The Weekend Debate: Fear Factory

hey hey

I’ve never played anything that I have considered scary. Maybe i’ve missed out :/

Fear is often created by simply removing whats there and its all in the anticipation. Dim the lights, lower the volume, slow the pace, creepy soundtrack. . . . boom out jumps a zombie.

Demon/Dark souls have both caused me to jump as enemies are always just around that corner. They have not deliberatly created a scary game but you always have that sense of anticipation knawing at your bones…

i thought it would be festival of blood
when you said “sink your fangs into”
too bad i couldn’t wait and brought it
pretty good game though

Get involved peeps a s the game is great!

@ Immortal-Wolf-

Go troll somewhere else, nobody cares little COD Fanboy!

whag

Atmosphere is everything. While Dead Space isn’t scary as such it certainly knows how to create a tense atmosphere with the sounds, environment and just general suspense. I know while I was playing that game I held the gun up to aim around every corner and made me jump a fair few more times than I’d like to admit.

A game that I find scary includes elements that you can relate to real world and makes you stay for a while and think “That’s rather frightening and there is something similar in the world I am aware of”
For example, I found the religion (sorry the name slip my mind) in Dead Space series scary. Of course I don’t think there are lunatics on earth that pray to an alien marker. But it is obviously an jab against the scientology church which in fact is very real. And the scientology church and its methods scares me way more than the Necromorphis, or zombies, twisted bizzare & peverted creatures in other games. Only exception would probably be zombie dogs jumping through windows…

Tension. That’s what does it for me. A tense build up ending in a massive, scary pay off. Or, sometimes even better, ending with somewhat of an anti-climax, then catching you off guard a bit later.

The Dead Space games do this well. Edging forwards through a dark corridor, only the glow from your gun’s laser-sight and the distant sound of an explosion to keep you company. Sometimes you could stand still in Dead Space 2 and not hear a single sound. That’s what was scariest of all… The fear of the unknown…

Dead Space is a fine example of a scary game. There’s no point in putting loads of blood and gore without it being scary, the first and most important thing to a scary game is ATMOSPHERE. You create the perfect atmosphere of being alone, lost, no help and no sense of what is coming next and your onto a complete winner. Once you’ve got that down, then you build around it. For me Dead Space ticked all these boxes, it had everything, even the blood and gore, but it was necassary because had the correct bases first, that feeling of being isolated from anyone to help you, the lighting, the sounds of screaming victims down lonely corridors.
If ‘Scary Game’ was in the dictionary it would be a picture of the Dead Space game, nuff siad

My experience with getting scared is evoirmental sounds and sudden appearences of scary things, like for example a scary face suddenly appearing on your screen and quickly disappearing. Also being weaponless may help improving the scaryness, because you have a feeling of being easily vounerable.

Some examples including these elements:
Duke Nukem 3D: The Dream (Duke Nukem 3D Mod)
Nightmare House 2 (Half Life 2 Mod)
Amnesia: The Dark Descent

Knowledge served in just the right proportions. Silent Hill games (at least the older ones) always warned you that there was an enemy nearby. You didn’t know if that was one of the weaker creatures, which could be avoided or something stronger, that would force you to loose a major portion of your ammo…or health. And even the environment added to this factor – just one look at the fog or the ‘barriers’ throughout the town and you knew you wouldn’t spend the time of your life there…

Atmosphere and psychological terror

Silent Hill 2 done this perfectly, it wasn’t the enemies that made the game scary (like Dead Space) but it was your own fear of thinking something might come after you at any time

ask Naughty Dog about U1 and Old Submarine Base episode

What makes a scary game? You’re in control of a character that is almost helpless in the situation that is beyond his control.

The first Resident Evil, or Silent Hill games have done well with this. Resident Evil does well by limiting the player’s resources. Little amount of bullets, too many zombies. You have to get up close (too close!) to kill the zombies with your knife, or try and run past them, to save on bullets for whatever is around the next corner. And there always is something. (but could the voice work in that game be called “scary”?)

