Is it possible to make a great horror game without resorting to jumpascares?
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Is it possible to make a great horror game without resorting to jumpascares?
Is it possible to make a great horror game without resorting to jumpascares?
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Yes, you just have to make it a psychological liminal slow burn
>psychological horror
I'll take jump scares over this shit, thanks.
>uuuuu you got suddenly teleported and see a ghost! but is it really? it disappeared! maybe it's all in your head uuuuu the vision's getting blurry and now you woke up in a new room! spooky!
Thanks, but no thanks.
What game does this?
Blair Witch, Layers of Fear, Visage. Just from the top of my head.
>Take general neutral concept
>Imagine it in its worst iteration
>This is a valid criticism
>psychological
I have come to hate this genre most of the time
99% of the time it's just the protagonist killed someone and haunted by their past of killing someone
Yes.
Next thread please!
Absolutely, iirc Eternal Darkness doesn't have jumpscares.
It has one. Which is probably the right amount to have.
It has only one, but this comment is funny to me because that jumpscare is all anyone had to really say about the game on gamefaqs back in the day. It was known for its jumpscare.
>yes
How?
Like this: https://youtu.be/HwAPLk_sQ3w?t=1351
oh my science is that the heckin' algorithm video
Omg the hecking 3D meshes colliding to make it look glitchy SO SCARY AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!! Also uncanny animations. Not even good to look at.
Alien Isolation had very few jump scares.
>afraid of bimbos
>afraid of jumpscares
Is there anything that doesn't terrify this b***h?
Yes, it's called League of Legends. The horror comes when you look at how much time you've played compared to how much fun you've had.
Permadeath or limited saving. Bonus points if it's unclear what actually kills you so you get paranoid of everything.
The scariest part of any horror game is the first 20 minutes of build up before they reveal the monster.
They're scary until you actually get killed by the monster(s) a few times, and then they stop being scary because your brain realizes that it's just a game, no big deal. It's common advice for pussies playing horror games, just let it kill you a few times, and then it's less scary.
How should horror games overcome this? ...I don't know.
>intentionally avoid immersion in the horror to feel less scared
>why can't I enjoy the game?
That's why you use permadeath or limited saves. It's inherently terrifying to know at any point for anyone to know they could lose a huge amount of progress. Moreso if you're stuck up against something unkillable that can kill you very quickly
>horror
>jumpscares
Jumpscares aren't scary, they're just startling at best. They're used to make streamers look like dunces for the amusement of simps, not to make 'great horror games'.
Voices of the void is one of the scariest games ive played and nothing even happened.
Came to post this. Dread is the way to go about it making the player always on edge about what might happen. And then once in a while something actually does happen to keep reinforcing that Dread. VotV only has one real jump scare in the tutorial you might never even see.
No because there is no way to make a horror game.
They're all movies.
Darkwood.
Proper horror shouldn't rely on jumpscares. True terror will escalate in plain sight.
The fact it has jumpscares is the reason why it isn't a "great" horror game, since jumpscares are a cheap way of making the player get "scared" but they won't experience real horror that makes them shit their pants.
Remove one of your fingernails for every death. When you run out you have to wait for them to regrow to play again.
I actually kinda think that this is the best way to make horror games actually scary. not necessarily by removing fingernails, but by causing some actual sense of loss/pain for losing
No, video games poses no danger to the player. If there are no jump scares I wouldn't care about the "horror" at all.
>oooo spooky dark corridor
>let me search the place for heals and ammo
Jump scares deter that since you don't wanna search everywhere if you think a jump scare is coming.
Jumpscares have to be used sparingly or they lose effectiveness.
Put one in early, then don't have another for a good while
killer7
Yes, horror is about unnerving the audience. Love Town in Library of Ruina is a great example.
Yeah, it's called having a good atmosphere
Creepy games are infinitely more appealing to me than being subjected to screamers
This shit was really scary in some parts, because there was a sense of urgency and futility at the same time. Struggling to do basic shit like lock doors or move shelves.
The first sequence in this game, when you're in your hotel room and get attacked, I think that's one of the best pieces of horror gameplay that has ever been made.
Just dont ask Alan Wake that question.
