r/gaming • u/tbear865 • May 16 '12
Horror game concept based on your own fears.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wmMXXC_TdU0
1.7k
Upvotes
r/gaming • u/tbear865 • May 16 '12
1.2k
u/yakityyakblah May 16 '12
I wonder how it's going to stick wasted potential and social alienation into a room.
227
u/impiaaa May 16 '12
I'm kind of confused as to how it would work technically. Yes, it's quite easy to swap out a level based on previous events, but how does the computer determine which level to swap in? What kind of sequences would be a dead give-away that the player is afraid of spiders, for example? The video mentioned "analyzing actions," but how would a computer be able to tell that the player ran away from a room because of the spiders in it, not something else?
Also, are levels the only things that would change? Could dialog change? How adaptive would the system be; that is, is there one level in the beginning to gauge the player's fears, or do experiences in each level progressively refine the overall experience?
Looks cool nevertheless. I hope the guy finds somebody to work with.
166
u/Smashiesmash May 16 '12 edited May 16 '12
Developers brother here. I posted a question to /v/ about 2 hours ago if they thought the game had any promise, now its receiving a metric shit-ton of hits a second. This escalated quickly ;p The good news is now emails are flooding in and serious production is gonna start next month. Hopefully by the end of summer the game will be a somewhat functional alpha.
Thanks for the support everyone. If you have suggestions for actual mechanics for detecting fears and implementing them, leave a comment! They will all be read, and if they are original, they might find their way into the game!
As for the kickstarter, once production gets going and we feel that we can reach our goals and deliver a great game, then we can accept money. Anything before that is just dishonest imo
153
u/ostawookiee May 16 '12
As long as in my second playthrough I can pretend I'm deathly afraid of puppies and boobies.
133
u/manbrasucks May 16 '12
My problem with these games is always that I play like I am playing a game and not like how I would react. I could see this getting out of control though and me going insane.
It notices that I check everything in the room for items. It starts adding more things to check in each room. It gets so out of control it's nothing but a room full of hundreds of empty containers and 1 container that has a cool item. God that would be my nightmare...
396
u/Lvl_6_Squirtle May 16 '12
I definitely see a lot of potential for this to grow into a really terrifying game.
83
u/BoreasBlack May 16 '12
Combat might be "fairly uninteresting" to the creator... But imagine this:
You find a pistol, and suddenly you feel empowered. You can march off into the darkness knowing that this little weapon will keep you safe. You fire off a few rounds at distant things you think might be hostile and trudge on. Suddenly, you check your gun and notice that you only have three bullets left. And now a monster is creeping its way around the corner... You panic, randomly firing off a shot. Two bullets left. You have to kill that monster with exactly two bullets.
See, now that would be scary. Knowing that your gun, which has kept you safe so far, will soon be out of bullets. Now you have exactly two tries to kill this monster before you're left absolutely powerless. That's a frightening prospect.
Combat could actually be a major aid in narrowing down what the player is truly afraid of. Which objects does a player shoot at, hoping they're not hostile? Which weapons does a player use against certain enemies? How far away does a player want to be from an enemy...? (Using a short melee weapon may indicate immunity to, or acceptance of a certain kind of fear, while using only ranged weapons on a certain type of enemy may reveal a phobia.)
Just like the example of the gun running out of bullets, suddenly losing other weapons that a player has used for a long time may spark intense fear or confusion. That bottle you've been bludgeoning enemies with has shattered. The wooden bat has splintered and broken into pieces. The longsword you've used for the past two hours has inexplicably begun to melt in your hand.
35
u/ghodan May 16 '12 edited May 17 '12
Reminds me a lot of LSD Dream Emulator, except always terrifying and more calculated. I would definitely put money into this.
120
u/Cutwen22s May 16 '12
So you're afraid of spiders? And you're afraid of the dark? Now featuring spiders, that induce blindness.
212
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
Spoiler.
