>>255611671
Maybe you could do a big, branching design. At any point, you either die or succeed, and either way you go to a different level. The problem is that people will get autistic and die systematically to see everything.
>>255612025
Right now I have a few ideas for a "you die and think it's your fault, the game restarts at the last checkpoint exactly like the first time you went through the level but it's actually a very different level. Things are all fucked up."
Then I could make is like that: You die and there exists a number (like 2-3) versions of the level you'e about to go through. On death, you restart but the you randomly drop into another one with the same spooks but used differently enough to still make you unaware of what's going to happen.
>>255611671
Have a mansion/castle/whatever that is constantly shifting, so that stuff never truly repeats (but have a lot of variety in the randomly shifting rooms so it doesn't feel copy pasted). And instead of your character constantly dying, make it apparent that there is some force at work that could kill you at any moment but wants you to stay alive to torture you (physically and psychologically). And instead of death have it be demonic creatures/forces dragging you away to be graphically raped or something like that.
>>255612601
interesting but the thing is once the guy gets cought and sees the cinematic, he knows that if he gets cought he'll just have to sit through the same fucking cinematic again. That's why by deciding exactly when the player dies, you can always make it new and exciting, but then the player can catch up on this so you'd have to break the rule by actually making him die regularly a few times.
This dilemma is really keeping me from progressing because It's the principle for the whole game, breaking the rules of video games.
>>255611671
This is an interesting topic.
We want death to be an integral part of the game but we want it to be a part of the game users do NOT want to experience.
>>255611671
I'm not sure that you're interpreting death in horror games right. In a horror game, the player needs to be immersed fully, and feel like the MC in every way. Part of the horror of the experience is actually experiencing death as that person, and taking a bit of reality from it before you realize you're not actually the one dying. If the player wasn't immersed in the first place then obviously deaths will just become mundane, but at that point the player would probably have stopped playing anyway.
As for the challenge, there always needs to be a degree of challenge/resistance from the world. If not, the player will simply become bored and lose interest and investment in the setting. What's the point of a horror game with no real threat, and knowing the low level of threat will never ramp up?
Maybe when you die you are instantly teleported to the beginning of the encounter, immediately plunged into the same frantic horror
>>255611671
Where is that pic from?
>2spooky
>>255615054
It reminds me of something you'd find in worlds.com.
>>255611671
I LOVE the look of your game, what engine are you using?
>>255613042
set rules and break'em then! sounds neat on multiple levels of play. just be clever i guess
>>255615054
Must be something slapped together considering its eyes are from Shadow of the Colossus.
>>255615375
What the hell is worlds.com I dont get it.
>>255616315
Ye Olde Second Life, from the Age of PharoahMan.EXE.
http://imakethethings.blogspot.ca/
Here we go. My intention is not to shill, but as you can read in this thing, I want us to make it together to ensure a great project. Maybe I'll just take it back to AGDG eventually or make my own generals so we can talk about it.
That's a really interesting topic, something not often seen here.
>>255612025
The exact same thing was done in LSD: Dream Simulator IIRC. If you touched anything you'd get warped to an entirely different level.
>>255611671
>I think it's not because it offers relief
Pretty much what I think too. Messing with this is pretty neat though, sublty or not. Like the anons before me said, branching/shifting levels sounds nice.
An exemple in mind I have is Eversion, where the level start message ("Ready?") get a little spookier when the game sees you're retrying a lot.Yes, I'm easily spooked.
>>255615409
Using Blender. While I've never seen any big game released on it, it lets me entirely bypass programming, which lets me focus on making nice scenes and other content.
>>255615054
it's from >>255616791
Just check the videos you'll understand.
>>255614803
I get you and I know that immersion is the most important thing. It's what I'm mainly aiming for, good immersion before all. But at some point you have to decide if you just let the player make his own success, possibly dying many times and hating the game or if you play him like a bitch by controlling his every action to get the effects you want.
The guys from amnesia made a survey on people with Penumbra and half the people who played loved it and half hated it. The ones who hated it would just die many times and start to see only the mechanics, the AI, the game. They are not in a story anymore, shitting their pants, they're just trying to get across this fucking level.
>>255611671
What about a combination of the above ideas?
If you die, you 'fade away' and reappear at the start of a new level, area, portion of the level, etc. However, to prevent people from dying "systematically to see everything", put a penalty of some sort in place.
For example, every time you die, you lose part of your senses. Like hearing, sight, ability to interact, your flashlight, sanity, or something of that nature. People might still die on purpose to get these new experiences/challenges, but it certainly won't help them directly or be encouraged.
>>255617725
I'd say something that impairs movement. E.g. you move slow as shit for a minute or something
>>255617725
I love the idea of removing senses and I actually already have a few isolated scenes including the idea. But making it a persistent mechanic would probably just make it harder for me to control the player since he'd miss most of the spooky cues I'd throw at him.
>>255616791
I have FL Studio and might be willing to make some shitty spooky music for you for free. I'll keep an eye out for you on AGDG in the next few weeks.
>>255618201
Hey I got FL myself this weekend and I'm writing a blog post with the first song I made right now. Just check back on it in a minute or two it should be up.
>>255617987
>miss most of the spooky cues I'd throw at him.
That was kind of the idea. Instead of being able to hear something walking up behind him, the player wont know unless he turns around or it's too late. But it does seem difficult to work with.
>>255617561
Holy shit that's surreal as fuck.
It looks pretty damn good so far.
I could imagine hearing this track playing while you encounter something spooky.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqaNrWcIRYY
>>255618501
I'll contact you through your blog then in the next week or so (I'm going out of town this weekend).
>>255616791
Seems like you're of to a good start.
Please do keep us updated on your progress.
>>255616791
Am I the only one who sees white squares instead of the videos?
>>255618668
>>255618990
Well that's just great to hear. I really don't want to shill and all this shit so I guess just tell me when you want me to get the fuck back to agdg. It's just that you get a lot more traffic and kinds of people on here.
>>255618748
Hey I really appreciate it anon. Would love to hear from you.
>>255619392
I think it's fine as long as its not pure shilling and you're actually asking more general opinions like the one regarding portrayal of death in games.
Atleast i find it interesting since repetition kills the mood easily
>>255611671
Make a design where you get ported to another part of the game.
Might cause delirium, and offers them something new to do and forget what they were doing.
This way they also have more time to think about how to execute what they did wrong the correct way if they get back to where they were.
>>255611671
What about ametroidvaniahorror game?
Death is fine, but you need more punishment. You need to be flung back an hour of gameplay for dying, not just restart at the last autosave which happens every 20 seconds. If you know dying will just restart you 10 seconds prior to death and therefore know the spawn point of the spooky encounter, you won't care about dying. Playing hardcore in DS2 was intense as fuck.
You just have really work to make the game fair so that you don't have a cheap death cause frustration
Have a limited amount of lives, with shit getting increasingly more horrifying with each death. Out of lives, you need to start over.
It should be like Waxworks with all the distinct bad ends. Every death ingame should feel like it is the end of that character's life, and should be portrayed in a horrifying manner where you don't want to die again.