Silent Hill 2 is the perfect horror game. This builds on atmosphere, something key to making it scary. You have great music, sound effects, a helpless protagonist and a fantastic story. James the protagonist makes the player feel helpless, what people saw as bad combat system was actually James himself. He had never attacked anyone or even fired a gun, so when up against an enemy, you feel the best chance to survive is to run. I ran a lot in that game!

for me alot of people confuse a game that contains alot of frights with a proper scary game.

take resident evil for example (a game which i love) to me it was never scary it just had some great frights in it, take the dogs jumping through the window’s(police station and mansion) that was not scary but it did provide a great fright, resident evil also brought on a great sense of panic due to you having little health or ammo and no idea what was behind that next door.
a game that i did find a bit twisted and scary at times was heavy rain i think its because you could see something like that actually happening in real life(well if life was a movie about serial killers anyway), take the bit in the doctors house for example(thats all im saying as some people might still not have played it) i found that quite scary as in heavy rain if you make the wrong choices you can die and that’s it you have to move on.

personally it takes alot to scare me but id love a game or a movie to come along and do that.

id love a good vampire game that was both fun and scary(infamous fob nailed the fun part)

It’s all atmosphere, all the time. If you think about the difference between shock and fear, then there is a vast chasm between jumping and a creeping sense of dread.

I remember playing Silent Hill 2 back in the day and the sense of creeping terror never let up; everything I did had a half promise of a nasty consequence with rarely a cheap shock/relief to centre you back in reality. Casting the games protagonist as an everyman with little skill, resources or strength didn’t help, but did allow further degree of identification increasing the fear.

The scariest part of a scary game would be when the atmosphere all around you goes quiet and you don’t know if the enemy is behind you and you double check to make sure. Resident evil and dino crisis are great examples of this.

what makes a scary game?
Helplessness & making me scared after the game is off.

There are 2 major types of scary game, the ones that make you tense and the ones that make you afraid.

Dead Space 2 is a prime example of a tense game, never feeling at ease with the surroundings and always being afraid of being jumped at any point by a swarm of undead children. its the kind of game that, even when you’ve turned it off, makes you run up the stairs because you’re afraid of something behind you!

Siren Blood Curse is the other end of the horror spectrum. the game creates the same tense atmosphere but adds helplessness into the mix. in Siren you very rarely get more than 1 or 2 enemies at a time which isnt a lot compared to dead space but because your character usually doesn’t have a weapon or cant fight you have to run for your life. you also have very few segments where you can see well enough to know whats around you, the game constantly makes you fearful of each step you take.

anyway, have a great weekend guys & HAPPY HALLOWEEN! ^__^

Fear of the unknown. That is the ultimate ingredient to a scary game. Not knowing what is coming or when. The suspense factor that keeps you on your toes because you do not know what is lurking around the next corner or if something is coming through the next window or not.

Couple this with eerie sound effects (like the radio crackle and sirens in silent hill) and you have a recipe for terror.

That in my opinion is something that has been an essential part of all my favourite scary games and games without them just are not as scary. It is not enough to just have a scary looking monster etc.

It is something that has been done very well in the past and less successfully in recent times (with the exception of a few).

Also it is important for the characters to be portrayed with some vulnerabilaty because if the character seems to be an unbeatable meta human then you dont seem to connect with the danger/fear he/she is supposed to be feeling in these abnormal situations that usually arise in ‘scary’ games. =)

A game can only be called scary if it can create a tense atmosphere and build up real nerves in the player that something might happen. When I watch my mum playing the first resident evil you could make any slight sound and she would scream or jump. That is proof of a game that really immerses the player into the atmosphere of fear and makes them genuinely worried to walk round the next corner or unlock the next door. Obviously creepy piano music playing quietly in the background contributes to this as well and I believe games that keep it relatively simple also do a better job of it. To sum up, a game that can provoke real human emotion through the atmosphere or situation it creates, can be considered a truly scary game.

Dread – Terror or apprehension as to something in the future; great fear.

Only we know our worst fears, planting a seed of dread in the players mind is far more powerful than graphic gore.

There is no need for fog or darkness, as the dread of what we might see in everyday life is far more scary, the images we see in our mind when listening to the news.

It’s all about atmosphere.
Great lighting effects and a well paced musical score can scare you more than any amount of blood and gore.

Sure, you can get the occassional jumpy moment when something pops out of a door, a hole in the wall, or whatever, but after the 20th time it happens (Dead Space, I’m looking at you) you kind of get numb to it.

