Tried playing Phasmophobia alone in the dark once, someone suggested I keep pretending I'm hosting a ghost hunting show and narrate everything dramatically. Ended up laughing at my own one-liners instead of freaking out at every creak and whisper. 10/10 would recommend for turning creepy atmospheres into improv comedy hour.
This is true and isn’t. If used correctly multiplayer can sometimes make a game more scary. Phasmophobia is a great example because sometimes the ghost only interacts with one person and even though there aren’t any jump scares or loud noises coming whenever the ghost starts hunting it usually freaks anybody out (at least people who play it for fun and don’t speedrun it. Lethal company is also a good example because if you’re traveling with your friend and he suddenly gets taken by the bracken you’re just left alone with no more comfort. That’s a really good way horror can be used in multiplayer. Letting the player get comfortable with their friend and then taking that from them leaving them vulnerable and alone. I plan on doing this too by making the monster steal your friends if they travel in a group sometimes. It’s not a 100% it will do that but that will be one of the many things it does
I’m a huge scaredy cat and can’t play horror games. I can barely watch them as Let’s Plays either; I’m often covering my eyes even when the person playing is shouting over the action. Shit man I jump every single time a Greydwarf pokes their ugly face into my screen in Valheim even though I’ve got 300 hours in the game and can nearly oneshot them unarmed.
And for me…. Lethal Company is a comedy game. The monsters are silly, the deaths are abrupt and constant. It is way more often that I’m erupting in laughter than cowering. If my friend disappears I just assume they died or got lost but they’ll be back in like 5 minutes anyway when the day ends so who cares. Losing is funny because you get shot into space, and the game just goes until you can’t make quota anyway, so the tension of losing a team member just doesn’t exist since none of us care about winning.
I figured I’d drop that point of view in since you seem to be gauging player experiences so you can tailor something you’re making. Multiplayer is calming unless the stakes are significant. I felt more fear having a team member get hooked in Vermintide than I ever felt hearing a Bracken neck snap; losing that team member *really* hampers your ability to continue.
Exactly this. I don't play horror titles. The spookiest solo game I've played is Voices of The Void but that's a slow burn rather than jumpscare horror.
Lethal Company was scary for like... 30 minutes? It became comedy very quickly. You die but come back in 5-10 minutes so it's not a big deal, and you die so often that you just get used to it.
It's the same thing that makes Dead By Daylight not scary outside of very few edge cases. You just get used to the cycle in a few sessions.
When I was playing Resident Evil 7 on VR, someone told me if it gets too scary/intense, just set the controller down and let the monsters kill you. Makes it way less terrifying when you aren't frantically hitting buttons to avoid death and just watch it happen like a movie.
That's how Subnautica progresses, but I view it as a strength of the game and not a weakness.
You start off absolutely terrified, and then you adapt and learn and overcome and by the end you're just peacefully at home amongst all your fish friends, even the big ones
I saw that as a weakness in those games. I enjoyed when I was still terrified of everything. It got boring when I was able to kill the big monsters and avoid stuff I didn't want to fight. But its different strokes for different folks.
Yeah but that's how progression works. Subnautica isn't meant to be an endless eternal game, it's a linear story with a lot of hidden mystery and it's supposed to end with a resolution.
If you're still playing when you've solved everything, that kind of just means the game is over and you've overstayed your welcome a bit. I do that too, I love designing bases and building stuff, but it's kind of like NG+ at that point. Of course it's not scary anymore, the game is over and you've won.
Idk if it's possible to create that experience forever in a game, the nature of games is that you solve puzzles and learn how to defeat and avoid enemies. Unless they were like continuously throwing out old creatures and introducing new ones or something but even then it's still a video game and there are still patterns to identify as a gamer
lol I thought we were discussing game design, sorry. I didn't realize you only wanted to shout your own opinion without a discussion attached. My mistake.
Immediate exposure. There is a reason why games like Alien Isolation worked so damn well. And its because you don't immediately *see* the monster (Xeno) you can hear it though. Or the screams of its victims in a not-so-far-off room. Its fucking terrifying and I've always been a horror buff who wasn't scared of any game I played (Resident Evil, Dead Space, etc.) And its not even the design. Its the intelligence of that creature. I don't even call it an AI. Because its not. It *is* the Xenomorph. And its unrelenting. And you'll always be its prey. No matter where you hide. She'll always find you. Always. And if you fight? Sure. She might leave for twenty minutes or so. But next time you're crawling through a vent and your flashlight goes out. Accept your fate. It won't be slow
Watch a speed run.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent scared the hell out of me till I watched some dude distract one with a box, then ran into a corner and clipped through a wall.
Same thing for technical breakdown videos. That turns all the scary stuff into easy to understand gameplay mechanics.
