Hiya.

Well, I'm working on a game with a serious horror-theme to it. What I find rather useful is as many said: sound. Now, the reason, I figure, that most people get freaked out by sounds is that with sound, you don't *see* anything...you *imagine* it. There is a HUGE difference. I also find the use of "you are safe...but you have to go somewhere you don't want to" effect.

When Joe hears a scary sound, and Jane hears that same scary sound, they will both automatically picutre what freaks them out the most. So, sounds where you never actually see the source of them are freaky as hell. If spiders freak out Joe, he's going to picture things that deal with spiders...webs maybe? Spider egg-sacks, writhing with their eight legged contents? A twisted, mutational thing that looks like a dog, a spider, and a human all cruely mashed together? Meanhwile, Jane could be really creeped out by snakes. Perhaps it was a black snake the size of a tree? Maybe it was a nest of snakes? Or some snake-human hybrid, with a snake body, head and snakes for arms? Let the players imaginations do the filling in.

Another thing that I find works well is the "...you are in danger right now, and you can see a way out just up ahead....but you have to go through that long, dark hallway with open, dark doorways to either side of you, through a foot of stagnant water with the only illumination being the bright daylight at the far end" type of setting. In this, the player is already on edge from the general area. The player knows he has to get out. Unfortuneatly, he has to go through things that are unknown and potentially dangerous...but dangerous from things he can't actually see. Like the 1' of water...what might it conceal? Rotting bodies? Tenticles of some cthul-oidian horror? Broken glass or jagged, rusty metal? (the glass being even more freaky because the character has no shoes on...the player imagines the cold water, the squishy 'something' he steps into, then maybe half way down the hallway there is a slight ripple in the water up ahead...). Basically, having places where the player is in a relatively safe spot (light, easily defended, 'comfy'), and then showing them the only way to go is through somewhere they REALLY don't want to.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is this: The players individual imaginations will freak them out FAR more than the most realistic 'graphics' or models. You can have all the pixel/vertex/normal lighting and polygons you want...but if the players imaginations aren't used to "fill in the blanks", it won't be all that scary once they see what was actually making that sound. So, my suggestion, keep it all in the players head.


^_^

"We've got a blind date with destiny...and it looks like she's ordered the lobster."

-- The Shoveler

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