Now, if you take a game that wasn’t meant to be scary, Rage, and look at the Dead city mission *No spoilers ahead* there were parts of that mission where the lighting on it’s own would have me terrified to turn the next corner.
the only thing that ruined that, was the fact that I could save every two minutes.
The adreneline rush of the scares was brilliant, and scared more than a few of my friends, but the terror that we used to feel with, say, Resident Evil, was lost when you didn’t have to worry about trawling through the same area again if you died because you saved before the thing started running at you from the shadows.

Ask anyone who knows films.
they will tell you the score, lighting and general claustrophobic atmosphere of Alien or The Descent were far scarier than anything that the blood-fest that were the remade Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street films.

I find the noises/music are always the things that make me go all cold inside. Back in the N64 days I use to play RE2, I couldn’t really make much out but the sounds of the zombies creeped me out especially when I couldn’t see them! I once got to this big red brain thing on the floor, I could hear it feeding on a corpse and the music was building up the tension as I was slowly moving down the corridor, I finally saw it and it saw me so I tried running away with no luck since the damn thing was fast and could run on walls/ceilings. When it hit me I remember a horrible screech that made me literally made me freeze. I never returned to the game after that experience and I will never forget that horribly screech that montster scratched into my brain.

The only thing that’s really important is atmosphere. Especially sound can make or break a horror game.

A good horror game has music that builds up suspense combined with gameplay that does not give you too much overview. This was one of the strengths of Resident Evil: by not showing too much of what’s ahead, there was room for genuine surprise and genuinely scary moments.

I would consider Resident Evil to be one of the most scariest games I’ve come across. I was a adolescent when it first came out, I’d brought it on a whim basis as back then (before the internet era) the only reviews were mainly in Game Magazines. Anyway I slapped it on and got really involved with the storyline and I still remember to this day playing it in the dark and all of a sudden you would open that dodgy wooden creaking door and something would jump towards you or you would hear the zombies eating on human flesh ‘squish’ then they would grown and walk towards you (nothing a shotgun to the head couldn’t handle). I think the music played a bigger part than the characters though, it really made the game, was like something from a horror movie, I’m thinking about it now and feel the fear from back then returning like it was only yesterday I was fighting that 10ft Tyrant on the helipad with the racing music playing. I’ve since played it on the wii and it didn’t live up to the original, I think it was a game of it’s time and sequels have been released since and a film, no comment. So in my opinion, a good storyline with messed up bad guys and music to make you want to run a mile is the best ingredients for me.

I would have to say sounds there is nothing more scary than going through a corridor and hearing somebody breathing heavily and you don’t know where that enemy is or somebody screaming

part 1
Ok, so to answer the topic’s question, there’s many ways. There’s always the cheap, easy, and short way to do it which is simply have some scary looking thing jump out of a shadow, while some jumpy sound effect plays. Or, you could use atmosphere, which is harder, longer to do, and very effective (if done right).Now, how to make an atmosphere. You’re really aiming just for 1 thing. To keep the player in a constant state of fear. I’m sure some people here have played a scary game that it took them 2 minutes to just take another step in pure fear. Just take into account of what makes humans afraid. Usually, it’s the inability to do something. Like seeing, some people are afraid of the dark. Make your game very dark with very limited sight, but not limited enough to render it difficult to play at all.

part 2
This takes a lot of care, you have to have the perfect amount of darkness. A second way would be to have creepy cut-scenes. Imagine your character is in a dark forest, but the cut-scene is taken from some animal’s point of view, then it jumps away. Now you have the player feel like there’s something out there, but the real kicker is that it doesn’t pop out at you. You’ll have the player constantly be on their guard for nothing. THEN, after they let it down, that’s when the animal or whatever pops out.Thirdly, graphics do help, but only when you really need them. I played a game here on the GMC, that got me scared out of just a plain brightly colored MS Paint smiley just because the atmosphere was good. I’m sure if you blood up some walls, or make the surroundings feel as if there’s something lurking around, you’d be on the safe side.

it all about the setting for me. Being alone in a mansion in the middle of the forest with unknown creatures (resident evil) is fearsome. Participate in a broadcasted zombie fest with motorcycles (dead rising).

