533 replies to this topic

[MadProductions119]

I'm trying to find out what makes a game scary, what makes you scared to look around the corner? I've always heard it's atmosphere, but no one gives me anything better. Is it the detail? Making you feel like you're really in the game. Is it the sounds & music that cause the fear Im looking for?Is it that sudden BOO that makes you scared? Please post your theory on waht makes a scary game! Also talk about things that were scariest for you in other games.

Edited by MadProductions119, 31 December 2007 - 09:31 PM.

[Astrosapien]

For me, music with high squeaks/shreiks and low, fast strings. Then, flickering lights and dark, color limitation.

[MadProductions119]

I personally dont actually like putting in creepy music becasue then it takes away the feeling of loneliness and realism.

[Cocopuffs]

I was planning on make a scary top-down adventure game, so I compiled some things and traits that are seen in most scary games (actually scary games, not ones that just claim they're scary.)


*LESS IS MORE. Don't have monsters just attack from everywhere. Instead, have the player constantly THINK he's going to be attacked by monsters, but only rarely follow through with it. Have occasional sounds of things falling over behind you, have it so you leave one room and when you come back it's a complete mess, constantly be seeing traces of 'monsters' as they leave or something. Like as soon as you enter a room, for a split second you see a monster leaving thought the air vent, or you see a quick shadow run past your flashlight.
*Don't overdo music. Use mostly ambient effects when there's no real action going on. Silence is scary, I would make a track of just a little bit of wind, and maybe a quiet creak here and there. I would also make it so you can just barely hear the players breathing and heartbeat.
*Limit the players view. Make it so he can't see a lot. I would recommend a lighting engine and make the room very dark, and give the player a flashlight.
*LESS IS MORE
*Pop outs are most effective at completely random times. You're often expecting things to happen when you open doors or pick up strange items. Instead have the pop out happen when you're just walking down a hall, or a few seconds after you open the door/pick up the item (after the player has let down his guard).
*LESS IS MORE
*Being alone works to enhance the mood a bit. The feeling of being abandoned and not having a 'safe place' can work to scare people. But be careful not to overdo it, it's still nice to have some conversation here and there. I would keep it around the same level you find in most "Resident evil" games, you spend most of the game alone, but you occasionally run into other people, and occasionally even fight along side them. This also adds fear of the side characters dying, which you can play out to your advantage.

If you pull all that off right, you don't even need that scary of monsters. They could be smiley faces and you could still give people the shivers. But I would make the monsters do quite a bit of damage, that way you're a little more cautious and ultimately a little more afraid of being attacked.

Good luck, I would REALLY like to see a gm game that pulls scary off well. (before I have to do it.)

[Satanic]

I can help you with this defenetly.

- Use simple things in increase the mood.
- Dripping water, dolls, and wind

- Dont make the lighting to dark, make it so you can still see properly.

- Stay away from loud music

- Make things jump out at you, ONLY after a medium length of being alone.

- Add strange thing. A hanging guy, a guy with his head shot off, etc...

I've got allot more.

[MadProductions119]

those are all good ideas. One thing thats reall scary is like down the hall you see a dead person the lights flash very quickly and the persons gone so you think you

[IceWind91]

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.

Also; there's more than one way of making scary games. It doesn't have to be the 'creeping through the hallway/cave/dungeon/whatever waiting to die really suddenly' thing. Take a look at Call of Duty 2. Is it a horror game? No. Is it scary? At some times, yes. It's not that some evil monster is going to come around the corner and suck your brains out or whatever, it's the war atmosphere. Lots of smoke, gunfire, bullets whizzing past your head, realistic screams, artillery raining down, etc., plus a few particular cutscenes really melt away the 'I'm invincible, look out!" feeling and replace it with a feeling of mortality (though not to the extent of pure horror games).

[felpman]

take everyday places, and just "creep them out" like this scene from "silent hill"
This doesnt look like somewhere you want to use the bathrooms...
And take things that the player would see as, comforting or pleasent and turn it into something that want to harm the player, such as children...
Allways have the player wondering, "What could be behind that door?"
And also, try and give the player information about the cenario through scary ways. here is an example...

this is a game where you are trying to save your son, who got lost in a creepy house.
"You can here your sons voice and you can see a door at the end of the hallway. as you walk neerer the sound gets louder, so that you are sure he is behind the door. and the second you open the door, you see a dark shadow dissapear out the window, along with your sons screaming voice. you run over to the window only to see complete darkness......"

Now this is a creepy way of letting the player know that not only has their son been kindapped by a creepy "thing", but they are no longer in the house.

Edited by felpman, 31 December 2007 - 11:36 PM.

[MadProductions119]

good stuff guys. I have a question would a game where you never get a weapon or even ever get to kill something evil just get very creeped out be dumb?You kind of have to solve puzzzles to live and not get killed not puzzles like tetris but getting out of a building in time and stuff.

Edited by MadProductions119, 31 December 2007 - 11:04 PM.

[matthew3447]

Well, this certainly creeped me out, I'm not sure what it was exactly, but i'll tel you the story, simply tho.
4 guys bought a princess mummy, and the store manager warned them it was cursed. they said they weren't superstitious, and bought it.
one of them broke his leg, the other died from poisoning.
the one who broke his leg got infected and died a week later.
the 3rd guy died,
and the 4th guy donated it to a museum. He was found dead the next day.
After the person who was supervising the moving of it died at his station the next day, they thought it was bad luck. after the people who moved it were found crushed next day, they got rid of it.
over 100 years it switched ownership(and killed the owner) many times.
one guy who belived it was coincidences bought it, and had it shipped to him on a ship by booking a room for it. The ship's name was titanic.

