Horror - what makes a game scary?

[Blink]

Stickied ftw

[Vallian88]

Wow, I must be a genious or something becasue most of those things you guys have mentioned I've already done. Or maybe I just play too many horror games. I have water with a torso zombie hiding in it, and it seems to be working great. I've given the player barely enough ammo to kill everything, maybe not even enough. I have quite a bit of blood and bodies strewn about the map. I have stuff breaking and zombies poping out.I haven't put the player in a life or death situation yet, thats something I should look into a bit more.

Being out of ammo when you see a fast zombie is probably the deadliest part of my map.

Kewl! My thread got stickied!

[Ripper_hugme]

barbra striesand!!!!!!!! True Evil never dies (Unless u put a shotgun shell into its side )

[Em][n3m]

Greetings people, this is my first post here and I really like this kind of topics with lots of theory I was assuming this map would be for HL2 but since I'm willing to make a scary map for CS:S, I would glad if you could tell me how to make it scary. I won't have zombies of course in it, or any kind of enemies (except the t's, ct's of course). My map will be a cemetary. Since im new in Source or mapping (started yesterday), I have many questions. For example, I'm not sure on what I can do with Source and what not. Is it possible to have trigerred responses, like for example, everytime you pass from a specific place something specific happens (followed by a sound etc) (I'm always talking about CS:S, not HL2 remember). Also, is it possible to create lightning? I mean, I know how to make rain/snow, but what about lightning. Lighting can always be scary
Thanks in advance to anybody who will try to help me

MNM

[mr greenfish]

there are a number of things that tend to scare me in games:

a good intro. Where the first level or so, you dont know what is going on etc. If you are briefed before a mission what to expect it breaks the atmosphere from the start you need to build up the tension first then try to hold it as long as possible.

Sense of direction. Having monsters or whatever force the player to walk down a different path, or go hide... messes up the whole sense of direction for me. Or for example, you walk past a locked door... then a few footsteps further down the door is opened and you get chased. In particular having to run into a new area where there are multiple directions to run and having to make quick and irrational decisions as to where to go.

Weak player character. The player has to be considerably weaker than the enemy, again forcing you to run or hide. This is generally achieved by lack of ammo (if any), by being seriously outnumbered and/or an enemy that is a lot more agile and quicker than you.

The unexpected. When something happens that you really didnt expect, i really don't find the whole walking-around-a-corner thing scary, but when something out of the norm happens, like furniture moving or seeing a figure of 'something' in the distance and not sure of what it is.

I found the following games scared me the most:-
-System Shock 2
-Thief: Deadly Shadows (Cradle level)
-Operation Flashpoint
-Aliens vs. Predator 1/2 (marine campaign)

[wiggle987]

Operation Flashpoint scary? I'd say you get some very tense moments, but hardly scary.

[Deadman]

lights flickering and someone (or something suddenly being there for a second or two but being gone when you take a closer look

[Jebus]

This thread made me register... So hello to everybody!

For scariness, you definitely need more than just demons jumping out at you from every corner. You need atmosphere, as mentioned in every other post in the topic.

Take the first Marine level in Aliens Vs Predator 2 for example. Very scary.

** SPOILERS **


You're backtracking through a dark tunnel, after successfully restoring power to the building above. You walk up a small flight of stairs, and look into a seemingly empty corridoor. You walk a few steps... BANG! A panel on the ceiling falls down and a long round object pokes through, it's tentacles flailing wildy. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! Oh wait, It's just a pipe and a few loose cords.

Throughout the whole level, you don't see a single Alien.

Then take the next level. You're trapped inside this strange building, and no one else can get in. Your motion sensor goes off... There's something around the corner. You cautiosly step around, to see a dead body in the corridoor ahead of you. To either side of it is another corridoor, creating a T intersection. Which way do you look?


** End spoilers **

I'm not going into any more of that, it'll take too long. Things like that work wonders, with the ambience and the fact that you have no idea what's happening.

