I think stuff that makes you unsettled as opposed to outright scared or creeped out are underutilized. Similarly to how you might get nervous in stealth games due to having to perform certain actions. This could be used very effectively in horror games. I'm not saying it has to be stealth related, but having the player be forced into doing things that are sketchy or taxing mentally. Even stuff like repetitive tasks with risk involved.
I think some people will disagree with me in that they think games should be oriented towards QoL. But in a horror game, if you as a designer have a specific purpose or feeling you want to invoke in the player. I think it's fine to make the player suffer a bit if it's tied into the game/mechanics well.
>Even stuff like repetitive tasks with risk involved.
Legitimately have a nice day. If there's any amount of "risk" to a repetitive task that you have to do, then it's not fear inducing, it's irritating.
This is why I don't replay Silent Hill 4. Repeating the same levels all over again midway while having an escort who such a goddamn drag. It was the only SH game where I got the bad ending because the girl you escort got raped by one too many times by the invincible ghosts. I simply got fed up having to run back and protect her and just left the b***h behind because I just wanted to finish the game and be done with it.
I don't think that would fall under what I was getting at with the repetition. Playing the same exact thing over and over is the absolute opposite of any form of suspense or even stress because there are no stakes involved other than your own time. Games that do this do not respect your time.
I meant certain actions in the game you might have to do regularly/semi regularly in order to get by or advance but they are risky or stressful.
Did you not even comprehend my post genius? I specifically stated that the point of something like that would be to tax the player mentally as opposed to trying to actually have them scared 24/7 like these infantile horror games do. Most horror games are not very grounded when it comes to reality. Let me give you a different example that will have your tism settle.
In games like og resident evil with the limited ammo count and randomized zombie health. Encounters are more limited or unpredictable in what you can accomplish and a new logistical layer is added for the player to worry about(leave aside for the moment the poor implementations in-game, we are talking in game design theory generally). Something like this adds another layer of stress into the game that is grounded. These can combine to make actual events that are supposed to be frightening then more impactful. Also leads to divergent game play depending on how you act with your supplies.
What you are complaining about was just one hypothetical example I gave. The point of stuff like this is just to put burdens on the player to make them more on edge. It doesnt even have to be both examples I provided. It could also be stuff to gaslight the player or make him question his judgment. Or something to make him question the game mechanics as they were explained initially.
Again keeping it generalized because the limitations of implementing these things are based on your creativity and competence
I'm sorry, you've mentioned classic Resident Evil. You're now going to have half a dozen people tell you how you're playing it WRONG, and that the correct way to play it is a 2 hour no saving speedrun with perfect dodging all enemies and special invincible new game plus pinata shark enabled. That's the apex of survival horror, right there.
Frick classic RE and frick predictable game mechanics. Nothing ruined horror games as much as they did.
Did you not even read my post? Most of your complaints are addressed and acknowledged there. The implementations in OG RE were poor but that doesnt invalitldate it. These same mechanics have been implemented better in other genres. Unfortunately horror games as a whole have abandoned stuff like that due to laziness. In the modern day you could make it work well if you put in the effort. It's just Nip corps living off their IPs like vampires will never do it because they are lazy greedy bastards.
I also specifically mention at the end that altering mechanics is also something that is underutilized and can be effective. Also explain mechanics in a specific way as to have double meanings for the player to figure out.
This isn't to say that I agree with you on "frick games with predictable mechanics". If your system is robust then yyou can make it work in many different ways effectively. Specifically, dread would be easier to invoke in games like that.
I remember the Silent Hill games scared me mostly because of the sound and fixed camera angles in certain sequences where you can't see the danger directly in front of you. It kept you on edge all the time.
we don t. it s shit, please stop posting these threads. Horror genre is Black personlicious tier. Only non white people want to be scared by videogames.
also Kojima will save your shitty genre . so you better start kneeling
You can't. It is dead. And we have killed it!
The modern gamer has an internet connection, so they can just look up scary things that are actually real. Existential dread? A staple of informational youtubers! Blood and gore? Plenty of it on the web! Scary monsters? Practically an art genre on DA! New criptids come out every year too, but people would rather frick them. Because they learned humans are the real monsters from reading all the fricked up shit we do!
