Hello, interesting topic as I have actually been thinking about this genre for the last 3 years now. I think something that would definately help this type of game is the inclusion of an insanity meter that is not shown on the UI. To stop hardcore rambo types the longer you're in combat (frenzied combat) as opposed to controlled and more calm actions during combat.

EX: During actions where players are taking more controlled shots and tactics to take down their enemies their frenzy/insanity (w/e) meter builds up slowly.
During actions where players are surrounded taking more uncontrolled shots repeatedly frantically throwing grenades and running for cover their (w/e) meter builds up faster. Not instantly but overtime which could result in...

Ringing in the ears of the character(creating a muffled slow sound of a teammate communicating through headphones) during gameplay double vision creating hostile environments and enemies, replayed death screams, yells, gunshots, commands from previous engagements in the characters "head/headset" that only they can hear.
Tactile Vibrations setting the controller off such as something touching the player/character that yet again only they see. Sometimes they will be real sometimes they will not. Some of those effects happen to people in real life minus the controller and you should see their freak out moments. =(

Another problem that can be fixed her is the feeling of helplessness, the driving point behind such games as Silent Hill and Alan wake is the fact they aren't trained spit in death's face commandos who will die glady as long as they can hold their rifle. They are regular people and have....barely any weapons. This being a fps the challenge of the game designer would have to be times when you can render the player/teammate helpless if even for a second or two.
A la enemies/environment being able to disarm the players:
Smacking the weapon from their hands, taking the weapon from them (if close),
Explosions which are close that send the player flying Requiring them to find their weapons,
Enemies knocking players to the ground or further along with their weapons,
Weapons being shot or taking damage rendering them ineffective.
Another part that can be incorporated is knockdown or a struggle aspect. With a knockdown aspect players who do get knocked down by explosions, enemies, flying objects or what not would have to struggle to get back up since not all knockdowns land you on your back. And add in that knockdown moment the situation of you losing your weapon in the process adds in decision making moments for players. The struggle aspect is not worth being detailed as you have seen it in CoD games via german shepard attack dogs. Alright.

NOW let's talk scary/supernatural additions. I very much agree with randomly generated building designs whether it be at the beginning or during the game if it can be incorporated even better. But the strong point here is the scaring part, so scary buildings first.
Scary Buildings/environment:
First dark shadows/rooms, with dark shadows added into the environment or building of the game it can give the enemies a tactical advantage to move and plan in unlike most fps games where they shoot at you upon sight. With dark rooms and flashlight being dead/night vision goggles being destroyed or lost it's more than likely to put people in the holy $#!t and wtf mode if "enemies" whether real or imaginary are also in a room with a player. The environment itself can have random physics such as lights that go out/break, doors shut behind players locking them in, doors openening to supposedly different escapes/paths. And also players being able to interact with things in the environment that are not really there.
EX: Player 1 and 2 goes into a room where player 1 sees an open room the size of a livingroom, player 2 sees the same room but half the size. Player 1 is able to go into the other portion of the livingroom sized room but turns around and is actually trapped in another room, lightbulb breaks all hell breaks loose and player 1 has to escape/fight through/get help from player 2, player 2 sees player 1 go through the wall, but he himself cannot go through the wall and has to find another way through or vice versa. Or the same situation and instead of player 1 going through the wall they both leave the room and come back in and both player 1 and 2 see a small room they just entered.
So rooms themselves can have different effects on players really forcing people to work together in terms of shifting whats real from whats not in their environment.
Supernatural enemies:
Alright as in a previously stated post, what better way to create confusion other than being possessed or seeing a hallucination that your teammate is actually your enemy? SO other than demon spawn trying to rip your head off, wild animals trying to claw out your guts, hostile humans trying to turn you into toasty chunks lets talk more devious AI. In this type of game you can toss in ghost/demon possesions that can happen when you are struggled with and lose to the possessing entity causing loss of the character and that character to attack their former teammates until they fight off the possession or until the entity is killed (Vampire/w/e controlling them from afar and the other player cannot break free easily). Psychic enemies able to send you or other objects flying, cause you to hallucinate and see things not there. Shadow beings that can hold onto you or form from shadows to attack you whether real or not.
Alright with NPCs they are always fun to throw in games for emotional/support content and they can develop storylines and also change around the gameplay. NPCs with random personalities or personalities that are affected differently as things happen to them through the game are an interesting addition as they can also go crazy, hallucinate, or turn on you for whatever reasons.