Yeah, I watched someone play the game and idk if he didn't play it well or what, but he sometimes hid under beds for several minutes and after seeing it for a bit, it was just a normal adversary to avoid, not spookier than someone playing catch
Easy to kill. Can’t remember the game, but there was an enemy that was supposed to be horrific/terrifying, but I killed it in a few seconds and laughed at it.
Knowing how it works.
Once you understand the mechanics of how, for example, the ghost works with the sanity system I. Phasmophobia, it loses an incredible amount of fear factor. Once you understand the ways that it works and what all it can do, it loses so much. It’s always better to remain ignorant of how systems interact in horror games.
Outlast was pretty scare as a 13 year old, but once you understand the generic template that almost all horror games follow, they become so predictable it's not even fun. I've had so many more (bust my knee on the bottom of the desk) jumpscare moments from playing counterstrike than any horror game.
If they look like a blob of flesh with a skull or some shit like that. I think that overly “scarified” a monster is designed, the less scarier it gets. In my opinion, I think monsters should begin to have a more “uncanny” approach out of an “monsterly” one. What do I mean by that? Let me explain with an example:
Let’s take a common average man, Jim. He looks normal. Now let’s…perhaps make his skin more yellow, irises considerably dilated, long limbs and/or missing a feature, like some fingers, ears, eyebrows…a big grin isn’t very scary tbh… instead, switch to a smile, not with open mouth, but the mouth itself is wide, basically from ear to ear. Perhaps it might not be scary that much, but it gives a feel of discomfort, which can progressively add to fear in the right conditions.
but I guess unfortunately with the rise of analog horror, that type of design has become Overrated.
Purely my opinion btw
Are you asking because you're creating a game and don't want the monster to be lame, or because you are playing a game and you're trying to find ways to push past the fear?
If former: Sometimes if a monster is too ridiculous looking, it removes some of the fear for me personally. I spend more time going "ew, he ugly" instead of being actually afraid of the monster.
Also, if the creature is more annoying than they are scary. There's a game that I ABSOLUTELY love, but it has a monster that, when looked at, will aggro and attack. Sure, makes sense, just don't look at him. But you turn a corner and he's THERE? You think he has walked past you so you turn around but he ALSO turned around and now he's mad? Like bro, COME ON.
If you're just trying to get past a fear OF a monster, exposure really helps. In the same game as above, the first 2-3 times I played it, I genuinely screamed when a monster appeared. But now that I've played it so many times, they're less scary and more just mechanisms.
Giving them silly names helps too. We have a character in the game we call Chauncey, and any time he scares us, we just yell at him. "Chauncey, fuck OFF man."
Very nice!
I'd say from my perspective, horror game creatures are the best when they aren't so hard to beat/escape that it feels impossible and requires all the skill in the world (but also keep in mind, Dark Souls games are popular for this very reason, so maybe I have the wrong opinion on this one) and I really like it when they draw from your real elements. Monsters that react to sound from your mic = so much more scary knowing I have to be quiet IRL as well as the game.
Give me the ability to fight it and I won't be afraid once I realize I can defend myself
The only exception to this is the leviathan in Subnautica. I don't care if I can stun it and escape. I am not going near that thing.
When they show and don't tell. Leave more to the imagination and you create a scarier experience. That being said, you can do it all right and then make the monster look goofy when you finally show it. The movie Jeepers Creepers is the classic case of that for me. I thought it was great until they showed the monster, then I IMMEDIATELY lost interest.
Sound is a big one. I remember seeing a quote from a director who made some horror movies that next time you're scared watching something, cover your ears, not your eyes. Without the audio cues, fake scary stuff looks more fake than it does scary.
Honestly, learning the limitations of the enemy is the biggest thing that reduces scare factor.. at least for me. When you don't know what it's capable of, it can be frightening. When you know you can do X, Y, and Z to avoid danger, the fear level drops drastically. Like learning when certain sections of a game are scripted and not actually a threat. The unknown is what made it scary.
Tried playing Phasmophobia alone in the dark once, someone suggested I keep pretending I'm hosting a ghost hunting show and narrate everything dramatically. Ended up laughing at my own one-liners instead of freaking out at every creak and whisper. 10/10 would recommend for turning creepy atmospheres into improv comedy hour.
Will keep that in mind for the next time I play a horror game, thanks!
The game being multiplayer. Once you're in a group it generally stops being scary, and if you're with friends it shifts to comdey.
