The important thing is that the player always feels the other shoe’s about to drop and that one false move will bring a quick and terrible end. You can even do it implicitly, as in RED44_SATYR44, by casually providing tutorials for things like running and hiding before the player’s discovered anything that’s actually dangerous. You can do it slowly by dropping clues, such as radio reports, newspaper articles, quiet noises, and skeletons, that there’s something dangerous afoot. You can do this directly by simply warning them about what’s coming in a splash screen or the game description. One of the first things your game ought to do is establish that the player is threatened. They should know that something bad will happen to them, very soon, and they can’t do much about it.”
When we wrote to pa00 asking what’s the key to designing effective horror, he answered: “ I think the key is placing a feeling of inevitability on the player. Hey, look! It’s ominous countdown o’clock! Almost time to jump out of my skin! All the creepy art in the world won’t matter unless you’ve mastered the basic principles of horror game design. After all, nobody’s scared when even gruesome and famous horror movie monsters appear in fighting games. There’s something spine-chilling about seeing things usually considered innocent and harmless turning sinister and deadly.Īll that said, making the environments and monsters chilling isn’t your main priority.
Think of how many horror movies and books you’ve seen that feature evil toys, schools, or children. The tendency of some Roblox models and avatars to be cheerful or toylike can be a useful asset in the hands of a canny developer.
If I’d been able to make out more details, I wouldn’t have been nearly as terrified. I’d seen glowing teeth and a skeleton, that much I was sure of…but what about the rest of it? Not being totally sure what was coming after me, or what it was capable of, lent wonder and energy to my terror. The game warned me to run and hide if I saw danger, so the instant I glimpsed a blurry something I turned and fled. You know why dark rooms are scary? Because not knowing what’s there is scarier than knowing for sure.Ĭonsider the monster encountered early on in pa00’s stealth-horror title RED44_SATYR44.
0 kommentar(er)
