Jimquisition: Scare Tactics

leviadragon99

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Hmm... personally I'm not really that attached to the horror genre anyway, but I can accept that jump scares have their place if done well and placed in the right context.

Decent voice-manipulation and Scarecrow delivery there too.
 

Jimothy Sterling

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Toasty Virus said:
Wow, that was pretty good!

What effects processing did you put your voice through exactly?
Thanks! I love doing the Halloween ones and tried to make it special this year.

Effects were pretty layman-level. Just whacked the audio through Wavepad's Chorus and Flanger/Phaser effects until I was happy with what I had.
 

Vausch

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The problem with jump scares isn't that they exist. Every scare tactic has a place and they can work. The problem is when they're so bloody obvious, you're sitting there going "4, 3, 2, 1-"*abloogy woogie woo!*

When used wrong in films, it's really obvious when they're going to come up. The music stops, everything gets quiet, often people stop talking, then "RARG!". It's pretty much the same for games. They have to be earned, some moments of silence without any scare attempts coming helps build the tension too.

I still say one of the scariest moments in Silent Hill 2 was descending the staircase in the museum. Tense, claustrophobic, all waiting for a monster to show.
 

Artemicion

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Gotta love that Iifa Tree track.

Love how a clip of DNF showed up at the end. Priceless.

As for scare tactics: I think one of the issues with jump scares is that they're usually scripted into a certain area and don't often happen randomly in games. Therefore, the chance of them being well-received goes down after the first playthrough. Dead Space got me a few times the first time I played, but by the second and third (and fourth) playthrough it was all old hat. Perhaps that's not the fault of the jump scare, though.

I think jump scares really only work best when the player is uncomfortable with their situation, and is therefore more nervous about what's around the next corner. It's why the first few scares in DOOM 3 really worked on me, but by the end of the first act I had a pistol, a shotgun, and a submachine gun, all with full ammo, and I was behind a full set of medieval plate armor. Jump scares are less likely to work if the player believes they can deal with them, and are thus not worried about what may lurk ahead.
 

Falseprophet

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Vausch said:
The problem with jump scares isn't that they exist. Every scare tactic has a place and they can work. The problem is when they're so bloody obvious, you're sitting there going "4, 3, 2, 1-"*abloogy woogie woo!*
Yeah, wasn't that the issue with F.3.A.R. 3 or whatever it's called? Brightly lit cover-based shooter corridors, then you turn a corner and the lights dim and my brain goes--"Get ready for a surprise!" [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiKpEvUShtY#t=1m29s] I don't know if it gets better later, I just got bored of that first level.

Alan Wake too. Could have been creepy and atmospheric, but every time the bad guys show up the score swells and the camera zooms in on them.
 

lord.jeff

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You are right in case of Silent Hill and Resident Evil, the jump scares do give you a feeling of dread with every door and corner but Doom not so much, jump scares requires a weaker character I never saw the creatures in Doom as much more then a target, having little more scare then a game of whack a mole.
 

ZephrC

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Man, after that beginning all I can think is that Jim must be a bad kitty.
 

Deshin

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Awesome vid Jim but not gonna lie I was it playing in a small corner of the screen with sound low because I was expecting a legit jump scare to pop up any second as you were talking about them. Spoony did something recently and I'm still rather paranoid of any videos around this time of the year. Of course that just illustrated your point perfectly about them instilling fear and you didn't stoop low enough to actually doing it. So grats on that front.
 

Angry Camel

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Good grief, that ending was teffifying. Well done, Jim. This actually reminded me of Resident Evil 4. I didn't really see it as a horror game as much as an action game (particularly towards the end, except for that random corridor), but in retrospect it was quite good with jump-scares; the trip mines, the bear traps, the random rocket-wielding zealots, etc. Maybe they just became less scary since I replayed the game to death.
 

Sylveria

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There's certainly a place for jump-scares.. but when it is stuff like Doom 3 or Dead Space where they happen constantly, it dulls the surprise when it happens for the 500000000th time after being telegraphed the same way over and over and they don't surprise you anymore.

They're even less effective in games like Doom 3 or Dead Space because you know you can handle them. You've been mowing down legions of Imps and Necromorphs, they aren't a threat, thus aren't scary.
 

CheckD3

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One of the scariest things is if you look during a full moon, you can see that MOTHERFUCKING ZELDA MOOD EVIL GUY FACE IN IT!

This Scarecrow episode was pretty damned awesome...I enjoy your smile and can't wait till next week to see what ya cooked up for it :D