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By consequence, I mean, you have some sort of reason to want to avoid death. Amnesia as I recall had very frequent checkpoints, and dying set you back a minute

By consequence, I mean, you have some sort of reason to want to avoid death. Amnesia as I recall had very frequent checkpoints, and dying set you back a minute or so, only to encounter the same scare puzzle shortly after. Doing the same scene twice in the same pattern breaks any immersion (which is, again, a very difficult problem to solve in game design). One of the design principles in the movie Alien was that you do not want to show the monster. I think that's a good rule, and is doubly true in games where death means you do it again. An enemy you can only hide from is cool, but frustrating when said enemy follows a scripted pattern and its secretly a puzzle rather than something where you actually feel like you're hiding from a being (Alien Isolation does this well). Haunted hayride is a good descriptor. Resident evil and silent hill have tried to tackle this problem by inducing resource scarcity. Most scary encounters will not kill you, but they'll force you to expend resources which make you feel more hopeless about the future. It's far from perfect but it sort of works. It is vulnerable to players taking the opposite mentality, whereby they purposefully die to try and clear sections with lower resource loss. Silent hill games (the good ones...) aren't action games btw. Most people consider the second one to be best psychological horror game ever made. Horror's pretty dope these days. Next Resident Evil lookin slick https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSapXD9vxYA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSapXD9vxYA

galimaufry 6y ago
Have any games tried frequent savepoints + only allowing the player to reload 24 hours after dying? Seems like that would make reloads feel a bit more fresh/consequential, and also prevent addiction.
- klmadfejno 6y ago
  24h sounds like a turnoff, but in general, I think that's a great concept. You just need something that the player can do while unable to try to scary part again.
  - lloeki 6y ago
    To relieve the frustration, it would need to be a game where a) death truly feels like your fault, not some jump scare QTE, and b) with enough information to leave you with a way to think about how to go through the challenge while not being in front of the game during the downtime.
- gverrilla 6y ago
  this would be boring as hell because it relates to mobile games: they will tell you can't do something for X hours, unless you pay them some dollars. Even if you don't charge, the memories will flow I can guarantee you
inanutshellus 6y ago
One mechanism that really got me ... maybe not "horrified" but uh, anxious as hell, was the Dark Souls games. The "you better survive until you find your corpse or you lose everything" mechanism worked really well when I was new at the games. Also in the "not horrified but anxious as hell" gameplay was the original Bioshock and seeing the Big Daddy character... still remember hearing him before he came around the corner... so cool. :-)
- klmadfejno 6y ago
  The Dark Souls one is interesting, because losing a big stack of souls sucks. But at some point you're probably gonna find an easily grindable stack of enemies and just farm them for a few minutes for 15 minutes and get way more. So it's not that big of a deal. But it still works pretty well in spite of that. The emotional harm of loss stings.
- grawprog 6y ago
  I didn't find that aspect of Dark Souls too tense or stressful, maybe because I'd played salt and sanctuary and Hollow Knight first and was used to it. Dark Souls did have some good creepy moments though. The first time entering the catacombs with the giant skeletons, the first time you face the ghosts of anor londo especially if you stumble in there early, seeing the guardian at the top of sen's fortress and knowing you're going to have to face him after you get by the archers and giants after getting through that hellish trap filled nightmare. Going back to the undead asylum and falling through the floor to face that demon. The giant rat before blight town. There's more, Dark Souls had a lot of those that worked well on the first playthrough. The did lose some of their impact on subsequent ones though.
tentboy 6y ago
I never played any of the silent hills. I played resident evil 4 and 5 years ago, and recently played resident evil 7 - which i felt had a lot more horror elements then emphasis on shooting/exploding enemies like 4 and 5 did. I REALLY enjoyed RE7. I felt like it kept me on my toes and I played it way faster than any other single player game in recent times. What is the best entry point and order for the silent hill series?
- klmadfejno 6y ago
  Resident evil is a weird series the branches into different genres over time. The first few were survival horror and played on the dread of not being well equipped enough to get through the rest of the game. Then Numbers 4-6 become action games with unreasonably sexy badass characters. They were good games, and some great co-op, but not scary at all. 7 was a horror masterpiece (or at least the first half). 8 looks like it'll continue along that trend. The recently reimagined Resident Evil 2 is phenomenal and finds an unexpected sweet spot between all 3 of them where it's still action-y, but has a bunch of things that are suspenseful and scary. Silent Hill struggled to get out of the original playstation and hasn't had anything good in years. Remakes and remasters of the originals are generally perceived to be lower quality. I would try to grab an emulator and just play the first 4 in order then pretend the rest doesn't exist. Number 1 and 2 are the treasures of the series.
  - lloeki 6y ago
    > Number 1 and 2 are the treasures of the series. 3 and the constant pressure of the big bad guy is great too, the pace contrasting massively with 1 and 2. Code Veronica is really nice too. I don't like 4. But the "tank controls" really are some relic of the past.
- fetus8 6y ago
  I just played SH1 for the very first time on an emulator, last month, and had a great time with it. Getting used to the controls and game mechanics took a little bit, but I got up to speed quickly. Finished the game in about 7 hours. It's creepy, weird, kind of funny, and ultimately an interesting game. Definitely recommend a play through.
slezyr 6y ago
> Amnesia as I recall had very frequent checkpoints, and dying set you back a minute or so, only to encounter the same scare puzzle shortly after. It worked great for Limbo, Inside and I loved those. Just different tastes.
- lloeki 6y ago
  TBH I only died twice on my first and only Inside playthrough, zipping through it in a couple of hours: it was enjoyable, and I found my experience of it very different from Limbo. At first I was disappointed, but then I also vividly remember feeling fully immersed during those few hours since I basically did not run into checkpoints.
rspeele 6y ago
I vaguely remember a dev commentary or interview about Amnesia. If I remember right, one thing they said was close to what you said about "you do not want to show the monster" -- but changed to "you do not want to show what happens when the monster gets you". If the player dies, you either have a gamey consequence (you are set back a long way, you lose resources), or nearly no consequence (you restart quite close to where you died with the same resources). Either way though, the player's fear of this monster is now based on that game mechanic, and could be better described as annoyance than fear. You've lost the visceral suspension of disbelief where on some lizard-brain level the player still thinks "this thing is going to GET me". So it leads to kind of an ironic balance where the devs are trying to come up with things that are very effective at scaring the player while not really being that difficult to evade for a reasonably competent player. Their ideal is for the player to get through the whole game always feeling like they're in danger and just barely surviving, but never actually dying. Again, wish I could actually find the source, because it's been years, but the idea stuck with me. I want to say they gave an example of some trick they pulled on the memorable "water monster" level, to amp up the terror while not actually increasing the player's chances of failing. Maybe something like the water monster moves slower while you're looking away from it, so when you hear it behind you while you're turning a crank you think it's about to get you but you actually have enough time to succeed. I don't remember.
- klmadfejno 6y ago
  That is interesting. I do remember the water monster. That was a great segment. Probably the best part of the game. Sounds like a good framework, but that's pretty darn tough to execute. Letting the world end in Majora's Mask comes to mind for me. As a kid I was terrified of the ever present timer and never let it hit 0, even once. There's probably something about agency there. I wouldn't ever choose to let the monster get me in Amnesia, but when I did it was because I misjudged something and got myself into an unwinnable situation. If you're going for the strategy they're describing, I think you need to reduce the tree of possible mistakes that leads the player without them realizing they're taking a risk...