And if you dont think that all cannot fit together try this story.
Special Operations Forces worldwide have a select few who are recruited into the Occult Division in covering up or exterminating supernatural entities and forces that cannot be revealed to the world. The character being a career operator is brought in to join the team upon a previous team being deployed to the known area/island thought to harbor a trained religious militant cult where there have been records of unusual humanoid sightings and dissapearances of local residents only for them to show back up a few days later eyeless, drained of blood, but still walking. The town/island and outter reaches of the area has already been secured and they want your team to move in, find the cultists, find out whats going on, stop them with whatever force necessary if the situation permits. Typical recon and kill mission to cutscene of occult situation and discovery of your position, upset cultists ensue.

Further into the storyline come the other elements of the cults hidden occult dealings and more.

I have tonnns of ideas for video games, just sucks i dont have any programming skills or gear. just time, ideas, and going to range for fun money.

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Original post by Bladerz666 it is very hard to do a coop horror game well, the problem is it's hard to build up suspense or tension in this kind of game. Jump scares can be done fairly easilly but tension is nigh on impossible. The reason is thus, if it's co-op you need to communicate, if you need to communicate well you need to talk, if you need to talk you will be taken out of the immersion. I know alot of people who couldn't focus of Gears of wars 2s story because they were chatting in co op, it's hard to take something seriously. If people can't focus in cutscenes, how are they supposed to feel tense and scared? They can't because they've just been chatting with their friends in a conversation that began about tactics and ended up becoming a conversation that, say, ended up talking about whether or not to watch the social network. you also have to take into account connection issues and people having to go to dinner or whatever and the immersion really falls apart. I don't think a co-op horror game can work at this stage in the industies life. Sorry :(

think about the things they are doing with player interaction. The EyeToy/PSMove, and the kinect.

I personally think it would be a VERY cool touch if speaking with your partner actually led ghosts/enemies TO you. Its very easy to track player noise. Even a sneeze could give you away.

This simple addition would require the players to speak in whispers and in moderation and would easily allow not just a coop, but a very unique experience.

Most of the horror cliches in games have been explored/exploited. Ie the dark corridor, scary sounding monster behind the door, the monster behind glass, the flash light shooter, the big scary tentacle monster with teeth, etc..ZZzz.....

You want to know what is trully scarry? Human beings.. but slightly off.. that is the most scarry thing to people I think.. So with that in mind make a coop game where you record the players voices and have the players "help" each other out but every once in a while a dopolganger shows up which looks and sounds like your buddy but slightly off.. (when he isn't on screen) to mislead the player or maybe just psych them out..

Also you can play mind games, like use the camera attachment to project creatures in their space etc..Also you can intwine the player in the narrative somehow, using the camera + their own voice capture + name + other stuff u mine out of their hard drive.. hehe..

I would say the ultimate scarry game would cause you to question your own reality and linger with you for awhile.. kinda like the movie the Ring or something..

Good Luck!

-ddn

A few things that I think might be cool:

One "master map" that determines the level that all players are in, but each player's screen includes hallucinations that the other player's screen lacks. This could force players to occaisionally split up, depend heavily on trust in each other, and cause each player unease which the other can observe, but not necessarily understand.

Also, if you used something like an insanity meter, perhaps players could occaisionally dump some insanity off of themselves and onto the other player. This would reduce hallucinations for the dumper, and increase them for the dumpee. Players would have no way of knowing when, or even if, the other player did this to them, undermining the trust that the players must have to work through their personal representation of the master map.

Another thing that might contribute to the experience would be to have a random player in the game not control a character, but rather channel some of the demonic forces. They could direct wraiths at players, produce sounds from different places, and maybe even possess a player temporarily (cutting off their controls and muting their mic, if you're using voice chat). That way you never know if another character is helping you or betraying you, and the "frigthening elements" don't become obviously scripted and stale.