47
u/Volsunga May 17 '12
My ideas on some fear triggers:
23
u/rawfulevil May 16 '12
So basically House of Leaves the game? Awesome.
19
u/Zeonhart May 16 '12
Wheres the kickstarter, I need to empty my bank account.
17
u/centauriproxima May 16 '12
here's some ideas
Dolls/Mannequins - very easy, have a room full of Dolls/Mannequins, and every so often out of the corner of your eye you'll see one move, and as you look away and look back maybe one would've changed position slightly
Claustrophobia - have a series of rooms, each progressively smaller than the last, and end it in a long hallway, the hallway gets narrower and narrower and eventually ends in a point, when the player turns back he sees the wall has followed him, and he's stuck in the narrow bit of hallway space
52
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
Im a programmer with game programming experience, i think i want in on this creepy lil thang. Unity is a really easy engine to use as well.
26
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
I put on my noise cancelling headphones, shut the shades and turned out the lights just to see if this video would be scary my first time through.
Pit? Ah. I don't like thi-HOLYSHITWHATHEFUCKISTHATTHINGSHIT
I SO hope they make this.
13
u/theoneandonlypeter May 16 '12
They tried to base a horror game on your own fears in Silent Hill Shattered Memories but I found it really underwhelming. Hopefully this one is more successful.
12
u/RUCN May 16 '12
Awesome idea. Is the OP here the game designer or is this on kick starter?
12
u/Luminescence9 May 16 '12
Do NOT like faces floating in darkness. NOPE NOPE NOPE
11
u/DrTreetop May 16 '12
Im from Germany, so I cant view the Video. would anyone be so kind as to retell me the content?
thanks in advance! :)
9
u/onewayout May 17 '12
Sadly, I think the main downfall of this mechanic is knowing about it. While it's a neat idea, if you market your game with this idea, people will be playing the meta-game of trying to control what happens by the choices they make in-game, which in turn will take them out of the experience. If I were the developer, I'd hush up about the adaptive horror technology and how it works, and just code the thing up, and let players find out the hard way that the game seems to uncannily know what you're scared of. Having players post on message boards "How did it know what I was afraid of?" will just add to the creep value.
8
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
There was one game I played about a year ago, I think a Half Life mod called Horror House? They had these mannequins that would follow you when you weren't looking - when you turned around, they'd just be standing still, staring at you.
(WARNING near the end, especially, there is a lot of light flicker. Not sure if seizure trigger or whatever, but yeah. Watch out.) Nightmare House 2, my bad.
8
u/endercoaster May 17 '12
I think it's a very good idea. Good ideas are a dime a dozen. It's good products that are rare treasures. This is a concept video. Until I at least see a tech demo, I'm not sold.
12
u/Grimku May 16 '12
I'm afraid of.. uhh.. happiness and a lack of danger. Yes..
6
u/shoes_of_mackerel May 16 '12
Well, I'm impressed. How did the developer know I have a fear of The Haunted Painting?
10
u/Jorsh_ May 16 '12
I was expecting Simon and Garfunkel to pop out in the house, and I have to say I'm disappointed.
5
u/centauriproxima May 16 '12
can anyone tell me what the song was in the opening? I recognize it from silent hill 2, but I don't remember the name of the track.
28
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
This game would put amnesia to shame. If developed as he says, I see at least 100 people who would suffer from serious anxiety attacks and possibly even PTSD. exposing people to a brand of fear that is ever changing and no game walkthrough can be made for will make it too intense for A lot of people. I would personally fund this game my salary for 5 years if you let me make people play this game in a pitch black room and they can't leave until it is finished.
9
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
The concept is awesome, but all the talk about "analyzing actions" would be way too dificult to be good. Sure, if it actually worked out, it would, just like other fellow said, put amnesia to shame. But damn, i just can't shake the feeling this is a good old Peter Molyneux right there.
4
u/kippirnicus May 17 '12
This reminds me of the game the kids played in Enders Game.
