I tried several times to write something short that would add to this conversation, and this is what I came up with.

That is called a "joke." I hear they're all the rage these days...

I think the most disturbing thing is the deep, in your bones sense that something is wrong. Not "Don't cut in line" wrong, wrong "Dear God" wrong.

I think that's the most broken down it gets, and it summarises the important points of helplessness and fear and all of that. I think that's how you should go about trying to disturb people. There is someone in a dark room. The room has children's wallpaper on it. There's a bed in the corner. If you put a bear on the bed, the people will pass by. If you put chains on the bed, then by implication, you have just created something evil.

More important than how to disturb people though, is what to do with the power. You can sit around and think up stuff that'll freak people out for the rest of your life. If you do it enough, then you'll just be able to drop a few words and rock people in their core. But you've got to know why you're doing it. And you've got to know when to stop.

There was a thing called the Milgram Experiment, and in a nutshell, it tested to see if people would kill someone if someone else told them to. Most did. No one actually died, but the general reaction was that tricking someone into thinking they've murdered another person is still a bad thing, even though it's not real. Just something to think about. Are some things bad, even though they're not real?

That said, I was deeply impressed by the F.E.A.R. demo. Nearly messed my pants. It's just another situation of hard work and perseverance. Do that and think "scary" and eventually you've got your series of disturbing events.

[Use polarizing elements]
Take a commonly-known, beloved childhood figure then mangle and mutilate it into a horrifying visage. Maybe try making a christmas atmosphere with happy-go-lucky killer elves or a twisted fairy tale environment where cheerful, homocidal creatures die happily as rivers run red. Personally, I think a catatonic grin that lasts even after the death of a monster is immensly more disturbing than some boring zombie with rotting flesh. Watch a few Disney movies and try to get an idea of how you can twist the giddiest of characters into your own horrible recreation. Be sure that you don't totally rip them off though.

A few screens of Smiley Massacre, a semi-serious shooter created almost 4 years ago...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Raven_Vicious/level1_sel.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Raven_Vicious/level2_sel.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Raven_Vicious/smiletitle.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Raven_Vicious/1.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Raven_Vicious/2.png


[Realism? Who needs it!?]
Screw the realism! If anything your nightmarish vision should be more of a cartoon or a mind trip. Except there is nothing funny about your game because your characters can get killed in the most gruesome ways.

[Hollywood sucks, Hollywood sucks, Hollywood sucks]
Everyone has seen zombies and rip-offs of the Ring; the same, mundane, unoriginal crap. At best, these over-exhausted elements are only scary once. Try to come up with something bizarre and unusual to enhance the eeriness. Try to make the player feel like he is in a nightmare.

[Time to panic!]
Include an alarming element such as a "RELOAD!" screen or a panic meter.

[Hopelessness is a plus!]
Another thing you could consider is an arch enemy that always gives the player a sense of hopelessness even if they are in a "safe" zone.

[Juuuuuust kidding!]
Make the middle boss or event seem exhausting AS IF it IS in fact the final battle, interlude into an "all is well" mood, then without warning, flash the image of your horrible world. The player would then know that the game hasn't been finished yet.

[Pure evil... with the functions of the game.]
One particulary eeevil trick I used was to disable quitting (the F4 key was also disabled, which as a result got me banned from gamehippo). I do not recommend you do this, however; it is quite entertaining to get a bunch of, "What the hell!?" reactions.


[Game Recommendations]
"CarnEvil" for the arcade by Midway games, 1998
-One of the most well-made, fast-paced shooters that will shake you up and leave you begging for more. Great visuals and excellent gameplay!