These would work whether or not you include enemies to kill. Personally, I would limit the ability to kill enemies, as being able to kill easily takes a lot of the fear out of the experience.

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Original post by Talroth But Dead Space isn't actually scary or creepy. It is startling, and nothing more. If you were to run it without sound and at 1/4 speed, you wouldn't feel anything remotely relating to fear.

Sorry, but I have to drag you back to this point to say; eh, wut?

Audio is pretty much THE way to induce an emotional reaction in a game, so yeah, it wouldn't be scary if you turned the sound off... in fact no game would be scary without sound because the audio component, when done well IS the bit which induces fear.

So, in Dead Space its the sound of the ship, your breath in your helmet and the computer chattering away to itself (and if you listen to it thats some really wacked out stuff its going on about) and in one case a lovely blood curdling scream which was enough to make me say "and I'm done.." for a night.

Subtle visuals help to re-enforce such things (brief glimps of a person or creature going around a corner for example) and help enforce the 'just out of sight' aspect the audio gives you but the audio is what sets the tone.

Another good example of this is the Hotel level from right near the start of Vampire:Bloodlines... again, it was subtle work.

Ghostly figures, whispered voices, yelled commands for you to get out, the sound of a child running bare foot along a passage way (complete with a quick view of said child), picking up an old news paper to read about a head in a tumble dryer followed by a creaking door and a *thump thump thump* sound coming from a tumble dryer which got you on edge.

Heck, one bit had the sound of someone in a room which was a kinda maze of pipes which made me switch on a power to see auras which gave the impression of someone being around the corner. So I got myself set for a fight, went around the corner only to find there was no one there; again the sound set the scene, the graphics reenforced and I was left thinking 'wtf?'.

(As a side note, its not until you get to the end of that level that you realise you didn't fight a single enemy. Yeah, that level stands out of a master class on how to do things in my mind).

My point to all this rambling; take any game, remove the sound and you'll remove the fear.

Audio is the biggest immersion tool out there, so its a shame its so over looked.

And with a good random map generator ^^ as the scary games will become funny after first play.

Quote:Original post by NPSF3000

Quote:Original post by Talroth
One thing to keep in mind when considering what restrictions are placed on information sharing between players: VoIP.

Anything that relies on changing what information two players knows is doomed to failure if one can ask the other "Hey, are you dead?" and have the other reply "No, why?"

Thats great - until the voip cuts out, starts repeating something someone said hours ago, replays the last moments of other soldiers, random screams, little girl asks for mummy etc.

I've yet to have Teamspeak or Ventrillo do that to me.

Quote:Original post by Talroth
But Dead Space isn't actually scary or creepy. It is startling, and nothing more. If you were to run it without sound and at 1/4 speed, you wouldn't feel anything remotely relating to fear.

Sorry, but I have to drag you back to this point to say; eh, wut?

Audio is pretty much THE way to induce an emotional reaction in a game, so yeah, it wouldn't be scary if you turned the sound off... in fact no game would be scary without sound because the audio component, when done well IS the bit which induces fear.

So, in Dead Space its the sound of the ship, your breath in your helmet and the computer chattering away to itself (and if you listen to it thats some really wacked out stuff its going on about) and in one case a lovely blood curdling scream which was enough to make me say "and I'm done.." for a night.

Subtle visuals help to re-enforce such things (brief glimps of a person or creature going around a corner for example) and help enforce the 'just out of sight' aspect the audio gives you but the audio is what sets the tone.

Another good example of this is the Hotel level from right near the start of Vampire:Bloodlines... again, it was subtle work.

Ghostly figures, whispered voices, yelled commands for you to get out, the sound of a child running bare foot along a passage way (complete with a quick view of said child), picking up an old news paper to read about a head in a tumble dryer followed by a creaking door and a *thump thump thump* sound coming from a tumble dryer which got you on edge.

Heck, one bit had the sound of someone in a room which was a kinda maze of pipes which made me switch on a power to see auras which gave the impression of someone being around the corner. So I got myself set for a fight, went around the corner only to find there was no one there; again the sound set the scene, the graphics reenforced and I was left thinking 'wtf?'.