>>255622027
I don't hate the idea of lives actually. But it's something I will mess with too. I will fuck everything up. The perfect example is that guy who gave me the idea of giving the player noclip for like a minute. He'll obviously wander outside the level but then a fucking huge monster will slowly appear in the darkness and come towards him, eating the whole goddamn map. If you get back in the house nothing happens, but you still know it's outside where you can't see.
So if I do lives, they'll probably get in the negative and decimals and stuff. Maybe you could lose control of the character if your lives get to -1. He just walks around weeping and schreeching from time to time. There'd be amirror so you could see how fuckd the Mc is.
Like I said in the thread last night, you don't need to remove death, you just can't force it on the player. If a character dies behind a glass wall and you're forced to watch, unable to do anything, you're going to be pissed off at the game, not filled with dread or horror. Think of Malik's death in Deus Ex. It can be a challenge, even more so if you're trying a pacifist/stealth run, but it's still possible to save her, regardless of the odds stacked against you. If that same scene had happened in the game, but you could not save her, players would feel more that the game is awful compared to feeling powerless at failing to save her.
As for the players death, you have to have it, or some kind of lose condition, otherwise it just becomes a walking simulator with no sense of fear or urgency. If the player has nothing to lose and no reason to fear losing, then the player won't feel any horror or dread.
Perhaps combine this in that if you aren't careful, another character you're used to will die. The player needs to hurry and do things to protect his friends and family, and if he doesn't, he loses them. You remove the overplayed element of death for the main character, you throw in potential deaths for other characters that can impact the player, and you give the player a way to prevent their deaths, all while giving a sense of urgency and fear.
>>255622604
>Maybe you could lose control of the character if your lives get to -1. He just walks around weeping and schreeching from time to time. There'd be amirror so you could see how fuckd the Mc is.
Amazing idea, is there any game in existence that does this already?
>>255621721
>want to fling players back an hour of progress
>don't want to cause frustration
Fucking pick one. I've got better things to do than this. Fucking dropped.
inb4 some faggot actually thinks that in 2014 making players replay an hour of a game when there's dozens of other games they could be playing or anime they could be watching. Enjoy your no sales.
inb4 some faggot thinks I'm advocating checkpoints every half-step and constant handholding just because I think their ideas are fucking trash and they're mentally deficient fucks that think if someone is against their ideas, they must be for the complete dumbfuck opposite.
people will get bored eventually no matter what. that's why it's best to practice extreme restraint. also, having the death be unpleasant helps. ie: haunting ground, re4, etc.
>>255611671
what if when you die you becomeskeleton?
>>255623103
Well, he's right in that the player needs some form of punishment, otherwise all aspect of fear is lost. Having the players go back an hour is a big punishment, but not the correct kind. It would just frustrate players. If anything, a players death should result in loss of inventory, changes to the story/world, deaths of other characters, really anything that would unsettle the player and make the world worse than it started.
>>255623551
well if you check out the vids at the bottom of http://imakethethings.blogspot.ca/ you'll see thatu alrdy ar sklton
I intend to make it so that your player just vomits him out and he keeps chasing you. Maybe I could make it while you're trying to stealth through an area. He'd come out and rattle his bones so hard it'd draw all the monster's attentioné The "FUCK YOU SKELTON" butt rage twould be delicious.
>>255622604
Genius!
>>255623103
Players should be put through frustration when they fail. That's the point of a game. The only problem is that this form of frustration doesn't work in horror games, because repetition and familiarity are the quickest ways of removing fear and tension.
Reposting for anyone looking into ways of introducing fear and horror to players.
>>255612601
How about if you get caught you get taken to a completely random location in the castle?
Add a NPC that comments on the players deaths.
IMO there should be death in a game because a game with no stakes loses almost all the impact it could have had. On the other side there can't be too many deaths or else it leads to frustration and breaks immersion. Personally I'd do something along the lines of randomized enemy positions upon reload, maybe other randomized elements as well, maybe have lives act like sanity in Eternal Darkness, the more you lose the more fucked up the game becomes, but without actually increasing difficulty. That way even if the player dies in one area often then there's still that element of surprise and mystery.
Not gonna read all the other posts, but in case someone didn't say it, an insanity system seems awesome
>>255622981
The only remotely close thing I can think of is Dark Souls and humanity, but even then it doesn't do what this does.
It's a great concept.
something like mgs3 the sorrow would be interesting to see implemented in a horror game. actually a lot of the mindfuckery in kojima games would be nice.
>>255624749
something where you look more hideous and even control differently and feel isolated or put off as a result would be an interesting mechanic. worse than death.
>>255624000
>Frustration
No, frustration is the last thing you want from a horror game. A failure shouldn't result in frustration, it should result in worry or fear.
Lets say it weren't a horror game, you come to a room, suddenly the doors lock and a timer starts up, in the center of a room you see a computer or machine of some kind, and you need to solve a puzzle. Normally, if you fail, a gameover happens, such as a bomb going off, or the big bad coming to get you, and then you just restart a minute or two behind, ready to do the puzzle again. This would clearly not work in a horror game, it would frustrate and remove the element of fear from the player.
Lets try and work it into a horror game then. Lets stick with the same scenario, locked doors, timer, machine in center. Now lets say you fail and the timer hits 0. What should happen then? Perhaps nothing happens, the timer just stops at 0, seemingly nothing happens at all, yet the doors are still locked and you're still in the room. You'll feel a sense of worry or fear in that you don't know what will happen next since what you were expecting didn't happen.
Perhaps it never actually lets the player leave, and you're stuck there forever afterwards, forcing the player to reload and try again. You go back into the room only to find a skeleton, presumably from your character when he failed the puzzle, left to die alone in the room.
There are many ways to go about failure and punishment without frustration.
>>255622604
Then how about not doing lives but every time you "die" you awake in a different location, but without a part of your body or limb, so every time you lose consciousness things get more fucked up, the player won't have a set number of lives but he will know that if he keeps this up the game will get more and more difficult or it could be a game over at any time.
>Horror game with the mechanics of Receiver for handling your only weapon
>Ammunition is extremely limited (Only 10 rounds to be found during an entire playthrough, for example)
>Shooting the monster makes it flinch, giving you time to escape and hide
>If the monster kills you, your death is permanent and you have to begin the whole game anew
>If you shoot yourself before the monster can get you, however, you can continue from the last checkpoint
>Ammunition spent this way is not refunded upon respawning
>>255624693
Depends on what you mean.
Amnesia insanity was shit and I have no idea why there are people who thought its absence from a Machine For Pigs was a step backwards.
Personally, I think it's retarded that a game should try to simulate fear and tell you "HEY LOOK AT HOW SCARED YOU ARE LOL".
This gave me a great idea about a moment where you'd have to actually catch the monster or he'd just go "nanomachines son" and engulf the whole castle.It would basically play like that gif where the guy fails to catch the huge spider with a bowl.
>>255612554
the more you die the weirder it gets?
>>255624631
>>255611671
I said it last night when you were asking for ideas about a friendly, yet creepy merchant like in RE4.
A corpse on strings being draped through a hole in the ceiling and animated as a puppet.
I don't know the story, but if it was implied that it was the last person to try what your mc is trying, it would add to the atmosphere of impending death.
Perhaps being handled by the giant skellington outside. And if you hid that fact from the audience as much as possible, I think it would add to "lore" a bit (people would wonder of who the puppeteer is.)
>>255625065
Hey Tim Buckley that's exactly what they said only in less words.