Actually, I have a nice idea for a little scare. It will just require a trigger. Have the player come up to a T section. On the left side of the T, a locked door. On the right, the button to open it. You walk down the right, press the button, turn around and... BAM! Zombie, right there.
Do you think this would work? It could also work in just a plain dead end. The player walks in, unknowingly hits the trigger, turns around and is met with a Zombie.

Well, I'm sorry for my abnormally long first post. I hope I helped. This thread certainly inspired me!

[Sfisher7]

I remember AVP2 expect it was too intense so I stopped playing it. It alot more intense and scary than it sounds, maybe you could get the sp demo of it then you'd see what I mean.In AVP2 one parts was open area, there was no aliens, but there was a chain swinging just enough to set off your motion tarcker, so you could'nt tell if there was an alien behide you or if it was just that chain. Just get the sp demo and I think you'll get lots of ideas from it. Here's a link to the demo (scroll down for the public srevers).

[Emoo]

Avp2, some levels from thief (espechily the cradel), system shock 2, and doom and quake and even half-life. I got scared on all those games normally from things like sound, the unknown, tension and not being able to fight back. all those help, and the cradel the scarriest thing iv found uses all of it. ==spoilers== it starts very dark and onimous with lots of small noises like a ball bouncing, a quite laugh or the wind, then sudden things happed like all the lights suddenly turn on or a noise starts repeating. In the second part of the level you meet the first enemy which looks totaly human from a distance but when you get closer you can see there not, and the sounds they make just .

[Ripper_hugme]

i still think barbra streisand but heres ideas

1. As every one said before darkness, little light, its always scary because our brains have evolved that way, cavemen knew that light meant warmth, shelter and protection from predators but darkness meant alone, cold and vunrable. They grew by light, they survived by it.

2. Doom style corpses everywhere isnt the best idea because it made me hate the bastards (monsters not corpses) and go bloodlust it also reminded me of animals that kill in their nature not for their pleasure (or orders). Little amounts of corpses but more bloodstains, shadows and scary ambience, etc.

3. Go for a theme of scary, is it spacey, industrial, suburban, sewers, etc. and try to stick to it.

[snufflez]

ravenholm. the screams of the fast zombies before they attacked. it gave you that urgency of looking around "WHERE ARE THEY COMING FROM"! kind of thing.

[mike-o]

third person perspective.
no music.
heavy footsteps, floorboards creaking, etc.
i also think using melee weapons against creatures is scary. look at silent hill, the scariest parts were ran you ran out of handgun ammo and had to bash zombies with a lead pipe.
Also, the plot. HL2 didnt scare me because i was killing zombies with a shotgun how original. HL1, however, was actually kind of scary because the game gave you a sense of lonelyness you dont get when you play hl2.
Fatal frame. That game is scary. stealing ghost's souls by taking their pictures. now that's some good shit.

[ZenMunky]

Wow, you guys are obviously really into this stuff. Mildly dissapointed no-ones mentioned the obvious one. Everythings normal but somethings still wrong.

Not in the sense of a wrong texture, just a feeling that something is subtly wrong. Maybe with a trigger you could jog through a room and see a crate, but if you turn around and go back the crates upside down. Its not in your face or anything its just wrong. Giving the player a feeling that there is something wrong with their environment for me generates more fear and tension than anything else.

Another example is when your building a room with some furniture in to make the furniture blend into the walls and floor. If you look at the back of a wardrobe and it merges slightly into the wall its not normal and causes the player to think "whats going on here...". Obviously this has to be done with care or it looks like a bug, but a thought nonetheless...

Doors could be marginally taller and shorter, maybe a corridor is wider at the start than at the end, but only slightly so. A chair is taller in one room and ever so slightly shorter in the next room even though it looks like the same chair can cause unease...

[Bosco88]

I read through most of these posts and dident see a door closing behind you, to bad that happenes all the time in Half Life. And have a squeeky hindges so when the door closes/opens it squeeks. The other examples are great, I know I would get scared seeing half this stuff. in hl1 i got scared in a dark room and a monster was right behind me and when I turned around it was right in my face, I dont know how you could do that but it would be creepy.