Still I believe the horror games is still very “unexplored” there are so much to do with the lighting, sound etc. Walk alone during the night with only a flashlight in the forest for example, you will never see lighting like that anywhere in video games. Only the lighting makes the whole forest more scary than if it was to be unlit.

Amnesia would I say is a perfect example on a GOOD horror game, since many of the horror franchises today is still relying on to much action and gunpowder. thats not necessary not a bad thing, but someimes you just want to be alone in the dark with nothing to defend yourself with.

Overall i would say, the UNKNOWN is far more scary than just a horde of monsters.

“The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself”. – Franklin D. Roosevelt.

I don’t necessarily believe this statement to be entirely true in real life, however, in a game, this is the untold truth. You can’t really experience pain, injury or death through a TV screen, – you can just hit the replay button.

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. While a game can not provide physical abuse to the body, it can indeed make usage of psycological warfare, in attacking the mind through fear.

What makes a scary game, is putting the player in an ill state of mind, through constant injections of fear. Just like the body, an ill mind will be more open to attacks.

The fear of the fear, will create a chain reaction, that makes the player jump at every slight bit of movement, in fear that something scary is about to jump at them.

That’s when the player is an easy prey, and thus, the game has succeeded in being “scary”.

For a game to be scary it needs the right mix of sound(or lack of), impending doom, script, and setting. Resident evil and silent hill have been mentioned in a lot of the posts already but that’s because they practically did it perfectly. Resident evil’s script and voice acting made it closer to cheesy than terrifying but in every other aspect it was perfect. Like walking into a new room with few herbs and ammo and all of a sudden all you hear is a shuffling sound and a groan and your first instinct is to run away:p It’s games that use setting, sound etc just right to play with those instincts that are scary.

(This is a 2-part comment)

Humanity fears the unknown.

It has been like this ever since the beginning of our existence. Ancient drawings by cavemen show what many believe to be their representations of made-up predators based on noises they did not understand (such as a wolf’s howl).

As a result of this comes an innate fear of death. Most of humanity avoids contemplating their own passing because the knowledge of what happens after they die is unattainable for the leaving.

Now for how these apply to games:

If you do not know what’s coming for you, but the game also implies something is indeed coming for you — this creates a natural feeling of uncertainty. You expect something to happen, but at the same time you don’t know when to expect it to happen. This creates many situations where the “waiting game” becomes scarier than the actual scary part. Of course, jump scares (such as an enemy randomly bursting through a window) are also effective, but some would consider this kind of scare tactic to be easier to achieve (i.e. cheap).

(Part 2)

This would explain why games (or any other sort of media, really) are almost always scarier during the first playthrough, where you do not know where specific events take place.

Regarding death, it does not bear the same impact in video games as it does in real life (naturally). However, death in games usually means loss of progress. In scary games, this becomes exponentially more stressful the more the progress you may lose by dying. I am reminded of the classic Resident Evil games, where saving is limited and save spots are not abundant.

I would consider these to be the two main factors behind what makes a game truly scary to me. If I were given a game with lots of jump scares but no appropriate atmosphere that has me anticipating what’s coming, the jump scares would quickly lose their effectiveness. In addition, give me a game where you may die easily, but are able to restart at the previous checkpoint 30 seconds ago, and the fear of loss is gone and with it much of what could make the game absolutely frightening.

Fear is created by not being able to deal with the unexspected. The scary moments in games are when you see something scuttle across the screen, hear a sudden sound and having the scenes in dark places. It can even make you shoot at something when theres nothing there. You can see the difference between resident evil and dead island, Dead island has very few dark scenes its kinda more of a fun zombie game.

The key to the horror experience is that our brains — amazing though they may be – can often only barely tell the difference between media and reality.
The physiological reaction to frightening stimuli is pretty much the same whether it’s real or in the media.
Television, movies and videogames are relatively new inventions. From an evolutionary perspective, our ape-like brains haven’t gotten used to seeing things on screens yet. This is true for all forms of media, but are games better at manipulating the mind than other mediums? Is the controller enhancing or inhibiting our ability to be frightened? I think so.
Having control over the situation mitigates some of the fear, because you can usually win or turn off the game.
But a lot of times fear is born out of empathy for other characters, and making choices about how you interact with other characters has been shown to increase empathy.
Games can be scary and still keep you well armed. Doom 3 is a good example of a game where you are never too short on ammo, but the lighting and atmosphere tend to lend to a satisfactorily frighting experience. AVP2 is similar in that respect. My favorite horror game is forbidden siren for the same reason.