(As a side note, its not until you get to the end of that level that you realise you didn't fight a single enemy. Yeah, that level stands out of a master class on how to do things in my mind).

My point to all this rambling; take any game, remove the sound and you'll remove the fear.

Audio is the biggest immersion tool out there, so its a shame its so over looked.

The idea that voip and reducing sound on games ruins the scary immersion is completely true. But these methods are for individuals who are trying to make the game less scary/more playable, they aren't playing it for the horror (or perhaps the game is just enough scary with the visual element), they are playing it for whatever reason that is of no consequence in this discussion.

When you are building ideas in, you definitly have to keep sound (or lack thereof) in. The players who are playing the game for that horror feel, will play the game the way it is meant to be played.

That being said though, some of the scariest moments in games with my friends have occurred over teamspeak/vent. The plaintiff wails of the player who is being munched on and the general hysteria of 3-4 people talking/screaming/ranting can really build some tension and fear of bigger badder things nabbing the unfortunate player. Again though, there will be those who keep calm, . Ignore those posibilites, this game clearly isn't for them, or make the game hard enough (different difficulties or otherwise) to cause them to lose their cool. My point is don't get wrapped up in the possibilites of people using things like mute and ts, make the game fun and scary enough, and people will play by your fun mechanics.

Cheers and happy developing

The flood??

Minecraft is scary sometimes, especially the first few nights. When I'm checking out a cave with three hours' worth of iron and diamond and cake in my inventory and I see a long, dark hallway, I seriously think twice about going down it. If it's dangerous, and I get hurt, the armor damage represents a genuine loss of assets, even if I win. Plus, I'm going to eat three or four porkchops in a serious fight, which take ten or fifteen minutes to replace sometimes, and worst-case scenario I fall into a magma pit and die, losing all my gear and respawning miles away, which not only embarrasses me, but actually puts the whole expedition in the red in terms of costs/benefits. So a lot of times I'll just brick up the tunnel, put up a warning sign and make a mental note to come back some other time and see if there are good resources down there.

And that's something I think can be used to measure fear in players. Sure, your heart races and your hands sweat and you spray bullets in random directions in F.E.A.R., but that's more like panic than fear. You know you're supposed to get down that hallway, because the waypoint marker is down there and the game wouldn't cheat by making it impossible, so you bum-rush it, or you look around for a turret gun control panel, or you otherwise solve the problem the designer's giving you. You know the game has to be fair, the task has to be reasonable and the challenge has to be in keeping with the difficulty setting you chose when you started the game, so there's an automatic confidence level that never really goes away. It's sidequests and non-essential events where the real magic can happen. When a player actually chickens out; actually says to himself, "You know what? I don't think I need that heart container after all. I think I'll just get the heck out of this damn cave," then you've scared him, and that fear, and the associated sacrifices, will haunt him.

Another way to instill real fear is with a gambling model. Have a chance, however small, that the player will get totally hosed on an optional quest. Say he gets bored and gathers up all his gumption and goes back to scarytown to get that treasure later on. He knows there's some kind of faceless horror in there, and he knows it might get him, and he knows that if it comes for him, all he can do is wait to respawn. He knows this, and he goes in anyway. Starting right then, he's living on borrowed time. He won't resent the game for killing him there, since nothing makes him go in except his own greed and arrogance. With that understanding, everything's on the table. You can go into straight-up roguelike mode, boning the player in six different ways, and he won't ever complain, because he knew what he was signing up for when he ignored the message that said, "Warning: No rules ahead, your life is forfeit in this dungeon." So he gets in there, and he does his best and then some goddamn deus ex machina kills him or he runs into an enemy that deals damage to his XP rather than his health, and he's seriously considering using the task manager to close the game before the autosave locks in his failure, and that's fear.

Maybe a sanity thing? An insane player might see the co-player as a monster for a brief period of time or something like that.

Maybe different goals? The player gets a random goal when the game begins that might interfere with the other player, but they still need each other to actually complete the game.

Kind of like the bank robber thing in Kane & Lynch.

Scary elements and not knowing if you can fully trust your friend might build some tension.