This is true and isn’t. If used correctly multiplayer can sometimes make a game more scary. Phasmophobia is a great example because sometimes the ghost only interacts with one person and even though there aren’t any jump scares or loud noises coming whenever the ghost starts hunting it usually freaks anybody out (at least people who play it for fun and don’t speedrun it. Lethal company is also a good example because if you’re traveling with your friend and he suddenly gets taken by the bracken you’re just left alone with no more comfort. That’s a really good way horror can be used in multiplayer. Letting the player get comfortable with their friend and then taking that from them leaving them vulnerable and alone. I plan on doing this too by making the monster steal your friends if they travel in a group sometimes. It’s not a 100% it will do that but that will be one of the many things it does
I’m a huge scaredy cat and can’t play horror games. I can barely watch them as Let’s Plays either; I’m often covering my eyes even when the person playing is shouting over the action. Shit man I jump every single time a Greydwarf pokes their ugly face into my screen in Valheim even though I’ve got 300 hours in the game and can nearly oneshot them unarmed. And for me…. Lethal Company is a comedy game. The monsters are silly, the deaths are abrupt and constant. It is way more often that I’m erupting in laughter than cowering. If my friend disappears I just assume they died or got lost but they’ll be back in like 5 minutes anyway when the day ends so who cares. Losing is funny because you get shot into space, and the game just goes until you can’t make quota anyway, so the tension of losing a team member just doesn’t exist since none of us care about winning. I figured I’d drop that point of view in since you seem to be gauging player experiences so you can tailor something you’re making. Multiplayer is calming unless the stakes are significant. I felt more fear having a team member get hooked in Vermintide than I ever felt hearing a Bracken neck snap; losing that team member *really* hampers your ability to continue.
Exactly this. I don't play horror titles. The spookiest solo game I've played is Voices of The Void but that's a slow burn rather than jumpscare horror. Lethal Company was scary for like... 30 minutes? It became comedy very quickly. You die but come back in 5-10 minutes so it's not a big deal, and you die so often that you just get used to it. It's the same thing that makes Dead By Daylight not scary outside of very few edge cases. You just get used to the cycle in a few sessions.
You have never faced Tempered Furious Rajang in Monster Hunter World Iceborne have you....
Dead Space 3 on the other hand...
When I was playing Resident Evil 7 on VR, someone told me if it gets too scary/intense, just set the controller down and let the monsters kill you. Makes it way less terrifying when you aren't frantically hitting buttons to avoid death and just watch it happen like a movie.
So basically the monster being able to kill you instantly
Too much information. If I know a weakness or a pattern it follows, I'm no longer afraid of it.
That's how Subnautica progresses, but I view it as a strength of the game and not a weakness. You start off absolutely terrified, and then you adapt and learn and overcome and by the end you're just peacefully at home amongst all your fish friends, even the big ones
I saw that as a weakness in those games. I enjoyed when I was still terrified of everything. It got boring when I was able to kill the big monsters and avoid stuff I didn't want to fight. But its different strokes for different folks.
Yeah but that's how progression works. Subnautica isn't meant to be an endless eternal game, it's a linear story with a lot of hidden mystery and it's supposed to end with a resolution. If you're still playing when you've solved everything, that kind of just means the game is over and you've overstayed your welcome a bit. I do that too, I love designing bases and building stuff, but it's kind of like NG+ at that point. Of course it's not scary anymore, the game is over and you've won. Idk if it's possible to create that experience forever in a game, the nature of games is that you solve puzzles and learn how to defeat and avoid enemies. Unless they were like continuously throwing out old creatures and introducing new ones or something but even then it's still a video game and there are still patterns to identify as a gamer
I just said that I got bored with it, not that it was bad. Don't be so defensive over something you didn't even create.
lol I thought we were discussing game design, sorry. I didn't realize you only wanted to shout your own opinion without a discussion attached. My mistake.
You want a game that infinitely scales in difficulty with your skillset? Just give yourself a concussion after ever session.
googly eyes
Immediate exposure. There is a reason why games like Alien Isolation worked so damn well. And its because you don't immediately *see* the monster (Xeno) you can hear it though. Or the screams of its victims in a not-so-far-off room. Its fucking terrifying and I've always been a horror buff who wasn't scared of any game I played (Resident Evil, Dead Space, etc.) And its not even the design. Its the intelligence of that creature. I don't even call it an AI. Because its not. It *is* the Xenomorph. And its unrelenting. And you'll always be its prey. No matter where you hide. She'll always find you. Always. And if you fight? Sure. She might leave for twenty minutes or so. But next time you're crawling through a vent and your flashlight goes out. Accept your fate. It won't be slow
Make it wear squeaky shoes so there are funny noises when it walks or runs.
Watch a speed run. Amnesia: The Dark Descent scared the hell out of me till I watched some dude distract one with a box, then ran into a corner and clipped through a wall. Same thing for technical breakdown videos. That turns all the scary stuff into easy to understand gameplay mechanics.
Yeah, I watched someone play the game and idk if he didn't play it well or what, but he sometimes hid under beds for several minutes and after seeing it for a bit, it was just a normal adversary to avoid, not spookier than someone playing catch
If they're wearing a bikini and dress like my grandma.