In comment #30 I meant “living” instead of “leaving”.

The scariest thing in a game is the fact of that anything horrible you can not expect might happend in any moment. If you take this and mix it with a good sound (no music at all, maybe only listening your own breath…) and a strong plot able to take you into the game and identify yourself with the main character. And of course a baby crying in a creepy bathroom or a cat hiding in a morge…you know, that kind of things.

Mainly atmosphere.
Visuals and sounds make it all.
Sound can create tension to go along with the dark creepy corridors. Silence is a great effect as nothing is worst than things popping out of the random.

However with just atmosphere, it may not be enough. Game mechanics could also be included to make the feeling of suspense and horror.
Limited ammo/health packs, limited checkpoints and perhaps flashlight torch. These help build the sense of urgency. Being alone and feeling helpless. Lack of hp and HUD in certain situations could create this feeling as you don’t know how long you can last for, like amnesia.

Its all about a good combination of atmosphere and the game mechanics to help support the theme of horror.

I’ve learnt from my own experiences Fear. The Scariest thing that happened to me was when I was walking through a Scottish forest at night. I was walking to a campsite in the middle of the forest when I heard twigs snapping so I stopped and couldn’t hear anything. I walked on and heard leaves ruzzling and more twigs snapping, so I looked to the ground and saw a sharp looking stone, I bent down to pretend to tie my shoe and I picked up the stone. At this point sweat was running down my face and I was really concentrating. When I finally got to the campsite I could see a Minx in the bushes, he was following me cause he thought I might have food -_-

There is one moment in gaming lexicons that stands out as truely terrifying for me. The whole game is scary, but it’s just this one particula scene that has stayed with me.

It’s from a japenese game for the PS2 called Project Zero, Fatal Frame outside the PAL regions. Thhere is one part in particular that still scares me thinking about it. It’s quite near the game when you are first in the house and there’s a short cut scene as you turn the corner by some stairs. You see two hands pulling themselves round the wall of the next corner, pulling a ghost/spectre towards you. The game is very atmospheric, quite slow in parts, but it spends ages building up to msome pretty big frights.

Can still my heart beat as i try to find the spectre in the view finder of the in game camera. (if you havent played the game the only weapon you have is an old camera which steals the souls of the dead when you are in combat against them.)

If you’ve never played it i hope it’s brought to the playstation network soon.

For me, music with high squeaks/shreiks and low, fast strings. Then, flickering lights and dark, color limitation
This is the recepy for a scary game

A good scary game must not only include ‘scary’ elements to me. You can have a game with zombies and horror, but that does not make a game scary.
For me, every game that’s supposed to be scary must have at least the same amount of drama that makes you fully aware of what you’re exactly encountering.
Kind of the same as the mythological creatures.. Even though nobody saw them, they were feared, people were scared because of the drama created around it. Family members being killed by something mysterious, People dissapearing that you knew well about.. The constant feel of something haunting around is what makes something really scary, even though it may not even exist… or does it?

A scary game is a game that truly creates fear in you. Tension and suspense can effectively do this. Also darkness can create fear. Everyone is afraid of the dark and so if games use this fear effectively fear can be created. Also suggestion is sometimes more scary than seeing the monster. You create an image of what will come from the darkness and you then fear it, the game doesn’t even have to do anything as it is the player that believes that the game is scary. Words can create fear, I will try and make you feel fear. This may work or go wrong and I will look like a fool.
Are you sure that you aren’t being watched, I mean, are you sure someone isn’t looking through your webcam, seeing everthing you do. When you sleep are you sure someone isn’t watching over you, lingering in the shadows. When you are walking in the streets are you really safe, in the dark cold nights anything can happen. Are you sure there isn’t a dark figure in the shadows? Wherever you are reading this, look around, you don’t know what is there until you look.
Fear talk over, I know you probaly weren’t scared by that but I just want you to think and realise when fear is all just in your head and mostly there is nothing to fear about.

