Horror - what makes a game scary?

[snufflez]

not sure which resident evil it was, on the original playstation, i think re2, but anyway, it scares the crap out of you when you play it at night and in the dark.one thing thats "horrific" is darkness. also instead of having a body dissapear, you could have it crawl out of the room just as you're re-entering it. and have a trail of blood behind it. i had some other good ideas but i forget them all so ill post later maybe.. lol

[HeadCrab]

Slam!The door shuts behind you,blocking that fast zombie that you had no defense against,outside in the darkness.You can hear you heart beat as the zombie howls just outside the door.You scan your surroundings:dark,and dreary.It is creepy,but better then death by zombie. You know something is wrong. You move into the house farther,trying to be sneaky,but your foot steps stick out like an AK-47 in a U.S Army firing range.

One thing that puts me on edge is knowing somethings wrong,so I try to sneak,but the foot-steps are echo-e and loud,distinctive. Make the player feel like he/she can't be sneaky,and that everything knows where they are,is stalking them. Put them in a desperate situation,then where they'd expect a cool off time where nothing comes,something way freaky/out of the ordinary happens,not necessarily a monster,but,ya know..Creepy! When something does happen,make it sudden. Just my .02 hundreths of a dollar! PS:Never give the player a moment to rejoice...MUAHAHA!

[snufflez]

the whole "little girl at the end of a hallway, hair in her face" then the lights go out and come back on and shes gone. either that or you walk up to her and she lunges at you

[ZenMunky]

Everyone's seen the face from "Frighteners"... lets take that one step further...

I'd love to see a game where while walking down a dimly lit corridor, with no noise at all a faint shape appears in the wall and moves swiftly from one end of the corridor to the other. Its distorting the brick work so it looks like something under the surface...

Maybe later on it could "break" the surface and dart out of the wall...

[Grim Reaper]

Lights breaking as you walk near and crazy noises like scatter noises and things falling, maybe you see shadows of some monsters going round the corner but when you get ther nothing there.

[XenLand]

pretty much the ONLY thing that will make me afriad to continue playing a level is NOT shit popping out of you like doom 3, where you know somethings gonna pop out everytime, but when i hear helling and screaming noises comming from the hall way and its all quiet.

OR something like silent hill where you knock on the bath room door, and someone knocks back so your like HUH? so when your walk away from the locked bathroom door and you look inside and nothings there?

shit like that scares the fuck outta me

[XenLand]

another thing, running away from somthing and you seem to be walking slower then a turtle. thats suspense.

oh, and how bout 50's music while killing monster, not scary, but it just seems wierd, makes you lose your mind

[Spas12]

God damn 5.1 surround sound makes a game scary. Hearing zombies walk behind you is always scary >_<

[Caste]

yea
Like that part in Hl2, where you were running from the combine up the stairs in the apartement. That part almost literally gave me a heartache. I was truely SCARED! And everytime I play it, I still get scared for some reason.
Being chased by something that you know is faster than you is scary.

[SixThree]

I can tell you what's not scary: headcrabs in vents

[smoke]

One part ine AVP2 where you see a praetorian, those things are fucking SCARY because their skin is really tough and your guns do very little damage.

Anyway, your on the run from a small horde of bugs, (aliens for those unfamilliar with marine talk ), you enter a room with two doors, the door on the right suddenly starts getting pounded inwards and you can tell something is very big and very angry.

So you sprint for the door to the left, open it, and close it. You hear the right door cave in, you dart your eyes about looking for somewhere to go, theres nothing but a small vent a long way down the hall with a bolt holding it up.

You have to run toward the vent and take out your mini blowtorch to cut the bolt, as your doing this the door BEHIND you bursts in and the praetorian starts running your way, suprpisingly fast for a creature so large.

But you know that if you turn to fight you WILL die, so you keep cutting and only just scramble through the vent in time to look behind you at theangry beast.

GOD i love AVP2, pity my disc is broken

[vasko]

As has been said before, music and sound effects all the way.
Saw a program years ago where they showed you the view of a camera shooting through some woodland or a forest, they showed it twice: First with Flight of the bumble-bee playing in the background which looked all summery and happy. Then they showed exactly the same footage with some some 'orrible eerie music and bang: shivers down me spine!
Also if there has been quite music running all the time then when it stops that can be just as effective, quiet enough to hear a pin drop, or a severed limb bounce..

[DjBourgeoisie]

best scary effect I have seen in a game was a lesser known title, I just cant remember what it was called but anyways. You walked down this hall of a creepy mansion, and when you turned to look down one end of the hallway you saw a mirror and in the mirror standing behind you was a ghost, you turned around and there was nothing lol That was so cool, wish I could remember the name of that game

[ZenMunky]

Wouldnt be Project Zero? The camera one...

Freaked the hell out of me that did...

[Sheep]

wack the freak girl off of the grudge in your map. shit scary.