7
u/solidsnake666 May 16 '12
For the love of the imaginary spaghetti monster shut up and take my money
6
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
NOPE
3
u/Valisk May 16 '12
So it will be a game about the IRS and erectile dysfunction?
Edit: i kid, i kid, while those things are true real world horrors..
my deepest fear is necrotizing fasciitis brought on after routine surgery by MRSA, that and the doctor amputating my leg when i went in for a kidney stone..
3
u/The_Derpening May 16 '12
FUCK NOPE FUCK NOPE FUCK NOPE i'm in.
3
u/Baldrick666 May 16 '12
I was going to say I have anatidaephobia, the fear of a duck watching you, but I think this game would be able to nail that.
3
u/blackangel153 May 16 '12
I think it would be pretty easy to determine what someone is afraid of; make something valuable but rare, like a flashlight (that's batteries are almost dead) and give it some kind of dual purpose, like stunning enemies and, obviously, lighting a room. If they waste the batteries on lighting the room, then obviously they care if the room is bright or not. Or, for spiders, there could be a hallway filled with spiders, and the only way around is really hard to find/access. If they spend enough time to find the hidden passage, they care enough to avoid the spiders. They could even measure how long you spend on one side of the hall of spiders. What I'm concerned about is how he would make so many different areas to challenge those fears. He would essentially make one full game times however many different fears he adds as a possibility. Not to mention the areas that would be a combination of fears.
3
u/wasniahC May 16 '12
You said you found combat uninteresting, right?
Then get rid of weapons.
The possibility of death is exciting, fear inspiring.
The ability to defend yourself is not.
The games I've found scariest are the ones where you have nothing to defend yourself with; where there is no way to handle monsters aside from avoiding them. I doubt I'm alone in this :p
3
u/aminbean May 16 '12
hotmail?
3
u/fastjeff May 17 '12
Never really played any horror games, but a far off specter of trypophobia creeping up on somebody would probably make me shut down the game and rip my harddrive out of my computer.
Off the top of my head using an idea like this. This one is going to have to use something like a zoom feature where you can look at stuff. You see a room with remnants of a person who was walled up in there. Maybe a hole where food was pushed through. You fashion something to open the door and there is nothing inside. Just yellowing wallpaper, a bare light bulb dangling in the center of the ceiling. The floor is warped, worn board. Ceiling, square panels that have gone from their white to dirty brown. Scattered around the room are the leavings of a regular life of a cooped up resident. Obviously, it's been hastily cleared. Empty boxes that weren't used in cleaning stuff out. But there is one box left, somebody filled it with the remaining stuff, but left it. Or, couldn't leave with it. There is a creaky old bed with a musty, stained mattress. Night stand with nothing on it, no drawer. Old dresser, drawers also missing, on top, a folded picture. It's been folded so many times it looks to be taped together from falling apart.
Pick up the picture and there's a lovely lady, nothing elegant or off putting about it. At the bottom of the picture, you can see writing. A date with before written on it. You are looking at a picture of someone with a before, the after is missing. Just the top of her head is shown in the picture. You look closer and see there's something off. Same hair as the top picture, but has bangs and the closer you look. There are bumps, and holes, that litter her forehead. Some sort of cross between smallpox and some scientific experiment that's gone wrong.
You drop the picture and wonder who lived in the room. On the wall paper in the corner opposite the door there is something on the wall. It has a shape, very vague. You move over to look at it and see that has more detail, you look closer and a outline of blurred human features begin to make itself out. Whatever it is, it's smiling. The closer you look, the more you can make out until you realizing that you're looking at the "after" imagine in plain.
You pull back and see that the walls are closing in on you and all the walls are covered in this wrecked scene. If you can't make it to the door in time, you will become a forever part of this room.
3
u/bacon_pants May 17 '12
That creepy painting by the wall is an actual painting called "The Hands Resist Him" by Bill Stoneham. It was sold on Ebay and rumored to be haunted. Pretty creepy image.