galimaufry 6y ago

Have any games tried frequent savepoints + only allowing the player to reload 24 hours after dying? Seems like that would make reloads feel a bit more fresh/consequential, and also prevent addiction.

klmadfejno 6y ago
24h sounds like a turnoff, but in general, I think that's a great concept. You just need something that the player can do while unable to try to scary part again.
- lloeki 6y ago
  To relieve the frustration, it would need to be a game where a) death truly feels like your fault, not some jump scare QTE, and b) with enough information to leave you with a way to think about how to go through the challenge while not being in front of the game during the downtime.
gverrilla 6y ago
this would be boring as hell because it relates to mobile games: they will tell you can't do something for X hours, unless you pay them some dollars. Even if you don't charge, the memories will flow I can guarantee you

inanutshellus 6y ago

One mechanism that really got me ... maybe not "horrified" but uh, anxious as hell, was the Dark Souls games. The "you better survive until you find your corpse or you lose everything" mechanism worked really well when I was new at the games. Also in the "not horrified but anxious as hell" gameplay was the original Bioshock and seeing the Big Daddy character... still remember hearing him before he came around the corner... so cool. :-)

klmadfejno 6y ago
The Dark Souls one is interesting, because losing a big stack of souls sucks. But at some point you're probably gonna find an easily grindable stack of enemies and just farm them for a few minutes for 15 minutes and get way more. So it's not that big of a deal. But it still works pretty well in spite of that. The emotional harm of loss stings.
grawprog 6y ago
I didn't find that aspect of Dark Souls too tense or stressful, maybe because I'd played salt and sanctuary and Hollow Knight first and was used to it. Dark Souls did have some good creepy moments though. The first time entering the catacombs with the giant skeletons, the first time you face the ghosts of anor londo especially if you stumble in there early, seeing the guardian at the top of sen's fortress and knowing you're going to have to face him after you get by the archers and giants after getting through that hellish trap filled nightmare. Going back to the undead asylum and falling through the floor to face that demon. The giant rat before blight town. There's more, Dark Souls had a lot of those that worked well on the first playthrough. The did lose some of their impact on subsequent ones though.