"House of the Dead" for Sega Saturn 1997, 1998
"Clocktower 3" for PS2 by Capcom, 2002, 2003 (?)
"Kuon" for PS2 From Software


I hope this helps! (as if you didn't expect me to say that)

I think a good thing to think about that has been touched on in some posts is fear of the unknown. The first Silent Hill game was pretty good about balancing this while still having a storyline you can at least follow a little bit. This of course in combination with many of the things listed before. I think that something you just don't quite understand or can't quite tell what it is about makes for an interesting way to scare people. It can be very scary when you see things (creatures or environmental) that just don't quite fit but seem very foreboding. Of course this can be taken too far sometimes and you are left with a game with no real story at all because you can't make sense of anything that is happening. It's a fine line to walk, but I think an important one.

Here's a little exercise in fear. I tried to write a scary little story. Obviously after reading the topic, it may be diluted, or it may not even be scary at all. Either way it might be interesting to look at it and see if it provides any points of reference for the topic.

-

Imagine wandering down the halls of a forgotten home, somewhere dark but not quite evil. In the distance you hear a crying infant. You tilt your head to listen, and the sound doesn't get quieter but just slightly louder. Following your ears you run down the halls, the rotten curtains attempting to cover the moon-lit courtyard slightly billowing to touch you, yet crumbling to dust as they reach out. The sad, lost sound seems to reach a quiet crescendo before suddenly ceasing. Continuing down the hall, you take the only turn fate left behind. Your ears are momentarily raped with a reprise of infantile longing, coming from behind the door that suddenly appeared at the end. The twilight attempting to creep around the bend in the hall, nips at your heels as you reach for the ancient brass handle.

The door easily swings open without so much as a creak. Lit by the moon, in the center of the room is an ancient wooden crib. As you approach the bundle of blankets becomes visible, and inside an infant who giggles at the sight of you. It reaches out, as if to hold you.

Clouds cover the moon.

Despite the slightly darker room you reach out and pick up the child, holding it to your chest as if to protect it from the darkness. You walk around the crib to the row of windows and look out into the light-starved courtyard. As the child shifts in your arms you look up towards the moon, and as you blink it disappears.

Light ceases to exist. The weight of the blankets in your arms vanishes, and the child quiets to not making a sound. Your arms and chest instantly feel cold as ice and the weight of the child is gone. Suddenly the air feels stagnant and empty, and you hear the sounds of paper being torn from the walls. Reaching towards the windows, to feel anything, there is no sojourn and you find nothing. The floor falls out from under you yet there is no falling. There is only nothing.

-

I had no idea how to end it, that should be kinda obvious. There were also some very obvious uses of "scary" things.

One of the most obvious was the setting. Twilight, and an old building. Twilight tends to be more scary than complete darkness because although your vision is not completely deprived you lack enough sight to make out details, and as such there is much potential for the imagination to grip you in fear. I think I agree with a previous poster in that the only reason old buildings are scary is that they have fallen into misuse. The curtains are an example of that, although the juxtaposition of the door which opened without a sound potentially made it creeper, depending on the reader, as that shouldn't be expected.

Either way it would be interesting to see more attempts which could be analyzed for material which we may not be able to think of forthright.

keep changing the pace of the game so that the players are never sure when they will be attacked. Also be careful with saving. Saving offers safety so restrict saving.

Alien versus predator (i cant beleive noone has mentioned it) is the scariest game ever imo. The face huggers were difficult to spot so sound was your only guide. Alot of the levels required you to run from enemies which were faster than you - if they caught up you were toast.

In alot of games you clear a room and its clear until you progress to the next area.

Apparent difficulty (while not all that hard) is good because nobody likes to load over and over again. For example: Travelling down a long way into a mine so it 'feels' like your trapped but give them a rope at the last minute. Interupted gameplay alleviates the fear, its not meant to be hard, it is meant to be scary.

Fear is cumulative. Exploring under the constant fear of being attacked :)

Man you guys are watered down sissys... Doom 3 and HL2 scary? Geez...

I'm just kidding by the way...

Anyway, according to (older) lists the top three scariest games of all time are Silent Hill 1, Fatal Frame, and Resident Evil. Resident Evil uses cheap horror and is not disturbing in any way so ignore it.

