fine.. i knew this would be a hopeless attempt anyway. good day.

¬_¬

quote:
Yes.. well I have supported my arguments with facts, but you do not accept them. So I can''t really argue at all

What FACTS ?

You only stated your OPINION ... you even say so a couple of posts above:

quote:
I come here with a different opinion, and everyone shoots it down for no reason.

At no point did you state facts...you never showed proof of scientific studies that support your opinion.

Take a look at the sales figures for "survival horror" games...Resident Evil series, Silent Hill series, Alone in the Dark series, even the Doom series...lots of games sold = lots of customers for these types of games (which incidently carry appropriate rateings). With a strong fear basied game, customers generaly know what they are getting into...you don''t play a Resident Evil game for it''s "happy, joyfilled" atmosphere.

Yeah, we can discuss the impact such games have in the player...just as we could discuss the impact a game that promotes sadness (one of your valued other emotions) has on people who suffer from depression (or the effect it could have in the estimated 1 in 100 who are at risk of bi-polar disorder or "manic depressive")...

but this particular thread isn''t for that...if you REALLY want to discuss those opinions further...then start a new thread specific to your concerns (how many times does this have to be said?)

well.. i''ve learned something:

"Never argue with an idiot, because they will bring you down to their level and beat you with experience."

(thanks to whoevers signature that was from )

¬_¬

oh for chrissakes drop it, you guys

back on track...

having "aggreed that fear isn''t the ULTIMATE emotion" but that it is the easiest one to create in games, it seems that nobody seems to have really gotten to the root of why it''s so much easier.

of course there is no one Ultimate Emotion. but there are three.

take advice from hannibal lecter, "of anything, ask ''what is it''s essence?''". humans are driven by three desires

death, sex and art.

absolutely EVERYTHING that you have done and ever will do has been towards one of these goals. death and sex are the obvious primal instincts but art was pointed out to me in scott mccloud''s book "understanding comics" (i reccomend it to everyone)

what he basically says is this: all animals want to survive and reproduce, but there come times when there is actually nothing to do an in such times, with little or no effort, someone can self-stimulate emotionally and intellectually by eg singing, daydreaming or scrawling. this is a good darwinian trait because art is theraputic and leads by creativity to discovery and invention.

these are without doubt (in my mind) the three most powerful inpulses we have. it follows logically that if we can provide appropiate environments, humans will have no choice but to feel the associated emotion.




death and fear is the easiest because it is the most straitforward: if we die it''s no use worrying about sex or art.

art is the second (or joint first) easiest, games like rollercoaster tycoon allow us to be creative in a safe environment.

sexual satisfaction in a serious game is damn near impossible.




we are a lazy race (would we invent the wheel if satisfied dragging the kill back to the cave?) and rather than provide fancy emotional systems (good characters ultimately fall back not to sex, but art - the articulation of emotion) it is timesaving to go with one of the "pure" emotional drives.

and scary games sell.

********


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

What about humour? Humour is also damn near impossible to get right in a game...

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

SketchSoft | SketchNews

Oh my. he is the worst kind of troll ever.

He''s a rare specimen.

quote: Original post by walkingcarcass
sexual satisfaction in a serious game is damn near impossible.

Is it? Or maybe it''s because the only games that have ever attempted this were created by people who know nothing about games.

Fear: A feeling of agitation and anxiety caused by the presence or imminence of danger.

so yes fear can be alot of things. Such as running out of time on a clock.

There is the definition of fear for you fuzztrek.

Let me emphasize on the "imminence of danger" ok now if there is no fear things arnt going to be fun, lets take a few games and take out the fear/prscence of danger aspects.

lets start simple

Tetris: when you get to the top of the sceen it just scrolls up.
Pacman: No ghosts to kill you
Space invaders: They never drop down or speed up or shoot at you or anything.
Mario: Remove all enemys, all holes to fall into, the time, any lava or roofs that can sqish you.

Do you still think these games would be fun? You must understand that fear has nothing to do with gorey disturbing stuf. Just the prsence of danger.

I agree that fear is not the only emotion
I agree that is not the most important emotion
I agree that a game that uses only fear is not a good thing (if u even said this i cant remember, but it is true)
I agree that it would be good to discuss other emotions such as hate, love, desire, happyness, sadness, depression ect. But this thread is not the place, this thread is about improving the use of fear in gameplay. If you make a thread about another emotion, me and many others would be happy to discuss it.

So with this all said do you yet agree that fear (A feeling of agitation and anxiety caused by the presence or imminence of danger) is nessicary in games? With a few exceptions (there are some puzzle games that do not need/have it.

PS. Im pretty sure i supported my opinion just fine with examples and definitions and such. And im sorry about being so angry but you weere being quite ignorant and immature.

The "How" question. How do you scare the player through gameplay?

First we have to understand what fear is:
In my opinion there are two types of fear which are closely related
Fright - short lived fear when someone goes BOO ! and we jump out of our skin !
and conscious FEAR which builds slower based on rational thought.

I’ll go a little deeper into this if you don’t mind :
For this purpose lets say we have 2 areas of out brain conscious and unconscious.
Unconscious does things like auto heart beating auto breathing Flight fight response etc.
Conscious knows things like your sat in front of a screen and not really in a dungeon.

Okay FRIGHT this is the time delay between the unconscious auto response (milliseconds ) and the conscious figuring out what’s going on and what to do about it which takes whole seconds.
The unconscious floods the body with hormones as we know to ready the body these are felt as emotions.
You can NOT learn to deal with FRIGHT people will always be able to scare you with a well timed BOOO !

Okay conscious FEAR this is our brain calculating, gathering information based on knowledge as well as input from sensory organs eyes ears etc.
If it perceives potential danger then the conscious brain feeds this information to the unconscious and keeps feeding and updating it with any new information.
You can learn or become accustomed to this type of FEAR.

So back to the original question How do you scare the player through gameplay?

Well frights work for sure but they cause stress and become annoying so have to be used very very sparingly if at all.
Try the BOOO !! test on your partner after the 3rd time they’ll get stressed and attack you ! you’ll be annoying them and that’s not good for gameplay.

So what you want in your game is good old fashioned conscious FEAR. I think it all boils down to “control” if the player is in control they wont be frightened.

The control might be the fact that if you die then you spawn back a bit with little or no LOSS, or you have the big gun or the God cheat.

Fear is built by removing control and slowly increasing the risk backed up with sound and visuals. The player can be teased with glimmers of hope but needs time out, safe areas to gather their thoughts before continuing.

Sorry I waffled on a bit been reading up on it you see.

i dug into control (and lack thereof) and potential consequence in the thread "an essay on suspense" stemming from this discussion (which seems to only have a few regular posters left).

sadly, hardly anyone seems to have read to the bottom of it, i think ill edit out some chaff.

********


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