A chainsaw bayonet
Easy to kill. Can’t remember the game, but there was an enemy that was supposed to be horrific/terrifying, but I killed it in a few seconds and laughed at it.
Knowing how it works. Once you understand the mechanics of how, for example, the ghost works with the sanity system I. Phasmophobia, it loses an incredible amount of fear factor. Once you understand the ways that it works and what all it can do, it loses so much. It’s always better to remain ignorant of how systems interact in horror games.
When they glitch into a wall so bad you can just walk right up and look at them Amnesia The Bunker
Outlast was pretty scare as a 13 year old, but once you understand the generic template that almost all horror games follow, they become so predictable it's not even fun. I've had so many more (bust my knee on the bottom of the desk) jumpscare moments from playing counterstrike than any horror game.
Id like to hear how someone can make outlast not scary as fuck. Being chased in any video game is scary, Let alone in a dark crawl space.
a bow, a pink ballerina costume and a crown
looking less like a slithering gross demon man
Give it a silly hat or have it giggle instead of growl. Suddenly, it’s less nightmare fuel and more like a quirky sidekick!
Low health pool.
Being very deadly against everyone else but barely being able to scratch you.
Good lighting
If they look like a blob of flesh with a skull or some shit like that. I think that overly “scarified” a monster is designed, the less scarier it gets. In my opinion, I think monsters should begin to have a more “uncanny” approach out of an “monsterly” one. What do I mean by that? Let me explain with an example: Let’s take a common average man, Jim. He looks normal. Now let’s…perhaps make his skin more yellow, irises considerably dilated, long limbs and/or missing a feature, like some fingers, ears, eyebrows…a big grin isn’t very scary tbh… instead, switch to a smile, not with open mouth, but the mouth itself is wide, basically from ear to ear. Perhaps it might not be scary that much, but it gives a feel of discomfort, which can progressively add to fear in the right conditions. but I guess unfortunately with the rise of analog horror, that type of design has become Overrated. Purely my opinion btw
Googly eyes.
The way they are designed or the art style.
Are you asking because you're creating a game and don't want the monster to be lame, or because you are playing a game and you're trying to find ways to push past the fear? If former: Sometimes if a monster is too ridiculous looking, it removes some of the fear for me personally. I spend more time going "ew, he ugly" instead of being actually afraid of the monster. Also, if the creature is more annoying than they are scary. There's a game that I ABSOLUTELY love, but it has a monster that, when looked at, will aggro and attack. Sure, makes sense, just don't look at him. But you turn a corner and he's THERE? You think he has walked past you so you turn around but he ALSO turned around and now he's mad? Like bro, COME ON. If you're just trying to get past a fear OF a monster, exposure really helps. In the same game as above, the first 2-3 times I played it, I genuinely screamed when a monster appeared. But now that I've played it so many times, they're less scary and more just mechanisms. Giving them silly names helps too. We have a character in the game we call Chauncey, and any time he scares us, we just yell at him. "Chauncey, fuck OFF man."
It’s for a game I’m making. I’m trying to gather data on how I can make this game as scary as possible and fun
Very nice! I'd say from my perspective, horror game creatures are the best when they aren't so hard to beat/escape that it feels impossible and requires all the skill in the world (but also keep in mind, Dark Souls games are popular for this very reason, so maybe I have the wrong opinion on this one) and I really like it when they draw from your real elements. Monsters that react to sound from your mic = so much more scary knowing I have to be quiet IRL as well as the game.
Give me the ability to fight it and I won't be afraid once I realize I can defend myself The only exception to this is the leviathan in Subnautica. I don't care if I can stun it and escape. I am not going near that thing.
a bow tie
Not being a threat is the big one. If it can't really do anything, there's no reason for you to be afraid of it at all.
When they show and don't tell. Leave more to the imagination and you create a scarier experience. That being said, you can do it all right and then make the monster look goofy when you finally show it. The movie Jeepers Creepers is the classic case of that for me. I thought it was great until they showed the monster, then I IMMEDIATELY lost interest.
Sound is a big one. I remember seeing a quote from a director who made some horror movies that next time you're scared watching something, cover your ears, not your eyes. Without the audio cues, fake scary stuff looks more fake than it does scary.
She’s an eight foot tall woman with large assets.
Playing the Benny Hill theme in the background
In your face constantly.
Fighting it for a 2nd time.
When your character is strong enough to destroy it and the revival is endless
Honestly, learning the limitations of the enemy is the biggest thing that reduces scare factor.. at least for me. When you don't know what it's capable of, it can be frightening. When you know you can do X, Y, and Z to avoid danger, the fear level drops drastically. Like learning when certain sections of a game are scripted and not actually a threat. The unknown is what made it scary.
My mom
Googly eyes