>>255625389
I don't think you have those dev's intentions at all..
>>255625282
Very interesting, would play.
>>255625282
>Checkpoints are beds
>Every time you shoot yourself, you instantly awaken in the last bed you slept in, wondering if any of what just happened was even real
>>255625637
I'm sorry, I failed to read what he said correctly.
I just like going into depth about what I try to talk about.
>>255625472
Exactly. I already made the decision to put it in last night. It's great.
>Then you go shopping at one point and the inventory screen hides most of your view
>you can see on the corner that you're actually moving upwards
>what the FUCK
>as soon as you close the inventory to check it out you get dropped on the ground and hear the sound of something moving very fast through the ceiling
Fuck this is great.
>>255625663
I know the intention is to provide a penalty that isn't tied directly into combat scenarios, but blurry vision and cockroaches crawling on the screen adds nothing, it just makes the game frustrating to play.
>>255625879
That's stupid.
Planescape Torment has death play into the story, since you're functionally immortal, but your deaths can grant xp (through regain subconscious knowledge) and other stuff.
I can't remember what game it was but there was one where there's 4 or 5 playable characters. If the one you're playing as dies, you have to pick a different one to continue with... i.e. each character has a single life, but their death doesn't revert the story or anything you just jump to the next character's "entry point".
Best spooky coming through.
>>255626009
Oh yeah? YOUR stupid.
>>255625897
That's a great extension.
Perhaps this is your negative lives penalty. You're on strings. And you try to get off them. So you're rather unstable and you have to find a creative way to get off the strings. Idk.
>>255625895
It's okay I didn't mean to be harsh in anyway despite the joke. Nothing wrong with expanding on something in depth like that just make sure you know where that persons stance before you agree/disagree with them.
Have a sanity meter, but don't have it shown or talked about ever. Make the effects actually scary, but do not promote it in any way.
>>255626314
>not 2MB
Not spooky enough.
>>255626118
Heavy Rain? Illbleed?
>>255611671
So you basically want the player to don't look at death like "fuck i have to do everithing from the beginning" but still you don't want them to think "oh, this looks scripted, let's see that cutscene".
What about a level where you have to run away from death itself to restore your location when you died?
Something really stressful, but that can still save the player a lot of time.
Also fuck checkpoints.
Guys what about the sanity system but it just makes it so that each life yu lose there's a different screen overlay making it harder to see and moving a bit slower and shit.
I know it's been mentionned like 5 times already but what do you think of it? It would actually punish the player and eventually lead to the zombie shit. I'd change it around too because I never want the player to be comfy. NOT EVER.
No I,ll make fucking comfy levels like u never seen (i-i'll try) to balance things out but it's probably going to be a bit brutal after.
>>255626469
I like it. noted.
I thought The Void and Pathologic did horror the best in vidya, but failure pretty much equals to having to restart the whole game over again and I know that this isn't the most fun option for most people.
>>255626815
Sounds like it would be more frustrating than spooky or frightening. If anything, you should have sanity effect the game in the same way it did in that one gamecube horror game, where the game itself gets fucked with, forcing the player to wonder whether the game itself is fucked or if it's all just part of the game.
I know a lot of people thought that got old fast though.
>>255626538
might have been heavy rain, but I think at least a couple of others have done something similar
I think I've played a mini-roguelike/puzzle that used something (i.e. the rogue, or wizard, etc does better against certain foes, but eventually dies so you have to manage in which order you play them)
>>255625402
What you don't need to do is put fucking memes in the game.
>>255622908
The more the deaths rack up for the family members, the more they come to haunt you, adding to the horror.
And you can revive them, because you would want to shake them off you as a player who hates being scared.
Not a big fan of jump scares being over-utilized, but this would be perfect for using them correctly, having the ghosts of you loved ones scream in anguish randomly and fade away almost instantly.
Not even a gameplay function other than to randomly make you jump time to time because earlier you failed.
>>255626815
Fucking this >>255627215
Like, make little changes to the game the more the player shift into madness, the statues get a creepy grin and start making wispering noises if you get close, the floor become all dusty with occasional footmarks leading nowhere, stuff like this.
>>255627215
Yeah I read about that too. The idea of putting radom lil jumpscares and spooks when you'Re all insane is good on paper but it's too repetitive
>>255627320
Don't worry about that. Might put one as an easter egg hidden far far away like good ol costanza or just skeletons again. Skeletons are so great.
>>255627248
farenheit?
This applies to the original Siren. It's scary as shit, but it's so difficult that it just becomes frustrating and not scary.
>>255622604
that second idea is fucking neato. makes me think of the head crab zombies in hl2 with their voices played backwards. I always found that bonechilling.
captcha: dyingno invaluable
>>255624012
people disappearing has to be one of the scariest. so many cases each year where they inexplicably vanish and are never heard from again.
One way maybe to make death still meaningful but less frustrating is if the player was immortal / stuck in some kind of time loop where he has to relive the same scenario over and over again each time he dies until he gets it right. Each time you die some things that you did could still stay in effect or affect the new life in some way so that not all progression would be lost.
>>255611671
>Is dying a good thing in horror games?
Yes. What could be more horrifying than death?
>Should there be challenge in a horror game?
Is the sky blue!? Seriously OP, can you figure out any of this obvious shit on your own?
There should be challenge in all games. Or, more specifically, for you, ideally all games would have a level of challenge that would allow you to take on some pressure from the game without being stuck at a section forever. That is the 'best difficulty'. The fun of expertly designed super challenging games is that only the best, cleverest strategies and best executions are permitted, and it's basically a blast to keep on improving your own capacities to pull off these landmarks. It's also desirable to be good at the game, because you get to employ more and more of its complexity more smoothly, making for a far more fun experience overall.
Difficulty also ramps up the games capacity for oppressiveness, and if a horror game can't even kill you, how the fuck can you take it seriously? Jesus Christ OP, do you even notice the game you're playing, you ADD diagnosed little punk!? Actually knowing, or at least sincerely expecting enemies to be able to absolutely ruin you makes the game deliver on its promise. Ideally, dying would do far more than send you back to the last checkpoint. More intensive consequences would add to the thrill of every encounter in the game.
>>255625445
or the more isolated it could get. sort of like a metaphor for addiction. the purpose of death in any horror game is to make you feel more helpless. and feeling disoriented or completely abandoned is one of the scariest feelings.
Darkwood does death pretty well.
>>255611671
I guess I'll post the webm then.
http://a.pomf.se/qkgznp.webm
>>255624012
> Here's a bunch of stuff that's supposed to be spooky. It are spooky and you can too!
If someone wrote something following those guide lines they'd end up with some predictable bullshit
>>255628549
that's some funny shit
>>255628238
sounds like groundhog day.
>>255628549
>http://a.pomf.se/qkgznp.webm
they're all on the blog but blogger a shit and you can't view them full size. It's tiny titty screen or fuck huge mctits pixels in your face.
The song you have on the site sounds great, in my opinion the spookiest horror comes from the chiptunes and old video game soundtracks, where it's very easy to sound eerily hollow and surreal. Dissonant and weird tones help as well. This isn't what I consider a perfect example, but just listen to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_BwNajcGJk
I'm the anon from weeks ago who really pushed for that skeleton head in the OP and other stuff that just makes the game as uncanny and surreal as possible.