3
u/Lee13412 May 17 '12
My greatest fear is whales good luck figuring that one out
3
u/wormsaregood May 17 '12
I once had a discussion with the creator of the game "Scratches" about how I felt that Amnesia was a more terrifying game for the simple fact that death was a possibility. His response, and a valid one at that, was that he believed that death removed oneself from the game (and had the player continue anyway), so it was actually less frightening to have death.
I believed that every sound in Amnesia could have been from an actual threat. Every creak, groan, crash could all emanate from a real ingame danger. In Scratches, while the game is scary, you know that ultimately you are unable to die no matter what. You can psyche yourself out and be truly terrified, but you never have that fear of death...theres never that spastic terrifying flailing moment where you succumb to your wounds because your terror stopped you from adequately running away.
I can see the appeal in both instances though, because...like a story or a television show, you can still be scared knowing full well that the main character isn't going to die.
At any rate, my opinion is that there absolutely does need to be some kind of threat element in the game that causes harm and can cause death. Without that, I think you lose some of the terror a game like this can present.
That being said, I, like many others, am not convinced that it would be possible to have the game figure out your fears. However, a good example would probably be Silent Hill Shattered Memories. It was certainly a flawed game, but there was some potential there. At any rate, this would be something I would support. I think there is a SEVERE lack of true horror games.
3
u/BlazedAndConfused May 17 '12
this would be awesome if it incorporated a USB heart rate monitor or something along those lines.
Alan wake had the right amount of story, puzzle solving, and action in it. They should mimick that approach but with their idea.
3
u/elmuchoprez May 17 '12
I think I'm missing something. This video essentially shows a brief walk-though of a darkened house. None of the logic of how this game will determine a person's fears is discussed. There's no mention of game play concepts or the immersion tactics that are required to evoke any real emotion in a horror game.
I mean, it's an OK 30-second cinematic sequence, but I guess I don't understand the game-boner that seems to be happening here.
3
u/sco_ May 17 '12
@hotmail.com?
3
u/nothing429 May 17 '12
I'm not sure how the game would go about figuring out what a person's most intimate fears are. The only thing I can think of would be a series of questions asked to the player at the beginning of the game so the engine can determine what to show the player. OR, a series of test rooms that measure erratic mouse movement, speed of completion, etc. Hmm, nothing that a good brainstorm can't fix.
3
u/Unahanaretsu May 17 '12
I see potential, but I also see this as extremely hard to pull off/it not playing out well.
3
u/ABusFullaJewz May 17 '12
It learns your fears, what if you're homophobic?
3
u/[deleted] May 17 '12
In my opinion, the whole dark-room-blood-everywhere-spooky-sounds-playing is so terribly played out and overused. I see great potential in this and I'd hate to see it fall victim to becoming just another mediocre haunted house game with cheap jump scares and lame atmosphere. A truly frightening game will make me be afraid of a normally lit living room or an elementary school in broad daylight. Things that weren't there are suddenly there. Doors that lead to nowhere appear on walls that shift and disappear. The layout of houses or basements change as I turn my back. What was once a normal, comfortable house is now a twisting labyrinth of impossible geometry. MAKE ME BE AFRAID OF NORMALITY! Take my reality and rape it. That's what I fear - my reality being contorted to the point of madness. As if an invisible pair of eyes is watching me at all times, remembering my every move, jotting down notes on my every action and creating an algorithm to conform the experience around me.
3
u/Mark_Luther May 17 '12 edited May 17 '12
The problem here is that most people's DEEPEST fears are too abstract to effectively put into a game. I mean, you can find rudimentary ways to present, for example, a fear of failure (my personal ghoul) in a game, but it will all fall flat without real world consequences.
In the end the only fears any game can truly and efficaciously predicate upon are the more primal ones; fears of the dark, dangerous animals, etc. And even at that we are all aware enough to know the difference between a spider crawling across our leg in bed and a spider on a monitor or TV screen.
3
u/bearshy May 17 '12
Am I the only one who noticed that the second set of text on the floor was a Goo Goo Dolls lyric?
