Hey everyone,

I want to make a horror game revolving the player waking up in a forest, upon their initial wake-up the forest doesn't seem too bad, it's sunny, birds are chirping, the wind is rustling the trees. It's a calm serene scene. As time goes on though, even before it gets dark, the player understands they are not alone and something is very wrong. This would take place in first-person.

No jumpscares, just very atmospheric horror to build that sense of dread. I'm hoping I can get some ideas.

This is what I have so far for ideas:

• Fog rolls in (Silent Hill-esque)
• The atmospheric sounds slowly fade out, until it's just the player's footsteps and far off sounds in the distance, except every once in a while a stick crackles or something falls, the player isn't sure if it was them or their imagination.
• Black figure appearing out of the corner of the player's view or very far off in the distance where it isn't clear if it's something or not
• The trees start to get very tall as the player travels farther and farther
• Confuse the player's sense of direction in which direction they were traveling in or came from.
• Faint unusual sounds adding to the player's sense of paranoia
• Never reveal or confirm there even is something following you
• Gunshot far off into the distance
• Animals corpses along the trail

Looking for almost any input as long as it's horror related.

Thanks!

Even the most mundane scenes can be made to seem ominous with the right background music.

In an MMORPG it's easy. Heavy death penalty for dying and possible loss of all items, like in the first EverQuest.

A few more potential uncanny things: a unique object that keeps turning up directly ahead of the player, regardless of which way they walk; trees that seem to move in unnatural ways; the occasional, so-soft-it-might-be-missed sound of something that might be a breath nearby; or a sudden, so-brief-that-the-player-doubts-it gasp out of nowhere.

@a light breeze That's a good point, I don't want to rely heavily on background music as I feel that breaks a little of the immersion, but it could be done with atmospheric music nonetheless thank you for your suggestion!

@Gnollrunner Ooo… that's a classic, that's a good idea. Some kind of heavy penalty for dying/getting caught. Thanks!

@Thaumaturge I really like the tree idea, either they move in the wind weirdly or just when you approach them. I was also thinking of little sounds that would build upon the player's doubts. “Did I really hear that?” The unique object is an interesting idea as well. I'd need to flesh my ideas out more to see if I could incorporate that. Thanks!

You could change the scene from flat and secure terrain to a mountain scene, often showing the risk to fall to death, tumbling rocks from above, huge Cows staring at you and following you for some time.

Thaumaturge said:
a unique object that keeps turning up directly ahead of the player, regardless of which way they walk

Could be occult folklore items like the branches in Blair Which Project. E.g. Deer antlers and horns. Or towers / strange arrangements of stones, resembling symbols.

Edit: Btw, the recent game The Alien Cube is related and i really liked it. It's some Lovecraft story, mostly in natrue scenes. Not quite as good as the Frictional games, but almost. And made by only one man. I'm very impressed.
Lovecraft is nice in general for games. The transition from sanity to madness alongside mystery really works for me.

JoeJ said:
Could be occult folklore items like the branches in Blair Which Project. E.g. Deer antlers and horns. Or towers / strange arrangements of stones, resembling symbols.

Yup! In fact, a cairn was the object that I had in mind, as I recall. ^_^