quote: Original post by walkingcarcass

a freind of mine had an idea: in a scary part of the game, play a loud sound out of the speakers in the region 25kHz-30kHz. the player won''t hear it but if they have a dog it may start barking or howling. only trouble it it temporarily seperates the player from the game, but it could freak people out (i would) and get them playing with a little more apprehension.

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A Problem Worthy of Attack
Proves It''s Worth by Fighting Back

Wow, thats a really really cool idea, and could be done very well. It kindov reminds me of the time i was watching the mothman prophecies, and the phone had just wrung a bunch of times in the movie and there were those screeching noises, then it showed a phone shot and the guy was waiting for the phone to ring then BAM my phone rang and everyone in the room jumped. The phone never rang in the movie but it was really creepy when it happend.

I like the idea of the light game, sounds pretty cool.

And i dont think the story to the game can scare you, but it is what makes other things scary, The plot, music, graphics. But its other things that make you scared like sudden things that make you jump, or things that scare you to do, like for me opening the door to the butcher''s room, or going down the stairs into the next level in diablo 1. But the plot, music, graphics all make things like this work.

And on a side note, i think creatures that are from space or spacelike are not that scary. Things like demons, vampires, mean bloddy people are all scarier.

That is an interesting idea about the high-frequency effects. It has been found that inaudible frequencies can illicit feelings in people as well as animals. Only problem is, in order for it to work you are assuming the player has both sound card and speaker system capable of responding to those frequency ranges, and normal desktop speakers won't do.

[edited by - krikkit on October 16, 2002 5:40:38 AM]

I once read an article that was about a lab that made everybody in feel uncomfrotable and belive that they where being watched. A guy investegated the thing and found that a fan was making a really low humming and when the humming was gone, nobody felt uncomfortable in the lab again.

Maybe something like this could be used in a game.

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Me Hardguy.
and here is my game...

I also have seen a documentry on the guy in the lab and his fan. I wonder if that type of effect is creatable by the average home computer? This sounds like a very good idea, and definatly worth thinking about.

Darren

Yes! The sound idea is very cool. I guess the question is, do you tell people that you''re making the sounds? Or don''t tell them at all and hope that it has the desired effect?

No. Don''t tell them. Instead, play a sound that would have the desired effect when you are playing a similar sound throught the speaker; ie: a scene where dogs brought by your character are barking at a door, sensing the evil inside. Then play the 25kHz-30kHz ranged sample. Imagine the effect... your own dog reacting to events onscreen... your dog "warning" of a hidden danger... Cooooooolllllll...

If at first you don''t succeed, call it version 1.0

SketchSoft | SketchNews

Cool idea about useing sounds...but it''s going to be damn difficult to implament as sound cards, amplifiers, and speakers are designed around the hearing limitations of the average human (20hz-20khz frequency range on average)...then again you may also run into problems in that some sound file types may also impose the same limitations.

And then again...by induceing phase shifts you can get surround sound effects from a pair of speakers (rather then haveing four or more, as is common on "3D sound systems").

There is a Nine Inch Nails song titled ''Ruiner'' on the Downward Spiral CD that does this...at a certain point in the song...lead singer (and really the only person in the "group") Trent Reznor whispers a few lines that are phase inverted over the on playing music....the net effect is very strange...almost sounding as if he is behind you whispering in your ear.

Sugestions:

1-Make player busy with others things aside of the ''scary'' thing.
Like an agent trapped in an building, with an inocent person in "frenzy-like-histerical-atack" while an alien is hunting both of them down, but the water level on the building just keep raising.

2-Monster''s AI lead them to deal with the ''creepy enviroment''.Like having an stage with tons of dark spots, and and Bloodhound that pops from an spot, atack, and hide in another spot. Better then the unique door, with the unique monster that is hidden in it. Scares you only once.

3-Dinamic Do or Die, wich is basically (1) and (2) evolved together.

Well, its not going to be easy, but give it a try.

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if (ansi c++ && windows.h)
whooraay!!
else
ok, lets do those cheats.

Heres a thought.

Make a totally normal town, in daylight.

Now, set things up in that.

Which is scarier ?
The vampire coming at you in the night when you are all alone?
Or the vampire coming at you at 11:00 in the day in public- and you know that neither light nor having people around will deter him?

The expectation is that dark things live in darkness, yes ?

Now have the dark things happily walking around in daylight.

Now, take the townspeople and have them not care.
So you are going shopping in the middle of the day, and you watch the people on the sidewalk...and in the middle, a werewolf. Noone notices a thing out of the ordinary.
But he looks over into the store and sees you, and turns in...
and you know hes coming for you...in broad daylight.

~V''lion

Bugle4d

Good point, but you should do that in long terms, when the player have really made an bound to the char(you have to make sure he has).Or else, it would be more an state-of-mind-enigma than an scary thing.
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if (ansi c++ && windows.h)
whooraay!!
else
ok, lets do those cheats.