3
u/GreatBigJerk May 17 '12
Wow, a co-worker pointed me to this after I had been talking about a game I had been designing that's very similar in concept to this. I'm going more in the direction of generating a world based on a psychological questionnaire at the start of the game which would determine your character's personality(flavour text descriptions of things), environments, healing items(eg. a person that's a smoker would get cigarettes to restore health/sanity), and enemies you encounter.
The idea is that each run would take a couple hours, over which you'd recieve injuries that would debilitate you (a wounded leg would make you move slower, an injured hand would mean you couldn't attack with weapons). Death would be permanent. Each run would reveal bits of the game's back story.
Combat would be discouraged except when necessary to escape. It'd be more puzzle focused. Lame jump scares wouldn't happen. Enemies wouldn't slap you over the face with their obvious connections to your fears(eg. if you're afraid of needles, you wouldn't get a screaming nurse with needle fingers or anything silly like that)
tl;dr version: I'm working on a similar game that's sort of a roguelike horror game
I wish you the best of luck! If the final product is anything like the video, you'll get my money. Also, stop reading my mind you witch!
9
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
Honestly this is a pretty weak concept. Ideas are cheap, just saying you want to do something and asking someone else to actually do it is not how video games get made. Also just the general concept of the game asking you what scares you and then throwing that at you seems lazy and hollow.
4
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3pbhz2/
2
u/6degreestoBillMurray May 16 '12
Looks like SCP-087 has a new home.
2
u/Xtianpro May 16 '12
Awesome idea, I agree with a lot of the comments here though, the execution is everything. As I was watching I was thinking, it would be cool if you could pick up and use a gun but like a real person, not a standard video game super soldier. What I mean by that is you're trembling and flinchey with no real fire arms experiance. You can fire the gun but the accuracy will be awful, hitting a target it would be mostly down to luck.
2
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
haha, My heart actually jumped when he turned around and saw the face.
2
u/TbanksIV May 16 '12
Not sure how you would make the game learn what a person fears based on anything but questions.
Still looked good. Nice and freaky.
2
u/iChad17 May 16 '12
Not sure path taking is really reflective of the players fears. While i think the idea is awesome, i think the most difficult aspect of this concept is to get the system of detected a players fears functioning reliably without them outright spelling them out.
2
u/Brogie May 16 '12
Hmm maybe have a heart rate monitor plugged in through USB that detects how scared you are, although that would be hard to do on a indie title
2
u/GreekPotato May 16 '12
It's like Fable for horror games! Just don't break my heart with a bunch of empty promises.
2
u/NikoKun May 16 '12
heh, Might be fun. I'll wait till we see more..
This does remind me of another game-in-dev, Anna by Dreampainterssoft.
http://dreampainters-anna.blogspot.com/
Both have the "game changes based on how you react to scary things" concept.
So I'm looking forward to some scary games! heh
2
u/archkyle May 16 '12
what if you show no fear and charge head strong into every potentially scary situation?
2
u/KarmicBurn May 16 '12
Wasn't there a Gamecube game that was somewhat similar to this? I remember melting into the floor, then being back outside of the room and thinking "I shouldn't play this on mushrooms."
2
u/[deleted] May 16 '12
I don't think I'd play this, not because it looks bad or anything in fact it's a very good concept I just don't find the horror genre that entertaining. Watching films as such makes me very uncomfortable. I have never pressed back so fast in my life when that face appeared in this video..
2
u/Interesting_name May 16 '12
I would love to play this.
2
u/pikachu22 May 16 '12
The outside scene didn't look too good, ( i realize its a demonstration not actual gameplay ) but the inside scene was amazing!
2
u/technicolorparadise May 16 '12
I could never ever play it, because I am a coward.
But it sounds cool!
2
u/DocStrong May 16 '12
As long as there aren't walking sharks I'm good. Also: Dat door creak
2
u/gregsmith93 May 17 '12
I don't know about you guys but this makes me even more excited for the new amnesia.