Silent Hill and Fatal Frame have one thing in common. In both you play as a overall weak character with barely any decent weaponry. (I am also depressed to not see Fatal Frame mentioned before btw.) The secret that both use is to start by setting up an atmosphere. From the moment you step into an area you know something isn't right. And they let you feel like that for a LOOOOONG time. They build up the tension in the beginning more than any games I have ever played. Then when they hit you... well that is where they deviate.

Silent Hill hits you hard and hardly ever slows down. It almost seems like the game devs were like, "Heh, we did that... now let's do THIS!" Except in Japanese, but you get the point. If the graphics were any better I have no doubt several scenes in that game would have played with my stomach.

Fatal Frame on the other end of the spectrum, hits you once then goes back to building it up to hit you again and repeat. This set-up is fine for Fatal Frame as the game was set up to be slow, but it probably won't work to well elsewhere. American gamers don't appreciate it as much because of how slow it is.

(Also on an off-topic did anyone else have trouble holding their stomachs during Eddie's toilet scene in SH2? That was impressive sound.)

Quote: Original post by Nanoviper
The best way to make material disturbing whether its a book, movie or game is to create a charater that the viewers can relate to one which subconsiousely they could see themselves as, then create a situation that is extremly upsetting and psycologically unsettling. The viewers therefore see themselves as that character and as a result it will produce that sick feeling in the pit of their stomach.

The funny thing about this idea is, that's exactly how I felt watching Sandra Bullock in the Net. It wasn't the least bit creepy or scray, but it was disturbing. So, I agree that having an identifiable character is important. One of the most shocking and disturing things I can imagine is a little kid that you adore suddenly being torn apart as a vicious insectoid monster rips itself out of her body, and she's not even screaming but just writhing there with this look of perplexed horror and desperation on her face. That would disturb me more than identity theft.

I got to thinking about FEAR a little more, and the thing about the game that sticks with me are the dark areas. Whenever I came upon a portion of the game that was dark, I thought to myself, dammit. I would flip on the flashlight knowing full well it wouldn't last but a few precious seconds — these special forces people need to get a new battery provider, let me tell you — which was more than enough time for something to freak me out. It was the anticipation that made the game scary; the shocking moments merely fueled it. Now, soldiers firing guns at you would be terrifying in real life, but in a game it's old hat and not the least bit scary. There wasn't anything especially dangerous in the entire game until the very end, when suddenly you're facing an enemy that is several orders of magnitude more powerful than you. All the gunfights served to feed your sense of safety until the finale, when the reload cycle for an assault rifle is suddenly one second too long.

Hmm, you guys are thinking more along the lines of techniques to induce horror. But if you understand the basic principles of horror, you can make your own techniques that won’t become clichés and will work for any medium.

Take a bite out of Lovecraft. He says that cosmic horror should make the reader feel helpless for humankind. They should feel that there is something lurking outside of our typical senses. The reader should feel hopeless against it, mortals trapped in the shadows of beings and plots that control us like mere puppets. It should be a dark, deadly force to mankind—not angels and whatnot who look out for us, but evil entities out to use mankind as we use animals. Worst of all, most people should be utterly unaware of their peril.

He says that to induce such a thing, atmosphere is essential. Every detail should suggest something dangerous and unknowable to the reader. Grotesque props are not always a necessity – just something that further suggests the horrible thing that’s surrounding us. There should never be something that can’t be interpreted as sinister, however harmless it seems at first glance. Also the point of view character is important: He shouldn’t shrug off all these happenings as mere coincidences, but he should suspect the malice behind them. He should react accordingly to it, sensing it, fearing it, waiting for it, but feeling all the while totally helpless against it, overwhelmed by it. And all the while its nature should be a mystery to him—unknowable in exact nature—but he should sense it, whatever it is.

Regardless of medium, these principles work. I would also argue that regardless of sub-type of horror (psychological or whatnot) it works.