>>255629035
That's the idea, yeah.
>>255611671
The best way to make death scary is to give it tension and more of a reason for you to not die. This will help kick in your fight or flight instincts, which are a pretty much a product of fear.
The easiest way to do this is permadeath, so all the items you have are lost and you must restart the game. However this will generate enormous repetition so really the only type of game you could do is one with an open world type of thing. See: Routine.
I really can't think of anything at the moment, but the basic idea is to give reason for the player to not die other than "I have to do the last 5 minutes of the game again" Perhaps every time you die, more monsters will spawn in the area you are in?
obligatory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cio4Bx_9A8k
I like the idea of the game saving, going to a black screen for a sec, and then closing abruptly when you die. this way it confuses the player and they might get disoriented or worried that their shit is fucking up. it's like an outside scare. kinda like some of the shit in Eternal Darkness
>>255629294
I'm still disappointed that Postal, as a series, decided to go for silly instead of sticking to the disturbing "Glimpse into the mind of a mass murderer" thing the original game had going on.
>>255629440
I swear I've read this post a week ago
A game that uses no death well is Wario Land 3. Every time Wario got hit, he bounced off several feet. This led to players climbing back up a long platform and made boss fights infuriatingly annoying.
What I'm saying is that the player can punished in different ways other than just death. Give the player harsh status effects, messed up vision, heck even alternate forms to change up the controllers. Perhaps you can even make the player have a chance to die and restart at a checkpoint to make the fear of death all that greater.
>>255629440
they pretty much had too considering what postal 2 is all about
>>255629434
In that line of ideas I wanted to make a fake loading screen where little stick figures are in line to get their head chopped. You're executioner and you just move your mouse to chop em up. You chop them all of, then one last little stick figure comes in line, you chop him and an actual 3d head just rolls down the screen with big sound. I know it's a jumpscare but I liked the idea.
>>255628660
>Implying the list doesn't make a lot of good points that all make sense
Nowhere in that list does it say it has to be followed 100%, just gives you a few tips when writing horror shit.
The death problem is actually the biggest problem a horror game faces.
If you die a lot, the horror turns to repetition and annoyance.
But if you can't die or have a hard time doing so, there is less tension.
>>255627248
Oh, that's probably just Sweet Home, the precursor to Resident Evil.
>>255629246
The best way to do this would be to punish the player by changing the story or other characters, rather than force them to repeat the game over again.
You can't have a good horror game without death.
Once the player figures out that he's invincible, the game will cease to be scary.
>>255629294
some more
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qee3TjASCs
you can hear those sound assets reused in HL2, Max Payne, SH:SM
I'm pro-death. I hate horror games where I feel like there's no actual threat in terms of gameplay. Dying and losing progress is perhaps the only real punishment games can offer.
What you need is good sound design.
Sure you can have all the bells and whistles, but what does it matter if none of it sounds nice?
>>255629938
That's why I'm wondering if I should just control the whole thing like a huge theater of horror. I'll make them THINK they lost and died and that they are restarting, but they aren't. I'm making more spooks. Do you think it would work?
It's like that water monster early in amnesia. He chases you and if you fuck up or wait too long he'll get you, but I never did try because I was too scared (and didn't care to fuck the game up).
Basically, I don't even know if he CAN actually catch you. I certainly thought he could (and since you can die in the game well you know the rest...) but being afraid kept me from even wanting to find out.
Of course someone who would just go "hey fuck this just eat me" an wait it out would find out. To bypass this I'd just make it so that if he wasn't supposed to die (but he was supposed to run away) the monster could just dunk him so hard he'd fly the fuck away and then leave because he wouldn't want to actually get the sanity effects.
What do you think?
>>255630565
What if the soundtrack is predominantly bells and whistles?
>>255630663
Better make them some high quality bells and whistles.
>>255630517
Ah, but with that said, if a game relies too heavily on scripted scares instead of dynamic stuff, then it's not really scary after you've experienced it for the first time.
>>255630565
couldn't get into knock knock wasn't really scary
Just give people three lives. If they die they lose one. Keeps them on their toes.
Innovative idea huh.
>>255630602
Would the only solution be to be as creative as you can with it? You die when I decide you die and fake the fact that you progressed, but at other times I can make it so that "losing" actually means other things like your lil bro or something getting eaten and stuff.
>>255629938
I sort of envisioned a game that would get around the repetition problem a while ago. A horror game could be about 5-6 hours long, but it would be really demanding and rely on a lot of randomly generated content, from level layouts to monsters to items, as much as possible without it becoming incoherent. If the random generation is sophisticated enough, there could be no repetition, just a totally fresh and fun experience every time, laced with the combined intensity from the consequences of death and the horror aesthetics. This would be cool for a Far Cry style game too. Some randomly generated terrain with camps, guns, NPCs, etc. Almost like Civilization's random map generation, just more immersive.
>>255628383
>What could be more horrifying than death?
living forever
>>255631060
no, give them 100 and kill them a lot. that would be scarier.
This doesn't just apply to horror games, but pretty much all games as well.
How do you balance death? On one hand, death provides a punishment to players so that players actively need to avoid getting killed for fear of the consequences. On the other hand, the consequence is doing something over again, which can as OP said can cause anger/boredom.
Is it possible to have a death/gameover mechanic that incentivizes players to not die, but at the same time isn't a pain in the dick if you do? They seem mutually exclusive; if it's not frustrating to die then there's little incentive to care if you die.
>>255631285
why isn't there more randomly generated stuff in games?
>>255631771
Difficulty modes were made to fix this problem. Casuals play on easy, hardcore gamers play on hard.
>>255631874
Because it's a sliding scale: the more randomly generated something is the less finely crafted it is.
pikmin 2 did it well though
>>255630602
>That's why I'm wondering if I should just control the whole thing like a huge theater of horror. I'll make them THINK they lost and died and that they are restarting, but they aren't.
Isn't this still pretty much equivalent to dying? If the player thinks he is dying... he's dying. If there's some genuine difference, you'd be able to tell. If you're trying to simulate death, you are going to make the player think/feel like he's dying, but this is impossible unless you actually employ the mechanics of death, which aren't things that are simulated, they just are what they are.
Also, you seem to think the repetition is a really significant issue, but it's not. I have never minded dealing with a really well made game section more than a few times, since it's still exhilarating (just not as much as it was at first, maybe) and there's still the excitement of beating it and chasing all of the other possibilities of the games future awaiting me. All of this sounds like a false problem.
>>255631771
That's why my only option is to fake it. If orchestrated well enough, maybe it could work. I think the only way I'll find out is to actually make it, then make someone play it and see how he felt about the whole thing. It's all about entertaining the idea that he's going to die after all.
It's you and your spookington again
>>255631407
I wanna see this pulled off in a game.
>game is hard, you fight other people who are as strong as you and knock them out
>suddenly fight with loads of enemies
>you get cursed
>they all die brutally
>you don't get hurt
>even as the place collapses
...I'm not sure how you can make immortality scary in a game concept other than that and maybe bottomless pits.
>>255632015
Difficulty modes just make it harder to die, they don't change the punishment-through-repetition aspect for someone who does die.