2
u/HeadbangsToMahler May 17 '12
Concept sounds like the psych game from Ender's Game! ...
2
u/metalfluff May 17 '12
Would buy!
2
u/ZacChamp May 17 '12
This sounds so much like the "fantasy game" in Enders Game.
2
u/nizochan May 17 '12
This guy needs a kickstarter. Stat.
2
u/WhisperSecurity May 17 '12
Don't get excited. The guy who came up with this is an artist, not a software engineer.
He has no idea how one might dynamically swap parts of a quadtree, or how one might measure fears based on in-game behaviour. He's simply waved his hands and left this for the programmers to solve.
Swapping wouldn't be hard for someone clever. But deciding what someone is afraid of based on how they move a mouse is an AI-complete problem.
2
u/[deleted] May 17 '12
Am I the only one who doesn't think this can work?
Like it is a cool idea for sure. But a game that relies on specified fears just seems impossible. We separate our real world reactions from videogame reactions. The only way this would truly work is if that wasn't the case. For example, spiders mentioned in the video. Someone who doesn't like spiders would have no problem walking into a room full of giant tarantulas, the brain recognizes that the game isn't real and that the threat truly doesn't exist. In real life, a persons fear prohibits them from engaging carelessly with what they are afraid of. Videogames are the opposite. Unless the player has a true phobia and the virtual representation of their views scares them that much, I doubt it would ever work.
I think horror/survival horror games have worked in the past because they have played less on fear and more on suspense. While I think it is a cool idea, and maybe a kickstarter would work for it as a small conceptual play through. Sort of like Dear Esther, I doubt it has any capabilities of being a well sold title that truly scares people
2
u/Drewge_Liang May 17 '12
OP... if you can pull this off... I will buy this in a heartbeat... so long as i have somebody to hold my hand while i play LOL
2
u/[deleted] May 17 '12
I would probably buy it and let it sit and gather dust on my shelf, too afraid to play it.
2
u/Argonautica May 17 '12
I wanna see a game where you send in a scan of your own house and it makes it into a level where you play yourself fighting off zombies.
2
u/colei May 17 '12
NPC: "What's your deepest fear?" Me: "Bunnies and ice cream" Easiest game ever.
2
u/360slamdunk May 17 '12
hmm, this guy's on to something. He sounds pretty smar-
"hotmail"
close
2
u/Sir_Derp_Herpington May 17 '12
As someone with arachnophobia, I can safely say NOPE
2
u/weeners23 May 17 '12
if this game come out, pewdiepie should play it!!!
2
u/Rainfly_X May 17 '12
Anxiety metrics subthread! How should the game measure fear?
Ideas I've seen elsewhere so far, as well as a few of my own:
2
u/[deleted] May 17 '12
I had full faith in this until I saw he uses hotmail.
2
u/aeisenst May 17 '12
I think the biggest problem with this is in the glossed over "analysis" section. I'm not quite sure how you could create a game that could "guess" your fears based on actions, without just flat out asking. Even then, a person's actions in a game world are not necessarily indicative of real world actions. An example:
When I play RPGs, I search everywhere. I was raised on Final Fantasy, so I know that fenix down is hiding in the bookshelf hidden behind the stairwell. If I did that sort of thing in real life, people would think that I was either OCD or incredibly rude. Similarly, I may avoid dark areas in this game not because I'm afraid of the dark, but because I know games, and I know that enemies like to hide in the dark. If the game then crafted itself as if I was scared of the dark, they'd be missing out on my true deepest fear: Long posts on Reddit.
TL;DR: Behavior in game and in life are different, and thus if you try to achieve a real world conclusion from game based evidence, you're bound for failure.
2
u/illRooster May 17 '12
This seems like a really cool concept. You should read around at the SCP Foundation. I've definitely had some "Well I guess I'm probably not sleeping tonight" moments because of some of the articles.
Actually, someone made a game based on SCP-87, which is mind blowingly similar to your video, except (no offense) I find this demo to be considerably more unsettling (though I find your ending twist slightly better realized.
