Horror Games

I'm not too much a fan of horror movies, they are usually just a lot of gore and jump scares with a dumb plot and absolutely terrible characters. Games are a much more fitting medium, the interactivity factor really increases the personal investment a person has. I don't care about characters in movies, especially if they're in any sort of unrelatable danger that has no effect on me and never will. But if I'm playing as a character, the things in the game will affect my character, which in turn, affect me.

I'm James. James Sunderland. I have a green jacket.

Given my limited horror movie watching, I'd probably say that I'm no expert in making people scared through film. But I've played many a horror game, and the good ones all share many important things. The first and perhaps most important, which very few games do, is COMPLETELY dis empower the player. People who have any sort of fight are not scary, and games like Clock Tower and Amnesia, where your only option is to run and hide and hope. Silent Hill 2 also does this with Pyramid Head, a completely invincible character who shows that you as a player are really completely useless against him. After completely stripping the player of the ability to fight back, the next step is to make things work in ways the player doesn't expect. Reading scary short stories is always fun, and the really good ones scare you by flipping your expectations and your previously conceived notions. Telling scares is almost like telling a joke, you set the listener up with a situation they don't have all the information on, then with the punchline, or scare, you present new information that changes the previous situation. This can and should be accomplished in games, as the medium is so ripe with preconceived notions taking advantage of them would be incredibly easy. Third thing: Promote player exploration as much as possible. The story should tell itself by what the player looks for and finds. There should be a lot of implication and not much straight-forward talk in horror. No one should ever be telling the player why something is happening or how to stop it. As soon as you start answering questions is when the mystery dies and when the scares stop. The visual scares and tense gameplay will get the dumb players while the dark atmosphere and creepy subtext should get the experienced players.

The reason I bring this all up is that I'm planning on making a horror game. I'm a huge fan of the genre and I think that aside from a few shining gems (its the same with the film industry), not many people have gotten it right. The plan is to make a 2D Flash platformer (that's all I make!) that encapsulates the feel and themes that a Silent Hill game has. I'll talk about it more in depth tomorrow.