For example, let’s take the task of making a school that disturbs the hell out of people. How exactly can we do that? Well, we first decide it looks like a typical high-school (that touches home to most people in the audience as possible). However, there are strange stories about it—that the last three overnight janitors all went out of their minds after only a few months on the job. In fact, one of them ate his limbs, another bought a revolver and shot himself in the head, and the latest one gouged his eyes off, cut his tongue off, and tried to castrate himself with a pen knife. All of them died of, and, upon autonomy, were revealed to have been overdosed with that hormone/chemical released due to intense fear.

Already starting to feel it? Something sinister about the school?

Now a week has passed, and the protagonist, a detective, and his partner go off to investigate the scene of the crime alone. They have to do it at night, because there are too many witnesses to see them during the day, and they want to do it inconspicuously as possible to make sure the criminal doesn’t try to remove his evidence. Also to make sure they can bag up that raise in pay and reputation. (I know. Horrible cliché motivations, but the point is to focus on the horror part, so bear with it.)

As they enter the school gate, the temperature seems to drop, and the car radio stops working properly. It flickers and statics. (Cliché, but still sinister enough to carry the point. It’s abnormal.) His partner opens the creaky gate with a set of keys that jangle loudly—at least he feels it does, A LITTLE TOO LOUDLY. He glances around as if looking for someone who’s watching him, but can’t find the person. He tenses up, and they park inside, near the flickering lights. (He feels an unknown presence).

As they open the door, the partner thinks he can make out a shadow disappearing in the dark. He glances nervously at his partner, who is stone-faced. The detective didn’t notice anything yet. (Is it real or all in his mind? ANSWER UNKNOWN.) As they walk down the echoing halls, the partner thinks he can hear a third batch of footsteps very slightly amongst them. Just as he’s about to tell the detective, the latter tells the other to stop moving, not make any sound. The detective listens very intently. Then he draws his gun and whispers for his partner to follow. They silently make their way to the bathroom, from where they both listen intently to the curious dripping sound. Among it is a squelching sound, the sound of something mushy – that’s what the partner thinks, feeling horrified at the prospect. But they dash in, the detective pointing his gun at—a garbage bag is a sink with a dripping faucet. The detective is disappointed, but the partner is relieved.

Now he’s in a safety point, thinking its all imagination. Therefore it’s important at this point to raise the stakes, propelling the partner to suspect even more horrible situations. Every time the protagonist feels safe from danger, the storyteller should open the trap door under him and intensify the danger. That means eventually killing of his bold, brave, decisive partner, and discarding his only means of defense against the danger. By killing him off in a gruesome, horrifying manner, the storyteller makes the audience aware of the danger— that the hero can die as well against the onslaught of beasties and ghouls – or worse.

Now it’s up to the writer how he wants it to end, but it should never end on a safe note. Even after destroying the very source of evil, something should happen to suggest that the horror lives on. Maybe an ending like the detective’s partner going mad as well. Or being found with his face eaten off or something. Something to suggest humans really are helpless against the horror, that it’s a permanent part of existence in this world, eternal as time itself.

That’s horror in a nutshell. With these principles in mind, you can make any situation horrifying. Remember: It should be a imminent and potent threat, and the heroes should always feel despair against it. Hope it helps.

Personally I want to say that I am glad to see that their is other people out there besides me that want to make and develope horror survival games. It is good to see that there is people out there who want to scare the living crap out of other gamers. And even though your post was in the wrong section, I have read many great ideas from the people who responded to your post. I have seen a lot of good ideas and all of the responses are worth reading. By joining this website like i have, I wanted to say that you have come to the right people for answers. Most of the people that post here on a daily basis do know what they are talking about. I would listen to their suggestions and possibly use them if the ideas suits your purpose, and even though was not my post that got all the attention that it has, I am glad that people from this site took time to answer posts. I really liked reading all the posts that was made and I also want to thank you for giving me some ideas as well. I really appreciate it. I hope to be a member here for a long time. I like this site and I am glad I came here.