Besides, playing horror games on easy essentially defeats the purpose because there's no tension. It would be nice if there were a way to have a tense and challenging game but at the same time not be tedious and repetitive IF you die. I don't think this is possible though
>>255632454
>High-res textures on very low poly count model
Shit's nightmare fuel, yo.
As long as there's some randomness to encounters, death is fine.
What if that guy that jumped you around at the corner wasnt there anymore? What if he came behind you as you were peeking around said corner?
If you have your spooky monster on an easily observable patrol then of course tension is going to decrease.
>>255631874
Because at that point you're not just crafting the illusion of a little world, but an automated apparatus for generating little worlds (a big-bang creator, the games code being the 'personality' of the big bang in a way). How can you do that tastefully at all? Human beings that are experts are the ones typically charged with producing level layouts, which is why randomly generated levels all feel more or less mediocre: nobody has the skillz to program it yet, I guess! But I think it can be done. You just need a fine grip on individual mechanics and how they relate to the rest of the game, and that's a tough thing to think through.
Also, randomly generated content doesn't pass through a "human filter" first, which is typically the expert producing the material in the first place. The filter is whether he thinks it makes a positive contribution to the game or not. This is what is missing between the random content and the player.
>>255632615
in general a lot of the early 3D low-poly stuff is creepy as fuck, regardless of texture quality.
how about when you die the pc/console ejects the disc and shuts off?
>>255632454
so you play as a skull?
>>255633493
if you go on the blog you have the whole series of events
The blog is fucking shit though, how do I deliver the webms in a better fashion than this shit? Maybe I should just make one big youtube video about it.
>>255633418
that's some eternal darkness shit right there
>>255633318
I think it's pretty much because you're forced to use your imagination more when dealing with low-poly stuff (and sometimes they end up in the uncanny valley), whereas high-detailed models just 'hands' it all to you
>>255633418
Is this even doable?
Nevermind that, does any PC game actually use discs these days?
>>255611671
maybe death can result in a screamer and game over, encouraging dumbfuck players to GIT GUD
>>255631771
I think keeping the game unpredictable is the best way to keep someone invested.
Like sometimes when you "die", you wake up where you left off and the spooky skeleton that was chasing you isn't there anymore.
Of course that's a pretty simple example. When I think of unpredictability, I think back to games like LSD where you didn't know what the fuck triggers what or what would happen if you did something. Kept the game unnerving as fuck.
I think having something like that, but in more of a horror settingand without being batshit insane like LSD iswould be a good way to start thinking about how to handle death.
>>255633418
I have a better idea.
When you diea random file on your hard drive is permanently deleted
And at the end of the gameyou find a note with a list of all deleted files
>>255633970
Great.
If the thread dies thanks again for the input guys. Always appreciate it.
>>255631771
If the game is fun, you will deal with the repetition. Why? Because the sections are fun enough to play again and again and, ideally, can be beaten with lots of fun/cool/interesting/hilarious strategies. Also, there's still the rest of the game you want to get to, a possibility oriented thought you experience more or less positively, depending on how good the game has been for you. This is the essential thing missing from the second time you beat games, and it's almost more essential in games than it is in movies (the more games flat-out confuse our nervous systems through being utterly convincing, "alive" and enveloping, the less of an issue this will become).
People who replay games over and over are simply too insensitive to experience that feeling, so they don't feel its absence that intensely (they don't know what they're missing). This is totally characteristic of aspies, who are so utterly, absurdly absorbed in their own thoughts that the feelings of their nervous systems are totally removed from their perception.
I don't mind it much in horror games, like SH and RE, where death is something of the last thing that should happen to the character before their journey is over.
As a mechanic overall, I've found it to be hit or miss. Some games really just shouldn't have it. It's sensible in something like Shadow of the Colossus, or the Souls series, but then you have things like Steambot Chronicles where it's almost out of place due to the fact that there's only ONE way to game over.
RPGs are a different matter. On one hand, it does make sense the party wouldn't faint and be recovered to a nearby inn while fighting a boss, but that would be sensible when they're just out in the field level grinding. Hell, it would make things a bit more interesting because you then know that major fights are for keeps, whereas random encounters just mean a minor loss of your gold.
>>255634171
No.That's the DRM. You have to buy the game to get your files back.
>>255632817
How about a game that makes you weaker while you progress? Imagine last standing SWAT member getting stripped of his arduous and running out of ammo in a hostile environment. Throwing intimidating shit at the player all the time, making him change the tactics. This does not solve the problem of respawning but it does add tension.
>>255632569
spiders
>>255633970
Games like REmake rely heavily on knowing where the enemies are when you travel back and forth through rooms. What if, when you die, enemies are moved around to different locations, completely fucking up your previous knowledge of the game? It could be written off if the game were about different dimensions and when you die you "wake up" in an alternate version or some shit.
>>255633318
High-poly stuff is not creepy at all most of the times for some reason.
>>255633820
well, then it could just shut off your machine.
>>255632569
Being stuck in a bottomless pit for the rest of your eternal life does sound pretty unnerving.
>>255634247
Just to make that more clear, if the game is SUPER FUN, you basically hang up that specific possibility in your imagination, a thought you straight-up enjoy having. You simultaneously enjoy the game, as well as what it symbolizes for its own future. This enjoyment is a source of power, in a way, and lets you endure the slight repetition, but so does beating sections more gracefully than before. So, it's a non-issue in a genuinely great game, if you ask me. The solution to repetitive death: make a more fun, more complex, more varied game.
>>255634648
It wouldn't really even have to be written off. Could assume the enemies just moved.
>>255634810
mk4_game_over_sequence.avi
>>255634648
>seeing a crimson head for the first time
yeah, something similar but more random would be great.
>>255633418
>die in game to a special encounter with a spooky skeleton
>quiet scream starts to build
>gets louder and louder
>think Goku SSJ3, but spooky
>starts flashing the word "RUN" on the screen
>disc drives eject over and over
>computer just shuts off
Anyone playing in the dark would be surrounded by darkness. This would be the supreme spook.
>>255614128
>>255611671
>We want death to be an integral part of the game
Says who? OP asked for a horror game
It doesn't have to be adrenaline based or traumatizing.
There should be a game about adult horrors, allowing you to live a simple life, and based on the decisions you make, something like your father running away when you're little, leaving your mother sick and weary as she slowly wastes away as you grow up, or living a full, complete life but killing your character, and hearing their reactions when you find the body
One of the scariest things any PC game can do is fucking with the player outside of the game itself.
Change their background image, play with the sound, do a screamer, leave text files and pictures on the desktop or in the game folder. Just completely mess without them even after they close the game.
Imscared did this, as did that one game about the rabbit girl person thing.
>>255634810
That's something that's always scared about the thought of immortality (or invincibility). Being bored for eternity sounds really shitty.
>>255611671
Oh god is that a skull with a Colossi's eyes?
>>255633418
>shoots out the disc from the slot
>it pings off the walls
>beheads you
>>255634648
Or just have it that enemies can roam about. If done with the right hardware, that would probably be easy to make room to room transitions seamless, and thus allow even the enemies to wander around independently.
>>255611671
Death only means something if it risks time and commitment the player has an investment in.
Like Fire Emblem.
>>255634729
low poly still has that innocence of youth feel and mystery, like the pioneer days. high poly just feels cold and manufactured by big budget developers.