tentboy 6y ago

I never played any of the silent hills. I played resident evil 4 and 5 years ago, and recently played resident evil 7 - which i felt had a lot more horror elements then emphasis on shooting/exploding enemies like 4 and 5 did. I REALLY enjoyed RE7. I felt like it kept me on my toes and I played it way faster than any other single player game in recent times. What is the best entry point and order for the silent hill series?

klmadfejno 6y ago
Resident evil is a weird series the branches into different genres over time. The first few were survival horror and played on the dread of not being well equipped enough to get through the rest of the game. Then Numbers 4-6 become action games with unreasonably sexy badass characters. They were good games, and some great co-op, but not scary at all. 7 was a horror masterpiece (or at least the first half). 8 looks like it'll continue along that trend. The recently reimagined Resident Evil 2 is phenomenal and finds an unexpected sweet spot between all 3 of them where it's still action-y, but has a bunch of things that are suspenseful and scary. Silent Hill struggled to get out of the original playstation and hasn't had anything good in years. Remakes and remasters of the originals are generally perceived to be lower quality. I would try to grab an emulator and just play the first 4 in order then pretend the rest doesn't exist. Number 1 and 2 are the treasures of the series.
- lloeki 6y ago
  > Number 1 and 2 are the treasures of the series. 3 and the constant pressure of the big bad guy is great too, the pace contrasting massively with 1 and 2. Code Veronica is really nice too. I don't like 4. But the "tank controls" really are some relic of the past.
fetus8 6y ago
I just played SH1 for the very first time on an emulator, last month, and had a great time with it. Getting used to the controls and game mechanics took a little bit, but I got up to speed quickly. Finished the game in about 7 hours. It's creepy, weird, kind of funny, and ultimately an interesting game. Definitely recommend a play through.

slezyr 6y ago

> Amnesia as I recall had very frequent checkpoints, and dying set you back a minute or so, only to encounter the same scare puzzle shortly after. It worked great for Limbo, Inside and I loved those. Just different tastes.

lloeki 6y ago
TBH I only died twice on my first and only Inside playthrough, zipping through it in a couple of hours: it was enjoyable, and I found my experience of it very different from Limbo. At first I was disappointed, but then I also vividly remember feeling fully immersed during those few hours since I basically did not run into checkpoints.

rspeele 6y ago

I vaguely remember a dev commentary or interview about Amnesia. If I remember right, one thing they said was close to what you said about "you do not want to show the monster" -- but changed to "you do not want to show what happens when the monster gets you". If the player dies, you either have a gamey consequence (you are set back a long way, you lose resources), or nearly no consequence (you restart quite close to where you died with the same resources). Either way though, the player's fear of this monster is now based on that game mechanic, and could be better described as annoyance than fear. You've lost the visceral suspension of disbelief where on some lizard-brain level the player still thinks "this thing is going to GET me". So it leads to kind of an ironic balance where the devs are trying to come up with things that are very effective at scaring the player while not really being that difficult to evade for a reasonably competent player. Their ideal is for the player to get through the whole game always feeling like they're in danger and just barely surviving, but never actually dying. Again, wish I could actually find the source, because it's been years, but the idea stuck with me. I want to say they gave an example of some trick they pulled on the memorable "water monster" level, to amp up the terror while not actually increasing the player's chances of failing. Maybe something like the water monster moves slower while you're looking away from it, so when you hear it behind you while you're turning a crank you think it's about to get you but you actually have enough time to succeed. I don't remember.

klmadfejno 6y ago
That is interesting. I do remember the water monster. That was a great segment. Probably the best part of the game. Sounds like a good framework, but that's pretty darn tough to execute. Letting the world end in Majora's Mask comes to mind for me. As a kid I was terrified of the ever present timer and never let it hit 0, even once. There's probably something about agency there. I wouldn't ever choose to let the monster get me in Amnesia, but when I did it was because I misjudged something and got myself into an unwinnable situation. If you're going for the strategy they're describing, I think you need to reduce the tree of possible mistakes that leads the player without them realizing they're taking a risk...