It's hard to scare people with games when they watch 3 streamers play it before they even touch it, if they even do play it. So maybe add some really unlikely random elements, that can scare people who think they know what to expect.
You think that's why rogueli*es got so desirable? Because even after you've lost the ability to feel anything when you compulsively cheese through everything using datamined strats, the game can still cheese you right back?
Never thought about it, but that's an interesting idea. The fact that you can never truly "know" a game, and it will always surprise you. Even if those surprises are undeniable unfair sometimes, that keeps it way more interesting than just being able to follow a step-by-step guide to "win"
Diablo I is technically a roguelite, and much of what made the game feel dark and horror-like was the randomness of the monsters and levels
The problem is that psychological horror can go over peoples head very easily (Average Gankertard), and the implications of things that are fricked up can be overlooked.
When horror games try to do it, there’s an expectation to be scared so you don’t look into fricked up situations, you just wait for the jumpscare or the scary monster with knives for a face or something stupid like that.
When a NON-horror game does it, people tend to look a bit deeper. Swat 4 had some fricked up but intriguing level design and environments, like the serial killer’s house.
Not to imply that it’s impossible, it’s just a lot harder than putting up an unnatural face really quickly with a loud sound.
Some jumpscares can be okay, but if it's not the main focus
a good game should have the player filled up with dread to the point they're still on edge in safe zones
maybe a 1 time gimmick where the safe zone isn't safe would do the job well if it doesn't seem cheap, hell depending on the game having a safe zone that has corpses of other people in the main character's predicament, and keeping it safe for the player anyway might be enough
this
How do you build dread without the fear of jumpscares?
I don't mind jump scares as long as the timing and execution is good.
Even classics like Silent Hill had them.
depends on what you mean by jump scare.
>surprise screeching violin sting
no you don't need this to make a horror game.
>sudden confrontation by a threat
I think you do need this to some extent. You don't want the player to always know when they are safe or you'll eventually end up with your game feeling a bit stilted and undynamic.
>Is it possible to make a great horror game without resorting to jumpascares?
I'm-a-sure it's-a possibile! wahoo!
Voices of the Void does this, especially if you turn the "fun mode" off. The game only has like 2-3 jumpscares and 2-3 actual threats, but the game's just full of a constant feeling of dread and doom, making you too nervous to leave the building until you have to.
A jumpscare IS a scare, its a buzzword to say you dont like being scared. There is no such thing as a scary event that occurs slowly.
>he's never heard a strange noise in his house while he was home alone
ok and then you investigate the noise and there's nothing. then you investigate noises for 30 hours in a video game and nothing pops out. that is not scary. you NEED jumpscares for something to be scary.
Jumpscares startle you. Sure it's "scary", but only because it's preying on your natural instinct to GTFO when something big jumps you. The only time jumpscares can be considered true horror is if the game does a good job of making you fear the idea that a jumpscare is coming, constantly on the lookout to make sure to minimize the chances of getting jumped again.
There are some cases of them being used right, but most cases are just
>stick jumpscares all over the game at random
>make the game really low-effort and low-budget "on purpose"
>call it a horror game
>get million sales because people find it funny to watch streamers shriek
What genre is midsummer? Whatever it is i enjoy that type of film way more than normal horror
Good question. Good movie. I guess it could be classified as "something normally gradually becoming something extremely abnormal" but I don't know what you'd call that
What is objectively wrong with jumpscares?
It's just a cheap excuse for real horror. Same as if I shot you in the back of the head when you didn't even know I was there, yeah I killed you, but to say "I beat your ass" would be a lie.
What is real horror?
feeling powerless against an overwhelming force that will do much worse than just kill you
People just can't accept that they got scared is all.
Resorting to calling it cheap.
Same shit as playing in the middle of the day in full bright with music rolling in the background "nuh uh, that didn't scare me i'm a big boy that doesn't get scared"
Jumpscares are fine, they self regulate in that if a game relies too much on them the player accustoms to them.
Like the vents in dead space
or the lose scenes in Fnaf
Yes.
Amnesia, SOMA, anything by Frictional really
Silent Hill 2 wasn't really spooky to me but I felt weird after completing it, as if I had lasting brain fog
I knew a girl once that owned a rabbit. She lived in a trailer with 4 other people, and she kept the rabbit in her closet, and fed it pizza crusts sometimes. Poor thing was miserable.
