When ever you watch a horror movie, the main character is at one end of the hallway or corridor or room or what have ya and suddenly the spirit or a person walks in front of the screen? I have not experienced that in any video game yet. That would be interesting to see in this genre of a horror game.

Unless I am wrong about this suggestion in a video game let me know. Cause I haven't experienced that before.

rofl...you need to play FEAR 2. That crap is all throughout the game.

The way to really add fear into one of these types of games is to not have access to guns and bullets most of the time. Make them scarce, that way, instead of the player thinking "Oh god! That thing is scar-- oh wait, I have an AK-47, I'll just kill it, it can't take that long, this thing is fully automatic", make them a journalist in a museum or something, that way they think "Oh god, there's something here, I don't have any weapons. Well, there's this vintage Civil War rifle, but I have to load the gun powder and bullets, that would only be good for a single shot, and breaking the glass will cause the thing to chase me, is it worth it?" Then, you have a risk/reward factor built in. Also, since it only last for one shot, if you decide to hunt down the creature, you have to suppress your fears to get a steady aim, that's the real challenge that scary games should endorse. It's easy to scare you, it isn't so easy to force you to suppress your fears when they are right there.

Nice wording Zummy. That's is what I am looking for in my survival horror board game. 10 + years in the making. Only time will tell if it will only see the light of day in the completionn box. lol

This guy is clearly scared even though they play a sort of coop. They're talking over Skype but each one plays single-player on their own computer. Haven't played the game so I dunno exactly what's so scary.

This guy is clearly scared even though they play a sort of coop. They're talking over Skype but each one plays single-player on their own computer. Haven't played the game so I dunno exactly what's so scary.

Well, if this was single player, he might be scared There is no way the other player can help him apart from warning him that he'll soil his pants around the next turn - and if the game is good, he will soil them even with that knowledge.

For me, horror is being alone with many around you - making maps that allow players to see eachother but having it impossible to help the other. Let's picture this - there is a great hall, and the players are on the opposite side of a large balcony. They must go around to meet. Suddenly, player A sees a monster behind player B. He shouts over his VOIP, but the game blocks that. That is horror for player A in the way that he can feel and see the inevitable and can't do anything. Player B will be scared the normal way, while he feels a gentle poke and notices a claw pointing out from his belly. Some games that actually aren't even horror can pull that off nicelly, given some distortions and lag over the VOIP or having none to begin with. Time Splitter's haunted house section made me and my brother scared the first time around, and we are well beyond the phase of believing in monsters under our beds There really isn't a formula of what is cary or not - it is how you deliver, how much the player wants to be afraid (turning off lights, good headphones, no distrubnace from family) and how much the gamers can believe (immerse?) in the story given.

It has been said before maybe, but shock tactics is not fear. It is an irksome feature that makes you jumpy and sarcastic. No further than yesterday in Dead Space 2 me and my brother started betting on from which vent a monster would jump. We kinda both lost, as those vents were just to fill empty space and did not contain enemies. True nature of fear is music, it's sound effects - sublte whispering of a name, scuttling, a child's cry or a silent scream that builds up to a banshee whail - that is fear and it makes my hair stand and hands sweat. Also a few things I did not notice in games but would scare the f*ck out of me would be:
- You are going through a corridor. You see that a pair of hands reaches out from behind you to grasp your mouth. You turn around, given you got the FPS instincts and see nothing. You turn back and face a deformed, painfull expression that jumps at you. The screen goes dark and goes back to normal again. It was just a mirage.
- You hear scuddling and notice a leg or shadow of something moving out of sight. You can still see it's shadow, unmoving. If you decide to move towards it, it will be only a candlelight sheding light on an inanimate object like a chair. A bloody footprint on the wall slowly dissapears...
- Lights go out. A pair of eyes flare up with a white, delicate glow in the distance. They close in. You run, they emerge before you. They are all around. They vanish
- A motive from Condemned: Criminal Origins that made me loose all my ammo. A bunch of dolls was in a room. A flash of light. The dolls were closing in. I ran. Flash. The dolls are closer, they gain expression of grief. RUN. Flash. Their hands reach out for you as you fall down through the floor.

Holy, it made me have goose bumps while even writing it Too mcuh imagination. Hope this helps/wasn't said before a 1000 times in this thread

To Zethariel: That was a great description. Made me visualize your story. You should make something out of what you have written.

In fact, I will (did on a forum, it got lost in the interwebs tho ) - as soon as we have some spare time while devoping the Wild Boundaries or maybe someone up to form another team to make a Horro FPS? I can supply documentation within days, especially since it's the weekendz soon (yaaay). By supply I mean think stuff up, write it, step back, trash it, write again, revise, spit-shine and forward to interested people Lemme know on PM if anyone would like that

Will be looking forward to that.

I would love to see a cooperative horror game, but I doubt it would ever work. One close example to "horror" is Resident Evil 5. Although not scary, Resident Evil pits even two players in situations that are high in tension and anxiety. Throughout the entire game, you will feel the fear of knowing you will run out bullets and still have hordes of enemies banging down your door.


It would be difficult because the main thing that makes horror games scary are the sense of being alone in the unknown. Who can honestly say that silent hill would still be scary if there were four people facing those horrific monstrosities instead of one?

To attempt multiplayer in a horror game, you would have to overcome some obstacles:

VoIP
Yes, you can distort the VoIP to make the game scary, but what's stopping the player from simply unplugging? And there is the issue of communication. Pretty soon, there will be the community of pros that have played the same maps hundreds of times. Now the typical game will start off: "Hey guys be careful in the boiler room, the first one in can get locked inside. And don't worry if see an enemy, I'll tell you if its real or not."

A way to combat this would be to not include it, but I think that is unwise.

Randomly Generated Content
If you intend to have it then be wary of performance and also confusion. Yes, confusion can be a way to add to the scary atmosphere, but if players can never beat the map because it changes all the time, it can prove frustrating.

Scripted Events
You may have trap doors and locked doors, but players won't always follow the intended plan. What if one or more people fall into a trap meant for one? What if the others go in a trap after another falls into it?

As I said, I love the concept, but I doubt it would ever come to fruition.

I would love to see the movie adaptation Stay Alive as a real game for ps3 or xbox 360. Even though the movie had its moments of scares and jumps etc. But the game in the movie looked really good to play as multiplayer. Yeah go ahead and flame me for that one. Lol. Just saying I liked the movie.