Member-Run Project What Scares You The Most?

Razorpinetree

Razorpinetree

Terrarian
Hello my fellow Terrarians!

I have recently gained interest in game development, and I have decided to make my own horror game.

At the moment I am in the ideas phase of my project, and I would love to get feedback from people:

So my question is simple: What scares you the most? It can be anything from a setting, to a creature of some sorts. All feedback is appreciated.

My game will likely be in a similar style to fnaf, and I'd like to avoid overused or general settings/themes.

Thank you so much! :)
 
Nothing scares me more in a game than clunky controls. Having the means to defend yourself against a harmful entity, but the game's horrible controls basically putting a stop to that. :eek:

But seriously, any type of humanoid that, well, is far from human and has strange muscle control. Like, uhh, the Pale Man from Pan's Labyrinth or that one Crone from the Witcher III who moves her head around like a little bird does.

Myths: I always found the Banshee to be one of the most scary ones. Goes something like this: An entity taking appearance of a very old (undead?) woman washing clothes in a river, clothes soaked in blood that just won't wash out.
If she sees you walking through the forest and you haven't seen her yet, you're dead, she wails and comes for you. If you somehow see her first she leaves you alone and/or disappears.
 
A good horror game is not the one that throws scary stuff towards the players face every now and then, but the one where the mere anticipation of something happening is frightening. See Extra Credits' episode on games about Cthulhu, for example.
"Amnesia: The dark descent" is praised a lot for how it handles the horror elements. "SOMA" by the same developers is very good too.
The slightly more recently released "Alien: Isolation" does things right as well.
If I'm not mistaken, "Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth" had some interesting approaches in it's execution too.
Overall, play games, see movies, read books. Don't restrict your ideas to a sparkle of inspiration coming from a single source - that's why the horror game genre is flooded with very mediocre titles.
 
The game I've played that has scared me the most out of anything is Amnesia: The Dark Descent. I think the main reason being how being in the Dark Lowers your Sanity Level which makes it feel like going anywhere Dark is dangerous, and also how you have no weapon to defend yourself against the Grunts that will appear. All you can do is run or hide until the monsters go away, but until then you are completely vulnerable. Not to mention that looking directly at the Grunts lowers your sanity level and they may be able to spot you because you are looking at them. Pretty much any enemy which you can't damage or fight against and will try to kill you is going to be scary to a player. And if the features of the enemy can't be clearly made out, that also induces more horror.

Wielding no weapons meaning no way to fight in a place where it is dangerous to linger in the Dark yet you need the Dark to hide from the Monsters is the epitome of Horror I believe.

Amnesia and other horror games are also famous in how they prevent a player from returning to an area they explored previously. I find that no matter what game, a slight tinge of fear is induced knowing you can't return to a place you've been to previously as the only option is to keep exploring the unknown with no place that "You know to be safe" existing.

Also when you hear sounds like crying, smashing, monster roars that come out of nowhere. It becomes scary when you don't know where they are coming from as your imagination takes over to imagine what could be causing those noises, even if its really nothing and you're just hallucinating it.

Another game that I considered fairly scary that I played was a Flash game called "I Can't Escape" Similar to Amnesia, you have no weapons. What made this game frighting is how the game makes you desire to escape to the surface, but every time you got to a ladder, or a door that is blocking a ladder, it's still not possible to get to it. Most of the time there is a hidden pit in front of the ladder which you'll fall into getting deeper underground and realize that your hope of Escape has turned to despair after falling. And this feeling only continues as you fall down more holes, the lower floors getting darker, creepier, with more random noises you don't know where they are coming from, and a Ghost that seems to follow you that knocks you down into deeper levels. At this point you realize there is nothing you can do to escape as you keep falling and eventually become completely trapped giving a bad ending.

It is worth noting that the Music in these games also played a significant part in making the game scarier. Just listening to the "Storage" Music from Amnesia makes me uneasy thinking about it.
 
wall of text incoming!

well, one thing that scares me a lot in real life is mice and rats. horror game wise, i have a few ideas.
first off, in a horror game, if you have something like, say, a scary sound, for example, maniacal laughter, but it turns out that the sound is played every time you get to a certain point, it becomes not scary. for a sound to be scary, it has to actually come from something that can hurt you. i've played many minecraft horror maps, and because i know so much about the way maps are made, they don't scare me much.

i know that in general, the scary things are triggered by something, such as getting to a certain area, or opening a door, or something else. therefore, if i hold still, even if i'm in the hallway of a haunted mansion, nothing can hurt me so i have nothing to fear. however, if the sound comes from a creepy monster, then you get scared when you hear it because you know that something can actually hurt you.

if you are fated to lose in a horror game/map, then it loses the scariness. it's the hope that you can avoid the dangers and make it to the end that gives it the fear. with me, for example, when i play games i tend to get really into them. so if i'm in a game with a plot, and i die, i see that as the character dying and so i immediately think "ok, the main character is dead. rip plot".

