Horror: What makes them scary?

[white_wolf]

Jumping off of another threads theme and not to mention the October factor

Retro and Modern games

What makes or made them scary? The physiological hear but rarely seen enemies or the physical leap out to eat you variety?

Do you think on some level the clunky mechanics like hero moving slowly or shooting poorly factored in? What about todays modern smooth controls?

The atmosphere the long shadows, fog, and or other qualities

What about those poor camera angles the ones that stopped your view just short of the whole picture do you think they played a role in your enjoyment of the past games or are you happy they're mostly gone?

Basically a discussion and dissection of past and present horror games in the markets.

 

[Sarah Kerrigan]

For modern, I like to look at Frictional games for this. A horror game is scary when you don't see what's coming after you. It's the fear factor of not knowing what could be behind that corner, and the sense of dread you get when you look at it even for a second.

But really, the next gen horror i've seen (mostly Evil Within) looks promising with it's ideas. Not all horror has to hide it's monster, and with the gameplay for SOMA being released, that's planning on doing such a thing (Looks that way)

 

[Racecarlock]

That general feeling that something is in the room with you and it might kill you at any second. That is horror.

 

[Fireaxe]

Atmosphere does wonders, regardless of what else is involved -- sounds (including music), and pacing can really make a game scary.

If there is combat it needs to be hectic (a fast paced fight that ends rapidly with you killing or being killed builds a lot more tension than if the combat is slower) and costly (such that you can't fight every monster in the game), regardless of if you think you can win it should feel like a risky last resort. This is probably the difference between a horror game and an action game with supernatural themes.

 

[Ender910_v1legacy]

Feeling powerless against something that wants to kill you, especially if you have no idea what that something is. That's why the devil dogs in Penumbra scared the bejesus out of me, because you KNEW you didn't want to fight them, you didn't want to see them, you didn't want to hear them. You just wanted to hide and pretend they weren't there until they went away.

I think another element is just the general feel you get from the AI's behavior. For some reason, less predictable, and maybe more simply animated enemies seem to have a more frightening feel to them than enemies with seamless, human-like movement.