>>255635229
>>255634916
oh duh, so simple I didn't even think of it
the zombies randomly traveling between rooms was one of the scariest parts of REmake, along with crimson heads of course.
Every time the player dies in a horror game, it resets the tension to zero. When the player goes through the same parts of the game again, the build up won't be as effective because the player already knows what to expect. The more the player dies, the less tense he is, and the more familiar the player is with the game, the less effective it is at making the player tense.
Horror games aren't easy to balance. Some scare the player with the idea that they can die in the game, but that method has diminishing returns because players ultimately become accustomed to failure that has no consequences outside the game.
>>255634989
maybe a scream like this perhaps?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr6eFl7hCiA
>>255633418
>die in the game
>screen starts flashing
>disc drive starts making an ungodly loud noise
>screen is suddenly black and everything goes silent
>drive ejects the cd
>pick the cd up and flip it around
>"Git Gud" is etched in the back
>>255634729
Not as much is left to the imagination. It's similar to how not seeing the monster in a horror movie is generally scarrier, because once you see it you lose the mystery and you can see how lame and cheesy it is.
That said, good visuals can still be scary, but it just means increased effort and artistic direction must come with it or you get something really lame.
>>255635691
jesus fucking christ good god
>>255635678
so then de-familiarize the player to the game. Death makes enemies change routes/placement or maybe if the game is supernaturally themed entire areas of the game could be moved around and recombined in different arrangements, all to throw off the player
>>255635137
> the rabbit girl person thing.
?
>>255634729
Less detailed, elaborate constructs have more symbolic value. A flying and screaming low-poly skull with crappy texturing is unnerving exactly because it's so crude.
>>255633820
it'd be pretty simple for the game to trigger a batch file that would change backgrounds, add icons, change settings, etc. The only hurdle would be if doing so requires UAC permission.
>>255635767
try out pick related. AFAIK it's the closest thing you'll get, but it's console not PC
>>255636294
kinda like how the 2001 monolith is creepy. There's just something about simple geometric shapes like that. It's so unnatural and alien
>>255636435
>game.exe is trying to show you a screamer
>ok no
Go for a killer 7 style of music
>>255636095
That's thinking inside the death-box, though. What use is threatening the player's virtual avatar? It's immortal. The player knows this, even if he isn't actively thinking about it. Think about horror films, they can be effective despite the audience knowing they can't be hurt by the film, what makes them scary is that they expose the viewer to something they find unpleasant, unnerving, etc. Horror games do this, but it is at odds with performance-based game design.
>>255630517
yeah thats why alma in fear wasnt scary at all, she was fucking harmless
>>255616791
That whole "Hello" bit is perfect as it sets the stage for someone to think it's something simple and silly, but then the whole WAHOOOWA! sends you running with that face slowly stalking you down.
A got alternative to the "death" is the fact of something like this, by "entrapping" them with this skull, they then are subject to more horrible things than normal, such as the horrible thing in the window.
Perhaps a multi tier ending with every thing they fail to "escape" leading to progressively more horrible things until finally reaching a final one where "death" isn't the end, rather a creepy bit of story or setting.Such a horrible thing would be, for example, a shot of said main character fused with his 'battlestation' in a horrific splicing of man and machine ala H.R. Geiger.
Like, you are in the dark and the skull chases you and then you wear it and then suddenly you have the thing in the window. should you fail to escape it, you then end up in another horrible place with something else following you leading to another challenge, but if you escape the other horrible thing, you get a few moments to breathe before something else happens.
The "best" ending is one where you escape all the hazzards that CAN be avoided.
I mean, after a while, the whole "hello" thing will become horrifying and not funny should it become a recurring thing.
>>255637064
That's why I said it would only work if the actions it prompted didn't require authorization
Do you guys wanna watch some LSD?
If you can't die in a horror game, what is there to fear? If there's no punishment, all that's left to do is roll with the proverbial punches. Avoiding death is the primary reason to fear just about anything in a horror game. You don't want to die/face some horrible fate, ergo you do everything in your power to avoid it. If that means fleeing over fighting, so be it. A horror game without death is just a spooky roller coaster. Cheap thrills at best.
Hey guys I have nothing to add to the discussion, and just came here, but I NEEDED to sa that this was a wonderful thread.
Civic, interesting, differing opinions and with a constant discussion without fallacies.
Hope OP finishes the game, whichever decisions he takes. Just fucking FINISH it.
And the rest of people, don't be afraid of developing lowpoly auteur/personal games. They're the actual gold that is videogame art.
>>255638172
I think the trick is to not even acknowledge player if he can die or not
>>255623893
You'd get whole /v/ threads with his face on it saying "Hello" and then every fucking body commenting on him.
how about him yelling that wonderful hoot just to make it so all the horrible shit looks in your direction?
Why not take a look at several approaches? Right off the bat it's obvious that eliminating death altogether, or removing it from the big picture after the player tells algorithm that current monster is too demanding - like Amnesia did and like that trivial new horror game from Jubert and co. will do - leads to walking simulators, akin to Levine's approach past SS2. You walk along while paroles, images and generally cheap symbolism rolls by. Occasionally you'll have to wait for that card.
The way Silent Hill did it, as opposed to Resident Evil gameplay, was
to create monsters as hindrance rather than true obstacle - combat is the weakest part of the game there and you play it for level design, puzzles and everything is coated in beautiful music. Atmosphere triumphs over lacklustre gameplay - which is still better than no gameplay present in aforementioned example.
Then you have occasional glimpses of brilliance from shit developers such as David Cage - opening gameplay sequence to Fahrenheit remains the pinnacle of suspension in video games, it's not strictly horror, more of a thriller, but the challenge stems from the puzzle-ish gameplay under duress, and time limitation often adds to horror. Remember those missions from Starcraft where the sole objective is to survive?
I'd say that the third approach is the best one - horror games must have puzzles, CAN have time limit and combat should be very hard, but not necessarily impossible. You shouldn't be able to tommy gun shoggoths as a general rule. Atmosphere is king no matter how core gameplay is designed, and therefore you have incredible experiences set in the body of a cowadoodie shooter (STALKER series). But please, please, have gameplay. At least know how to design puzzles. You have to have obstacles in horror games. Hard ones.
>>255611671
>Horror game
>World is slowly being corrupted by evil or whatever, you have a time limit to beat the game but it's very very lenient
>Dying shaves time off, and the world gets a bit more corrupted
>The faster you get to the end the better ending you'll get
>Die too many times and it's impossible to beat the game in time
>Run out of time and you get an instant game over.
>As the world gets more corrupted the game gets spookier, and enemies get tougher.>Super hard mode that keeps the game on ultra super spooky mode from the very start, and has a reduced timer
This encourages the player to press onward and go as fast as they can, but forces them to be careful, because if they die they make the game harder. You have an incentive to take risks, and a higher punishment for fucking up.
Then again this might ruin the pacing of the horror game
>>255637496
funny you mention the battlestation because I planned to make the back of the chair look more and more like a coffin every level
>>255638337
oh boy yes, it just fucks you up by yelling like a retarded asshole
Excellent
>>255611671
make it so everytime you "die" you get taken away by demons or whatever and mutilated, crippled, raped, etc. every time this happens the game gets harder and harder, while the player character gets more and more grotesque. picture the pc shambling along, bloodied, perhaps with pus gushing wounds, a deformed limb, body corrupted, groaning in agony and despair at random intervals, vomiting blood, and you can see dark spirits cruelly torment you as you try to beat the game.
eventually, the player will choose to start over and play again of his own volition due to just the sheer unsettling nature of the game.