We've become so desensitized to scary things that we are running out of things to consider scary. Just look at 'liminal spaces!'
By establishing gameplay mechanics, then breaking them. The best horror parts in non-horror games happen when suddenly you can't rely on game mechanics. The worst parts of any horror game are routine, where you calculate that X bullets let you kill X/4 zombies, leaving Y - X/4 zombies that you need to avoid instead. There's no horror in games with perfect information.
With capturing a zeitgeist for zoomers, they use nuHorror as some sort of escapism, but we need to know what they fear for real. Something deeper than bullying and misgendering.
I feel like a game that looks like a typical mash of default Unity assets but is actually really-well animated would be a hit. Like imagine doing a spooky haunted apartment-type building and you see the stereotypical unity asset scary man peering at you from a corner and by now you're jaded, you're like oh I'll just get closer and he'll be anim-dragged away and despawn as usual, but then he actually rounds the corner and starts sprinting at you with really good, life-like animations. I don't think it would save horror but I think it'd make a killing.
>year 2005 + 18 >bouta nuclear war >no one got bread >no chance of owning anything >AI singularity deadass rn >aliens too >I can get cancelled any second >these mfs fr want horror games >my life already is a horror game ong no cap >periodt
I a little mad.
I got an idea. What if we made a game that looked cartoony and child-friendly, but it's actually spooky and if the monster catches up to you it screams really loud in your face and the game ends.
Add actual horror
By returning the slab.
WHATS YER OFFER?
drop first person and go back to fixed camera
I wish devs would drop first person in general. Every fricking game these days is in first person.
liminal spaces
by making the player feel like he's being prey being fooled with the illusion of survival
I think stuff that makes you unsettled as opposed to outright scared or creeped out are underutilized. Similarly to how you might get nervous in stealth games due to having to perform certain actions. This could be used very effectively in horror games. I'm not saying it has to be stealth related, but having the player be forced into doing things that are sketchy or taxing mentally. Even stuff like repetitive tasks with risk involved.
I think some people will disagree with me in that they think games should be oriented towards QoL. But in a horror game, if you as a designer have a specific purpose or feeling you want to invoke in the player. I think it's fine to make the player suffer a bit if it's tied into the game/mechanics well.
>Even stuff like repetitive tasks with risk involved.
Legitimately have a nice day. If there's any amount of "risk" to a repetitive task that you have to do, then it's not fear inducing, it's irritating.
This is why I don't replay Silent Hill 4. Repeating the same levels all over again midway while having an escort who such a goddamn drag. It was the only SH game where I got the bad ending because the girl you escort got raped by one too many times by the invincible ghosts. I simply got fed up having to run back and protect her and just left the b***h behind because I just wanted to finish the game and be done with it.
>inb4 ESL
I'm phone posting and my hands are still numb by the cold weather which is why my grammar is fricked Black person
I don't think that would fall under what I was getting at with the repetition. Playing the same exact thing over and over is the absolute opposite of any form of suspense or even stress because there are no stakes involved other than your own time. Games that do this do not respect your time.
I meant certain actions in the game you might have to do regularly/semi regularly in order to get by or advance but they are risky or stressful.
Did you not even comprehend my post genius? I specifically stated that the point of something like that would be to tax the player mentally as opposed to trying to actually have them scared 24/7 like these infantile horror games do. Most horror games are not very grounded when it comes to reality. Let me give you a different example that will have your tism settle.
In games like og resident evil with the limited ammo count and randomized zombie health. Encounters are more limited or unpredictable in what you can accomplish and a new logistical layer is added for the player to worry about(leave aside for the moment the poor implementations in-game, we are talking in game design theory generally). Something like this adds another layer of stress into the game that is grounded. These can combine to make actual events that are supposed to be frightening then more impactful. Also leads to divergent game play depending on how you act with your supplies.
