Horror - what makes a game scary?

[Guessmyname]

I have some ideas.

1. Your in a very dark corridor, heading towards a door. The only light comes from underneath the door - a gap between the door and floor. You approach it silently, apprehensively, then, all of a sudden, something moves, momentarily blocking the light and a something screeches. Very loudly. And then the door is sent flying straight into your face...

2. Again in a corridor, but this time fairly well lit and with a companion. You're confident: You've got a companion, a fair amount of ammo and can see whats ahead of you. No enemies here you think! You both head towards a door. Suddenly, when your not looking at him/her your companion screams. You turn around and theres nothing there except for a bit of blood. In a panic you turn on your flahlight and look around for your companion's killer. Then you notice that the door has opened...

[Evil Sponge]

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

Clive Barker's The Undying?

[tr0mb0ne]

The only game that erally scared me was They Hunger. It is a non steam-compatible 1.6 mod about zombies... And man... It freaked me out. After playing it, any little creak made me jump. It was so creepy. There was one part where you were walking through a town, looking for the police station, and it was deathly quiet. Then, when you find the police station, you go in, and once you get to where you need to go, WHAM. And everything goes black.

Another part was when you were in some kind of mansion. Ther was someone that opened the door for you... But he is nowhere to be found. You creep aroudn the mansion haunted by quiet country music, creaks, wolves howling, and audio logs of the personell being possesed and tormented, talking about digging up graves and slaughtereing people.

It was very scary to play that game in a dark basement.

[Necrokutan]

That sounds scary... Can you link me? o_O

You know what'd be scary as hell? If you're walking down the hallway and there's a corner at the end. and there's a shadow from around the corner... and when you get around the corner, there's nothing there. and you hear a door unlock behind you, but when you turn around there's a guy hung right in front of you...

[anti-hero]

how about this scenario:

your in a lift (going underground) with some freindlies. (your confident because of your numbers and everything seems fine.) you push the button but as you reach the floor you pushed the button to go to, but the lift passes it. suddenlly the lights go out. screams and gunfire ring in your ears. the lights come back on as you stop at a level at the lowest possible point of the underground facility. your entire team decimated, save you. and the lift completely out of order due to stray gunfire. you can a) go into the underground level and try to find a way out or b)curl up in a corner and wait to be slaughtered.

[Shr3d]

how about this scenario:

your in a lift (going underground) with some freindlies. (your confident because of your numbers and everything seems fine.) you push the button but as you reach the floor you pushed the button to go to, but the lift passes it. suddenlly the lights go out. screams and gunfire ring in your ears. the lights come back on as you stop at a level at the lowest possible point of the underground facility. your entire team decimated, save you. and the lift completely out of order due to stray gunfire. you can a) go into the underground level and try to find a way out or b)curl up in a corner and wait to be slaughtered.

whats so scary about that? thats just suspenseful..

[SlappyBag]

Ive an idea for a little scray thing now - you walk into a pitch black, enough light to see, you trigger somthing and all the lights flash very quickly. While they are flashing you see a hord of zombies just standing there - forcing you to fire into the darknes - mwhahahaha.

[Dead-Inside]

Ive an idea for a little scray thing now - you walk into a pitch black, enough light to see, you trigger somthing and all the lights flash very quickly. While they are flashing you see a hord of zombies just standing there - forcing you to fire into the darknes - mwhahahaha.

Yep. Only thing is that it'd lagg creating a shitload of zombies right infront of you in 0.2 seconds, while the lights are out, until they flicker.

[SlappyBag]

Your right - int hat case only a couple - or even better, one right in front of your face!

[Dead-Inside]

One or two. You should make them play animations.

I mean, freeze them, and the apply scripted scenes, so that each time the light flickers and the zombie is there (You should remove him from time to time, typical horror stuff) he is comming towards you, with different faces, arm stances... etc... Would be great for effect I believe.

Edit: We're supposed to get the player to scarishly release a wall of bullets into the darkness here... The lights should come back on just as the player has unloaded his clip. Make sure it takes time to reload the gun for a good horror game, best would be to code it.

Also, to begin this scene the player needs to enter through a door, either big wooden portal, or a small steel door. It should start to close when the player is just enough in the room to not make it back before the door/s are closed. The door/s should have appropriate moving sounds and the player should see the light from the doorway disappear. And the room should already be dark.

Also there should be a lightswitch by the door which triggers this, and the player should only have a limited flashlight to find this button (Meaning he must flip it to continue, or he'll perish later. A flashlight with batteries would be nice, non-rechargable. So that the player doesn't want to waste it because he never knows when he'll find new ones... ).

I'm just throwing ideas around. This could be improved. I donno about the lightswitch now what I think about it, it might work, maybe not... Maybe the flashlight should be what's flickering. Problem with that is that the player will be #1, seriously WTFing and 2#, be able to aim the light.

[SlappyBag]

Yeah, when i was thinking about it, i woulnd really want the zombies ( if if just a mapping job anyway) to appear because they would make their headcrabby noises and such - and if they were too close, they would actually attack.

[Vallian88]

Just a little website I found. Perhaps it can add to our discussion...
http://www.devmaster.net/articles/horror-game-design/

[Core]

Like Zen Monkey said earlier, making things seem wrong with corridors that narrow slightly. Having floors or ceilings that angle a bit so they aren't square.
You ever walk into a room and feel uneasy for no reason? It's probably because the room isn't square but you only detect it on the subconscious level. Make rooms slightly trapazoidal or like a parallelogram to enhance the uneasiness factor. Make walls not the same height, leans walls in or out but do it subtly. The player can tell that something is wrong but doesn't know what. Actually making anything slightly trapazoidal will make people uneasy b/c the trapazoid has an unfinished feel to it and it bugs people unconsciously.

I'm surprised trombone was the first to mention "They Hunger". That was a kickass horror mod.

[tr0mb0ne]

I'm surprised trombone was the first to mention "They Hunger". That was a kickass horror mod.

Yeah... I think once I've familiarized jyself withteh source editor, I'm going to ask Niel Manke for permission to geta team to create They Hunger for source.

[Core]

I think you'll be shot down on that as Manke is in contact with Valve to produce They Hunger:Source. Link