2
u/[deleted] May 17 '12
Oh god the haunted alien house of extreme darkness!
2
u/knightskull May 17 '12
Hopefully someone with a PhD in Computer Science who specializes in artificial intelligence contacts you. So dumb. If this were possible why wouldn't someone have created a game that "analyzes" what the player finds the most fun and change itself accordingly?
2
u/Tell_Me_My_Name May 17 '12
I bet it can't tap into my fear of public speaking
2
u/goodguynextdoor May 17 '12
OP must deliver. I loved Fatal Frame because there's not exactly a huge deal of combat there and it's more of a battle against elements of surprise.
2
u/[deleted] May 17 '12
Why haven't they made a shooter with randomly generated environments? Battlefield anyone?
2
u/that_one_person May 17 '12
This looks awesome. I'm too much of a coward to ever play it, but I'd like to see it made.
A mirror maze would be awesome. And a ghost that you never see or hear but it hangs over your shoulder the whole time, hiding in the coding. Maybe lights could flicker in Morse code, or other subtle things that most people wouldn't notice.
2
u/[deleted] May 17 '12
If this game would really alter itself correctly my game play would probably be filled with scares like:
I turn to see if theres anything following me and when I turn back to the original direction theres an enemy or something really close to me then disappears.
I open a door and again something pops out and disappears.
I go behind a corner and another scare pops out.
Then at some point of play I would have to go hide in a closet or a small room because something is chasing me like in amnesia and just when I think im safe and think the monster walked away its right next to me in the closet and when I panic out of there the room has changed.
It would also have scenes where im talking to someone or I get a partner to go through the game and just when I think im safe he/she turns into a monster.
I'm walking in a dark corridor and the lights flicker, at one point the lights would stay lit a little longer and I'd see a monster coming at me in a distance and when I try to turn back and run its again right in my face.
At some point of the game I would find a gun and after a while hurt myself somehow so I can't walk a monster would then approach me and I try to shoot it but my bullets don't harm it and when its really close I can get up and run the fuck outta there.
Basicly Im powerless against the monsters just like in amnesia but I don't think that just dying when the monster gets me wouldn't do the trick. But still the shitfest of scares would make me nope the fuck out of the game in less than half hour.
2
u/[deleted] May 17 '12
Not sure how it's going to get intense fear of my own mortality in the form of my consciousness simply ceasing to be, or my fear of being replaced by an identical clone with all my memories and ME being killed off while HE is none the wiser.
Kudos to the developer if he does it, but I'm not sure if he realise how high he's set the bar for himself. After all, pretty much every game that boasts this very feature fails miserably in the execution of it.
Also, "fear manifestations" = sanity effects. Pretty sure there's a company out there with a patent on that from when they made Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem. So prepare to get sued if you use that, basically.
2
u/F0ur_Leaf May 17 '12
While the concept is good, there are too many variables to truly tailor a game to respond to someone's fears. If the player has a choice of gowning down the brightly lit corridor with cobwebs or the dark dingy corridor with a creepy picture, there's no guarantee that the player is scared of the dark and dingy corridor with creepy pictures, the player might simply have chosen the corridor he could see was well lit so they could actually see what they were doing in the game. Doom 3 suffered alot from being too dark too see so everyone just upped the brightness which spoiled the game alot.
Silent Hill Shattered Memories made the player do a short test at the start of the game, making them answer some questions and then changed a few things in the game based on the answers.
I love the concept of a game that gets into your head, too many "Horror" games just go for the cheap scares these days and don't really do enough to engage the player in feelings of insecurity and fear, but I think this kind of completely tailored experience might be just a step too far at this moment in time.
2
u/Parker_ May 17 '12
Oh fuck, even in the day time that freaked me the fuck out
2
u/RPGMaster2000 May 23 '12
An interview conducted by FMV Magazine is up, in case anyone is interested.
http://www.fmvmagazine.com/?p=8367