WAHOOWA
I just got a new idea:
Everytime player dies, there is additional monster in place where the mc died, like a twisted corpse. It will make the player afraid of dying and dont make them replay whole game or huge part of it. Also, he will not get bored easily, as with each try you have to adapt to new enemies.
>>255638306
I don't think that's a feasible idea. There has to be a fail state somewhere. You could take the Haunting Ground route and say that failure isn't necessarily death, but even then it's a fail state that, from a mechanical perspective, might as well equate to death.
Horror games absolutely need consequences to be scary
You know what happens when you die in amnesia? You revive in the same room and the monster doesn't come back. Near the end O realized this and just let monsters kill me so I could explore at my leisure
There's no threat, there's no fear.
It doesn't have to be mind numbingly difficult but if failure isn't punishing enough then don't even bother with any ideas you have and just make a walking sim
>>255638362
Speaking of shoggoths and lovecraft, wasn't a big theme in his works that 'becoming like them' was worse than death? How about a horror game that tries to convert you to scientology or something?
Damn it, I always miss this guy. I could probably help out on sound work too. Oh well.
>>255638974
i would love to see a horror game that was made by the collective mind of /v/ or /b/
>>255638974
That just sounds goofy and stupid.
>>255640463
>/b/
Yeah nah, unless you only want to use them as a source of gore pics.
>>255638362
The puzzles in Silent Hill are obnoxious and annoying, no one plays the games for them. Also, are stressful time limit missions really what you (or people) want from HORROR games? What genre are you even thinking of?
Okay, so. Let's say this turns out to be a good horror game, an original one at that, giving new ideas on how to approach the horror genre and it's own unique feel.How can long would it be until PooDuhPee and nearly every single LPer records it and have it become it's own thing, AND can we even do something about it?
That's the only thing that really bugs me about this. The horror genre can be a good one, if you do it right, but it's really fucking overused in LPer community, like SCP for example. It's ideas started around /v/ originally, but now it's become something it shouldn't have.
>>255611671
What horror games need is a limited save system like RE 1 or a penalty of losing ammo or stuff like that.
Why do I find these crappy indie horror games so scary? AAA titles can be creepy, but they are not asspookyas shitty Unity shit with default assets.
>>255641410
why do you even care about that anon? community doesn't make game worse, unless it is multiplayer. popularizing scp, for instance, gave us containment breach.
>>255641410
Give them a special edition tailored to them. "/v/'s horror game LP edition" will have no jumpscares or anything like that, and just have a spooky atmosphere. Then at the end just as the plot finishes they're dumped into a Terry Trap, just like in the shitty Doom wads.
>>255639972
Still there bra. Just send me a message through the blog. it's somewhere up there. You can just make spooky music that you like and send it to me if you want.
>>255641546
I'd say AAA games can'T get away with as much shit as indie who don't give a fuck. I was thinking of laughing at SJW in one scene where to people could have some retarded argument and the SJW would just get fucking rekt by a monster. No horror. Just a random scene to say fuck you (it'd be kind of funny too). Then ou'd go back to horror.
>>255641410
>>255641951How bad of an idea is it to post my blog on reddit? I've always been on /v/ and I'm scared they'll hype it too much or I don't know what.
>>255641546
Those crappy Unity games had no filters during production. Big money dictates that devs refine their shit until it loses the initial creative spark. Compare waking up from a nightmare and in the post-dream haze writing down your fever-induced horrors, to turning that messy note into a proper short story that obeys common conventions of the genre narrative.
This is why people like the idea of a roguelike horror game. Suffer a horrible death, then start anew in a completely different, foreign environment as a different player. That, or as a different character in the same environment, but starting at a different point, so potentially >>255639439 (I really like this idea) could happen.
I don't think anybody's done good job of randomly generated levels in a horror game, yet. Even further, the problem would be whether the player feels that they've lost a ton of progress or not. There could be still frustration, but at least the repetition of familiar environments would be eliminated.
>>255641410
Horror done right is more than jump-scares, it is downright perturbing. Silent Hill 2, Siren, and Eternal Darkness executed the atmosphere, story, and designs in such a way that it can unnerve and disturb the viewer more than just startle them like many movies and games aim for.
PooDehPy and the LP community often overlook the true aspects of horror in favor of just spewing out how spooped they are at the scurry munster.
In regards to the topic: Death can be something that adds to the game, as other anons have said, via changing the scenario the player faces, or even the overall ending of the game. But the process of a character dying is what can really make or break it, as there is a fine line between having an adrenaline-inducing challenge and badly designed fuckfests that some developers seem to think horror games should have.
>>255638367
That would work if you had two timers, time elapsed and time left.
Doing stuff and progressing would raise your time left, while dying would raise your time elapsed.
Then the difficulty and world changing idea can be applied to the time elasped counter, and you can keep progressing with the spookiness without worrying about not having time for the player.
>>255642646
That zombie game for wii u sorta had that if i remember correctly. Not so spooky
>>255642240
>How bad of an idea is it to post my blog on reddit?
why not
>>255642452
Youre smart
i want you to keep writing
im drunk
>>255642704
Movie-wise, the exact opposite of jumpscare based horror would probably be Pulse/Kairo. Are there any video games like it?
>>255642240
Post a self post on /r/gamedev or /r/creepygaming (IIRC)
>>255642704
Jump scares can work in my opinion, they just need proper build up. A Machine for Pigs does a great job building tension, but it's never released aside from a few spooks. I think a great way to release tension like that is through jump scares, so long as the game isn't comprised entirely of them and are thrown at the player at every opportunity.
>>255642646
Clock Tower did something like this, and one of the SCP games. In Clocktower, you were in the same environment but the layout of the place would be very different, with a few key rooms and reas being constant.
>>255643046
I've heard Fatal Frame has that sort of feel.
>>255637667
Anyone? I'm planning on starting a fresh run.
>>255643234
Why resolve tension when you could use the oppressive atmosphere to bully the player into quitting the game? That's what I want to see, a game so unnerving that players would rather not play it.
>>255616315
It was some old 3D chat thing, nowadays it's almost exclusively used by /x/ tripfags and other attention whores to roleplay satanic cults and stuff because shitty graphics are apparently spooky.
>>255643306
Isn't Fatal Frame the kind of game that makes you play with tunnel vision so the spooky ghosts can jump at you easier?
>>255643318
I can't watch it, I'm headed for bed, but go for it man.
>>255634729
this is why shit like MM and glover are still pretty spooky today
>>255643974
>MM
What
The player has to go through a dark maze. To your right is a box of flares. There can be a dead skellington holding a flare and a note.
The note says: "They fear flares... To get through the maze.... Seek the white......"
The player now knows the maze houses creatures of some kind, and that THEY fear flares. You don't know a thing about them, so taking the flares right next to you just in case should be a good idea, and prevent possible death. To progress through the dark maze, the player must seek something white. The player doesn't have to be spoonfed entirely, so some things can be left cryptic for the player to figure out. A white object will stand out in a dark maze, so you will recognize it when you see it. At least you know what you're looking for.