[felpman]

Well, this certainly creeped me out, I'm not sure what it was exactly, but i'll tel you the story, simply tho.
4 guys bought a princess mummy, and the store manager warned them it was cursed. they said they weren't superstitious, and bought it.
one of them broke his leg, the other died from poisoning.
the one who broke his leg got infected and died a week later.
the 3rd guy died,
and the 4th guy donated it to a museum. He was found dead the next day.
After the person who was supervising the moving of it died at his station the next day, they thought it was bad luck. after the people who moved it were found crushed next day, they got rid of it.
over 100 years it switched ownership(and killed the owner) many times.
one guy who belived it was coincidences bought it, and had it shipped to him on a ship by booking a room for it. The ship's name was titanic.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

?
How could that be incorporated into a game, or any aspect of a game?
Did you post that, just for the sake of posting?

[matthew3447]

make your game's ending tie into the deaths of a lot of people, like this story did.
You'll be surprised how creepy it is

[MadProductions119]

lol it wasnt that creepy of a story but i really liked it and yeah like at the end of a game it turned out what uyou thought was good doing you were doing it was actually evil and killed 30,000 people...

[Shadow Link]

matthew3447 - That's actually pretty clever. Rewriting and spicing up history, hmmmm. It actually did sound pretty scary, I can imagine the game version of that.

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. 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.

[matthew3447]

Thanks
Yeah, don't make it too dark.
I hate having to search around in pitch black, its more frustrating then scary.

[Hughie]

No, darkness whilst you hold a candle so you can only see a little bit around you.

[zfan122]

I was planning on make a scary top-down adventure game, so I compiled some things and traits that are seen in most scary games (actually scary games, not ones that just claim they're scary.)


*LESS IS MORE. Don't have monsters just attack from everywhere. Instead, have the player constantly THINK he's going to be attacked by monsters, but only rarely follow through with it. Have occasional sounds of things falling over behind you, have it so you leave one room and when you come back it's a complete mess, constantly be seeing traces of 'monsters' as they leave or something. Like as soon as you enter a room, for a split second you see a monster leaving thought the air vent, or you see a quick shadow run past your flashlight.
*Don't overdo music. Use mostly ambient effects when there's no real action going on. Silence is scary, I would make a track of just a little bit of wind, and maybe a quiet creak here and there. I would also make it so you can just barely hear the players breathing and heartbeat.
*Limit the players view. Make it so he can't see a lot. I would recommend a lighting engine and make the room very dark, and give the player a flashlight.
*LESS IS MORE
*Pop outs are most effective at completely random times. You're often expecting things to happen when you open doors or pick up strange items. Instead have the pop out happen when you're just walking down a hall, or a few seconds after you open the door/pick up the item (after the player has let down his guard).
*LESS IS MORE
*Being alone works to enhance the mood a bit. The feeling of being abandoned and not having a 'safe place' can work to scare people. But be careful not to overdo it, it's still nice to have some conversation here and there. I would keep it around the same level you find in most "Resident evil" games, you spend most of the game alone, but you occasionally run into other people, and occasionally even fight along side them. This also adds fear of the side characters dying, which you can play out to your advantage.

If you pull all that off right, you don't even need that scary of monsters. They could be smiley faces and you could still give people the shivers. But I would make the monsters do quite a bit of damage, that way you're a little more cautious and ultimately a little more afraid of being attacked.

Good luck, I would REALLY like to see a gm game that pulls scary off well. (before I have to do it.)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Verry good point man! I've also noticed that Music has some effect on the player, but even if it's not quiet or ambiant it can still be creapy. A good example would be the background music from the Shadow Temple in ocorina of time (it's rare to get a ZELDA example around here, so why not?) sure you could here the music, but there was just enough random moaning and groaning to make your hair stand up. In fact the verry FIRST time I played through it (I was ten or thirteen at the time) for quite a while I got chills just going out in the dark by myself. Of course the sound effects of the dungeon really fit the mood too, which made it even worse. Don't forget to have subtle creapy things in the background as well. (simple things at least, blood on the wall, chains on the floor that kind of stuff.) And don't forget that if you're having a scary game you need scarry bosses too. (actually bongo bongo was kinda creepy too....just a little)
And as far as blood and guts, even if you're targeting an older audiance it is possible to go overboard. I saw doom a while back.....sheese talk about overboard! Of course it could be just cause I'm christian, at least it didn't freak me out.

[tie372]

Well, playing Diablo I at 4 oclock in the morning and getting to the butcher, seeing all those impaled bodies all over the walls and random body parts smeared in pools of dried, caked blood everywhere, that was scary. Then hearing 'AAAHHH, fresh meat...' and a big bloody demon coming at you with a butcher's knife, that was scary.

Also salad fingers freaked the hell outta me when I first saw it, although I don't know why

[matthew3447]

I write horror storys...
The unknown is scary-People fear the unknown
Mostly if something horrifying happened recently.
And a link to reality

[Lukearentz]

Try.... limit player view... i know it was said above, but not seeing something is one of the scary parts... If its top down. Only let them see a cone shape in front or sumthing.