Fixed Camera Perspective, atmosphere and feeling like you are not in control by that I mean not being able to check your health or having any fire-arms/ammo etc. Action is not scary it’s empowering so Dead Space and RE5? Not scary games. In order to feel fear you need to first feel weak and devs just dont understand that anymore. Well actually it’s gamers, true scary horror games are going extinct because we dont like the idea of fear any more. Sigh, I miss games like the SH trilogy and Project Zero/Fatal Frame series. Anyone not sure what makes a game scary, then just play the aforementioned two. Pinnacle of the genre.

Silent Hill was made scary by all the psychological factors they thought about during its design, the sounds were off-putting and often unnatural (and as Akira Yamaoka said, the use of silence can also produce fear), how loud the sound is inrelation to how far you are from something you may not be able to see due to the environment or fixed camera angles that remove the player’s advantage of knowing what’s around the corner also adds to the fear, the almost-human, deformed enemy design, the grainy filter etc, so much of the game’s design is built around making the player feel uneasy. Stuff like that in classics like Silent Hill 2 is so much better than just trying to make the player jump thanks to something unexpected popping up.

As much as I prefer Resident Evil I never found it scary, the survival element of having to explore and solve puzzles with little ammo and with weapons and controls that restrict combat capabilities makes the experience tense but not really scary, though I love those old Resi games for their gameplay, the general Resi vibe and the story and characters, even if the stories and dialog can be pretty goofy at times

a good embiroment with some monsters the you can’t kill easy

First of all, it’s not brain eating zombies that make games scary. Guess what, people? You can make the scariest game in the world without any zombies, living dead, or anything of the like!It’s definitely atmosphere. Yes, very general, I know, but it’s simply the best answer. Audio and music has something to do with it, color schemes have something to do with it, lighting (or lack of it) has something to do with it, but even if all of these elements are present, they will evoke no emotion from the player if they are not coherent. You must have a clear vision of the atmosphere you want to create, and make every aspect of the game/scene conform to it.

I would say that less is usually more when games attempt to scare the player.
The more a game can allow your imagination to fill in the blanks, usually the more terrifying it will become.

Giving the gamer the option to do something in a tense situation is very powerful and helps to create an air of suspense. In a medium now filled with cinematics, it is a much more powerful feeling to know that your own actions could lead to demise, rather than just sitting back and watching what stupid mistake your character makes next.

e.g.
You are in a dark, blood covered locker room, and you know that there is something scratching away inside one of the lockers, making it rock violently. Your imagination is already going wild trying to figure out what could be in there and usually comes up with something personally frightening to yourself. Do you open it? Or do you flee? Do you have a choice?

By directly involving you in the experience it allows you to concoct your own horrible nightmare.

Vulnerability. To me a game like Amnesia is the perfect scary game. You never know where or when things are going to show up. To break away you need to hide and get back your sanity.

When a game introduces guns it stops being scary. While for example Dead Space is a good game it’s not really scary when you know you can blow the head (or limbs) off a monsters. Might have some brief moments of jump scares but it’s nothing like Amnesia where the tensions and atmosphere throughout the game is just top notch.

Fear is normally linked to the unexpected but it can also be the expected.

For instance when you know something is going to happen but you do not know when, this is where not just visually it is important but audibly.

I remember playing Aliens v Predator on my PC, in my flat, in the dark, by myself, sound turned up.

The regular beat of the Marine’s motion scanner was deafening but I was always on the edge because…I KNEW…that sooner or later that BEEP would come indicating movement detected

As I moved around…deathly silence…no music….no sounds effects barring my motion scanner…utterly terrifying….

Then it happens with speed that beats the particles in the LHC in CERN…movement detected, all around…but I can’t see anything….my goodness even more terrifying…

I must have looked around my shoulder at least 20 times in a few minutes until the aliens dropped on me making me jump and it leads to death…the only time I switched off a game dripping with sweat and too scared to play again.

The combination of not knowing when something will happen AND knowing it will happen eventually coupled with music and sound effects or the lack of truly creates fear.

OFF TOPIC:

I’m only posting on here as I know there will be plenty of members posting on here!

I have RAGE Anarchy Edition DLC & Sewers Mission Pack DLC codes if anyone would like them?

Just state on here & i’ll message you through PS3 once I return home from work!

Kind Regards