If the note was never there, the player would still be afraid of the unknown in the maze. However, If the player encountered one of them, they would most likely die, thus spoiling the tension and causing frustration because they don't know how to deal with THEM. The player doesn't know the flares might save his life right away, but might discover that fact by accidentally using it in a dire situation or using every available option after dying several times. And there's also the maze. Without knowing about the white things, the player can keep wandering around the maze in frustration, trying out every corner before dying, or even drawing a map. But that takes away from the tension.
The note prepares the player for what's ahead, making it potentially easier while still leaving some things vague, and without the note the player must figure out everything by himself while potentially dying often, taking away the horror and tension, but feels like it doesn't hold your hands at all.
Of course, the maze is just an example. How you are going to lead the player through a challenge is entirely up to you.
Meanwhile on leddit: discussion on games with more death.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/2c5fvy/all_you_gamers_out_there_how_would_you_react_to_a/
>>255644115
majoras mask, dummy
> I think it's not because it offers relief, and worse,
m8 please if a game has a big enough consequence for dying then it can become tense as fuck. Not a horror game but Steel Battalion will actually delete your save file if you either eject too many times or die once making every missions really tense especially when you fuck up during part of it.
>>255628091
What if somebody makes an adventure rpg with plenty of npcs, but under the disguise. As the game progresses, npcs will just plain disappear/randomly die/force you to kill them and shit like that. Also make it an autosave only game so that nobody breaks the game by savescumming. Eventually, the player will notice by the time there are so few left, so then the player will have the remaining npcs stay as followers so they don't go crazy or disappear and shit, and as they carry on adventuring, game slowly gets more and more decrepit with decaying structures and diseased nature, with hints being made towards the player that the remaining npcs are plotting to kill him, eventually driving the player so paranoid that they kill the last npcs so they are alone forever, and the optional ending of the game is that the player character must commit suicide.
>>255641310
>no one plays silent hill for puzzles
>three difficulty settings for puzzles
>completely change how some parts of the game play out
please
>>255639898
well, corruption is a theme that has been dealt hamfistedly for sure.
>>255643740
Before bed is the best time for LSD.
I'm JiggidyWiggidy on something that rhymes with witch and ends with TV.
>>255643438
What I'm saying is that you can use jump scares effectively. A game constantly building tension can be really boring, in the case of Machine for Pigs, but it can be really good. It's not necessary for all games obviously, but they can be very effective. I think Machine for Pigs could have used more scares like that to keep you on edge. Just not an extreme amount of them.
>>255611671
Oh cool, I remember you.
Going to ask again here because you'd left the thread by the time I asked yesterday, did you compose the main menu BGM in the webm of your agme you posted yesterday?
Also, I feel that death in a horror game can be really worthwhile if done right, like in the early RE games when you dies you got a gory death scene of your character getting eaten alive by zombies or torn to shreads by monsters which was effective. Same for the Silent hill games, and some of those were just completely out of the blue and there to punish the player for not taking their time and checking out the area likethe sewer death in SH3.
The death scenes don't even have to be particularly gory, like in TLoU, you'd get a visceral shot of MC getting bitten or about to be ripped apart by the boomer and it'd just cut away before anything gory actually happens which was quite effective at making you feel pretty creeped out.
A horror game without death would (at least in my opinion) just not work because as soon as I realize I can't die the creepy atmosphere evaporates and I'd probably lose interest.but then again i've never played a horror game where a no deaths feature was properly utalized
People fear life way more than they fear death.
The problem is that players are not afraid of their character dying. Players are afraid of being scraed. Dying can sometimes be a stress relief for the player ("It is finally over!").
>>255644192
Yeah I read through that and other conversations too but didn'T find what I was looking for. They just kept going "X game did that --yeah that game --i liked that game it did that" but I don't think many games capture what I'm looking for.
On another topic, I wanted to use the religion element. Maybe I could make some Npcs talk about "Him/He". Just something to put a bit of lore you know.
I also have an idea that I do not know how to execute. Tell me what you think about this:
You enter a level, your screen is split in two/a small square is in the corner. You quickly understand that it's something watching you and not just some camera on a wall.
You see what it sees, but even when you look straight in the camera, you only see dark (let's say you're in a canyon or some dried deep river place). At one point, you'd have to open a room after a bit of build up and the screen in the corner would clearly indicate that the thing filming you is behind the door you have to open.
Would that be unnerving enough? Should I make it so that as he opens the door, it's not actually the same door? He opens it and the door in the screen doesn't open.
>>255644812
I imagine for particular monsters there wouldn't even be a gory death scene, and implies something stranger and worse.
Think pic related-tier.
>>255612025
I like this concept a lot, but the fear of death is meant to be an incentive to survive. You don't want to die, and you want to make it out alive.
I like the idea of a horror game remembering everything you do. There are no savestates of any kind, only auto saves. When you die, the game goes into a deeper level. The game gets creepier, reminds you how you fucked up, and the more you die, the more fucked up the game gets, until you cannot progress any further.
Okay here is a game idea: You are a woman who travels to purgatory to save the soul of her daughter. The initial game is creepy, but there is a sense of hope as you progress the game. However, when you die, the game takes a dark turn. From there, your character is no longer in a human body, but a soul that is not suck in purgatory as well. Now you have to not only save your daughter, but also save yourself. But if you continue dying, you start descending into hell, your hope diminishing the more times you fail, until you are stuck at the bottom, with nowhere to go. From there, you have to restart the game from the beginning.
>>255644812
Yeah I posted about it on the blog. I downloaded FL studio saturday and tried making something and this is the only full song I could make. I find it somewhat easy/alright to make nice PARTS of a song (like one instrument/beat) but have a bit of trouble putting them together right now. I'll get better with time I suppose.
>>255611671
I think a good solution would be that if you "die" it takes you to another world you have to escape from that is scarier than the living world and difficult to get through.
It provides a sense of fear of dying without making death a restart point while still punishing you for failing.
>>255639296
DAMN IT IT IS STARTING ALREADY!I love you you wonderful asshole
![glitch2[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/rq5C5Ic.jpg "glitch2[1].jpg")
>>255616791
>http://imakethethings.blogspot.ca/
make glitching/noclipping through walls and falling through the map a game mechanic
there is nothing spookier than falling into an ocean of nothingness or walking through creepy half-finished houses
>>255645256
Your idea is good and unnerving. Try this: the "cameraman" is slowly tracking you while you walk through the linear level. Like, you completed past the first half and then, suddenly, this window appears, showing the camera in the beginning of the level that follows your path. (my english sucks, i know. i hope you get the idea)
It reminds me of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, when your head suddenly appears in the corner of the monitor inside a sniper's scope.
>>255645351
W-what is that?
>>255642704
Jesus christ that is terrifying.
>>255645187
>>255644925
These 2 posts represent exactly what I'm aiming for. I love reading about how fear works but these two elements seem to be the key.
"Afraid of being afraid". Death is not implied. You only have to make scary events occur in a fashion that will corner and expose the person's fear.
There is something I'm not getting, maybe there's nothing to get even. But I'll keep looking a little more.
As another anon said, great thread right here. Never seen so little shiptposting.