I was drinking over there one time, and she said that I was too much of a pussy to kill her rabbit. I said nah you're a dumb b***h. She went back to her room, and came back with the rabbit in a pillowcase. She was swinging it around, trying to hit me with it. I said no you're the homosexual for just beating up the rabbit, just kill it if you're gonna be like that. She said you don't have the balls to kill my rabbit.
I was 17 and angry, so I said bullshit, b***h. I took the rabbit out of the bag and into the yard. I had a friend of mine hold it still while I tried to cut its head off with a knife. It pissed all over us and made all kinds of crazy sounds. But I couldn't kill it with that knife, not well. it was a serrated knife, and mostly it was just pulling the fur from the rabbit, not cutting it at all. So I told her to get me a better knife.
She did, and I cut the rabbit's head off. I put the 2 parts in different bags, the body I threw out the window on the side of the highway, and the head I left in my friend's mailbox, as a joke. I fricked her that day and several times afterward.
However, this whole mess caused me a number of problems afterward, and eventually led to my sister getting caught up with a bad crowd, and one girl committed suicide. It was a mistake.
you are absolutely fricked
worth adding, the girl who committed suicide, she tried to taunt me by also decapitating a rabbit, and left the head on the hood of my car. the blood messed with the paint. She was a hardcore Wiccan girl, but I won't say much more about her, it's not cool to speak ill of the dead. I'll say this - she was pretty hot.
Whats Jack been up to these days?
Why do you know the name of some homosexual youtube clickbaiter?
His channel is probably older than you
unlikely. I remember when Google bought YouTube and fricked it up
Organic jumpscares like opening a door and the enemy is right behind it is good, scripted BOO scares suck. If you need one, make it only 1 or 2. I'm okay with 1 or 2.
By having an unsettling atmosphere and freaky monsters that make your skin crawl. My personal recommendation in this field would be the Little Nightmares games.
Why no horror game where i play as the most frightening thing scaring monsters?
Batman
Silent Hill 2 remake is going to have a pyramid head origin story
I don't even mind shit suddenly violently showing up in my face as long as it isn't loudly screaming and hurting my fricking ears
reminder that moot banned webms with sound from Ganker because he got spooked too many times from jumpscare vids
Dressing the scenery with a sense of dread is a decent way to do it. Create a world that people would feel uncomfortable living in.
Yes
Add sex sequence instead
for me, it's that red one
>All have the same generic circle tool breasts body
Rancid
What happens if the battery runs out
>horror game monster becomes real and shows up at your house
I had this happen. When I was a kid, I always had nightmares about wolves jumping through my window and trying to eat me. There were no wolves in my area, just coyotes (and they're pussies) but the nightmare remained.
Anyway, one night a dog DID jump through my window. Turned out, it was my dog, and it jumped through the window to escape a pack of coyotes, but all the same, it scared the absolute shit out of me.
homosexual, the game
Doggone insane
But the nightmare still remains
If a horror game's scary enough, you will jump without the scare.
Horror is such a moronic genre. It's only scary to people that don't even really play it. The ones that love horror are all already desensitized due to overconsumption.
Horror doesn't need to be scary.
Stop thinking it does.
Most of the greatest horror films aren't trying to be scary; thrillers, gore, psych horror, occult, etc..
I frick your ass. What is the point of horror if not to be scary? If it's not scary, then it's a chopshop thriller, it's not horror.
Good horror makes you question shadows.
This. I remember one game, where near the end you're up against this japanese witch lady. The whole room is super dark and there are mannequins everywhere. She teleports around chasing you so every corner you turn you think you see her and shit yourself a bit. It works amazingly.
Guess what homosexual.
Thriller is a subgenre of horror.
yeah
it's a subgenre because it's not horror
Yes. Signalis is a good example of it.
>Is it possible to make a great horror game
No.
>25 years old
>still the best horror game made to this day
How the frick did they do it?
no, only babies are afraid of ~muh atmosphere~
your body should only react to the fear of being killed, and jumpscares are the closest you have to that, and they only work once or twice because your body adapts to it