What you are complaining about was just one hypothetical example I gave. The point of stuff like this is just to put burdens on the player to make them more on edge. It doesnt even have to be both examples I provided. It could also be stuff to gaslight the player or make him question his judgment. Or something to make him question the game mechanics as they were explained initially.
Again keeping it generalized because the limitations of implementing these things are based on your creativity and competence
I'm sorry, you've mentioned classic Resident Evil. You're now going to have half a dozen people tell you how you're playing it WRONG, and that the correct way to play it is a 2 hour no saving speedrun with perfect dodging all enemies and special invincible new game plus pinata shark enabled. That's the apex of survival horror, right there.
Frick classic RE and frick predictable game mechanics. Nothing ruined horror games as much as they did.
Did you not even read my post? Most of your complaints are addressed and acknowledged there. The implementations in OG RE were poor but that doesnt invalitldate it. These same mechanics have been implemented better in other genres. Unfortunately horror games as a whole have abandoned stuff like that due to laziness. In the modern day you could make it work well if you put in the effort. It's just Nip corps living off their IPs like vampires will never do it because they are lazy greedy bastards.
I also specifically mention at the end that altering mechanics is also something that is underutilized and can be effective. Also explain mechanics in a specific way as to have double meanings for the player to figure out.
This isn't to say that I agree with you on "frick games with predictable mechanics". If your system is robust then yyou can make it work in many different ways effectively. Specifically, dread would be easier to invoke in games like that.
I remember the Silent Hill games scared me mostly because of the sound and fixed camera angles in certain sequences where you can't see the danger directly in front of you. It kept you on edge all the time.
Player actually fighting back
>once I pick the perfect couragejak to portray you as your life is fricking over
we don t. it s shit, please stop posting these threads. Horror genre is Black personlicious tier. Only non white people want to be scared by videogames.
also Kojima will save your shitty genre . so you better start kneeling
You can't. It is dead. And we have killed it!
The modern gamer has an internet connection, so they can just look up scary things that are actually real. Existential dread? A staple of informational youtubers! Blood and gore? Plenty of it on the web! Scary monsters? Practically an art genre on DA! New criptids come out every year too, but people would rather frick them. Because they learned humans are the real monsters from reading all the fricked up shit we do!
We've become so desensitized to scary things that we are running out of things to consider scary. Just look at 'liminal spaces!'
VR is where the future of the horror genre lies
You need a cheap VR headset in every home
By establishing gameplay mechanics, then breaking them. The best horror parts in non-horror games happen when suddenly you can't rely on game mechanics. The worst parts of any horror game are routine, where you calculate that X bullets let you kill X/4 zombies, leaving Y - X/4 zombies that you need to avoid instead. There's no horror in games with perfect information.
With capturing a zeitgeist for zoomers, they use nuHorror as some sort of escapism, but we need to know what they fear for real. Something deeper than bullying and misgendering.
>what they fear for real
no protective layers of post-irony, and genuine self-reflection
Kill every mascot horror indie dev
More sex
become less reliant on jumpscares and focus more on actually making a player fear going into an area they have to in order to progress
I feel like a game that looks like a typical mash of default Unity assets but is actually really-well animated would be a hit. Like imagine doing a spooky haunted apartment-type building and you see the stereotypical unity asset scary man peering at you from a corner and by now you're jaded, you're like oh I'll just get closer and he'll be anim-dragged away and despawn as usual, but then he actually rounds the corner and starts sprinting at you with really good, life-like animations. I don't think it would save horror but I think it'd make a killing.
Give it back to Whites and Japanese and fire all these Black person and israelite writers.
The Spirit of the Harvest moon should go after trannies for their lack of contribution to society.
Lousy soil
>year 2005 + 18
>bouta nuclear war
>no one got bread
>no chance of owning anything
>AI singularity deadass rn
>aliens too
>I can get cancelled any second
>these mfs fr want horror games
>my life already is a horror game ong no cap
>periodt
I a little mad.
I got an idea. What if we made a game that looked cartoony and child-friendly, but it's actually spooky and if the monster catches up to you it screams really loud in your face and the game ends.
Has to have a really marketable monster though