so a lot of the thrill of horror games is "ok, can i manage to survive all the way through this and win, or will i end up dying and end up with a lousy ending?" this is why horror games with the ability to respawn after death tend to have less fear value in them(at least for me), and the game gets scarier the further into it you get. if you are close to the ending, you get more scared, because you are almost at the safe point, and one wrong move is more disastrous than ever.

if the enemies are unpredictable, i.e randomly spawn rather than always being in the same spot, it's scarier. when you never know what's gong to happen, that adds a constant dread feeling that makes anything happening scarier(and also makes jumpscares more valuble)
concepts that scare me are things like being trapped in some horrible place alone with no hope of escape, such as being lost out in space, or in some creepy dimension, or even being stuck in a dream with no way to tell if you've actually woken up or are just dreaming about it(terry pratchett's first "the wee free men" book has things like this, i suggest you read it).

music is also a helpful element, and the right music can turn a slightly creepy game into a very creepy game. on a non music related note, having places to hide may actually make the game scarier. that's because you can hide there, but then you know that you will eventually have to leave the safe zone, and you will be tempted to stay there the whole time but you know that to truly escape and be safe, you must leave and risk losing. maybe make something where hiding in a safe spot, such as a cupboard, would increase the chance of a specific enemy finding you, forcing you to leave. also, if you can't see while in a safe spot, it's scarier. when you don't know if you'll be attacked when you leave, that makes it scarier.

blood is not very scary, to be honest, as it does not signify that that area is any more dangerous than the blood-free areas. it just says "this area is supposed to have a creepy atmosphere. please feel scared. have a nice day!:)". when the worst that can happen is death, it's scary, but it doesn't evoke the same panic as something like i mentioned above, which kind of freaks you out a bit even after you stop playing.

finally, when you make an enemy that looks like something harmless, like a gargoyle, it scares you every time you're near one. i played a minecraft horror map with the weeping angels mod that had this, and it was pretty cool. however, you should randomize it so you can never tell for sure if a gargoyle(for example) is harmless or not. also, the graphics of a game can change how scary it is. for example, games like unturned or terraria don't scare me because the graphics are just not very intimidating, but games like undertale or scorchio quest kind of creep me out because of the graphics/atmosphere/music/any combination of the three.

to finish off, here's a link to some neopets stuff that's mildly creepy and might help give you ideas. http://images.neopets.com/games/scorchios_quest1.swf http://www.neopets.com/halloween/house_movie.phtml http://images.neopets.com/games/scorchios_quest2.swf
thanks for reading this, and i hope it helps!:)

p.s. games with multiplayer are not very scary as you aren't alone.
 
Being stuck in dark stormy deep cold water in Norway, surrounded by orcas.

Not like it's happened but.. It's scary, okay!
 
A few minor things, coz I havent experienced the major ones yet.
1. Dungeon Guardian
2. That scary Michael Jackson ghost jumpscare video
3. A cockroach right in front of my feet
4. Lavender Town rumors
5. Jumpscares, even the tiniest ones get me. (e.g. Star Wars intro.)
 
A good placed jump scare. As far as video games that have scared me, resident evil 3 nemesis. That game never gave you a break and introduced a mechanic that horror games had not done at the time or done a lot still to this day, which is to have a relentless ai follow you around. The jump scares from that game and always worrying about health and ammo was constant stress.
Metroid fusion had a somewhat similar mechanic but it was quite a surprise.
 
Being stranded, alone, in the dark, with nothing to use to help.
Or the feeling of being followed by something, and you know it's bad, but you don't know what it is.
 
Ooh, this is a fun one. Fear can derive from many things: the gameplay, the surroundings, or the characters.

The most scary thing, whether in games, books, films, or real life, is suspense: the anticipation of a certain threat or unpleasant event. That's why horror films (usually) get less scary every time you watch them: you know what's coming, so the suspense is gone. FNaF for instance leans heavily on suspense (and does it rather well, IMO): it didn't get popular because things are jumping at your screen, but because things can jump at your screen at any moment, or because something could be there when you flick the lights on.

If you want scary characters, humans have an innate repulsion for other humans that look sick or deformed. Of course there are many other things that people find scary (spiders, demons, mice), but this one is a near universal constant (although difficult to pull off).

This is of course not very in-depth, these are merely suggestions. The best thing always remains to just try stuff out, preferably with playtesters. Good luck!
 
Being alone (I find the portal games quite creepy for this reason), and hearing eerie noises or seeing shadows when nothing is there.
 
Being alone.
Bees.
Darkness.
Human insanity.
Random events that can ruin lives. (car crash just killed 3 people and put the daughter in a coma in my area)
The inevitability of death.
When I don't know what people are going to say.
Trapped in an uncontrollable fire. (House fire for example)
 
If we're talking concepts, nihilism.

If we're talking tangible objects or creatures, there is no animal on earth more horrifying than the hatchetfish.
 
Darthkitten said:
If we're talking tangible objects or creatures, there is no animal on earth more horrifying than the hatchetfish.
Click to expand...

Oh dear, I went and looked up pictures of a hatchetfish after reading this and you were certainly right. To think there are actually fish like that. Almost looks like it comes straight out of a horror game. :dryadeek: :lslime::lslime:
 
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