Sanity/Insanity in games

[InsanityRequiem]

As of now, I'm currently playing Call of Cthulhu: Darkest Corners of the Earth. I've also played Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem a while back.

These games are currently the only two games I know of that incorporated some sort of insanity effect into the game mechanic and story, both different and awesome in their own ways. I can't say much for the Silent Hill series, as I've never played them nor listened much about them, so I don't know if what little I've heard does say that there's a sanity thing in the games.

Do you wish there were more games that follow on with these two, incorporating some sort of bar that judges a character's sanity or the effects that it brings? Also, why aren't there more games that include sanity/insanity? To me, they bring out the experience, be it in the horror/psychological thriller setting or maybe in a separate setting.

I wanna hear what everyone thinks and what they discuss about it.

It just disappoints me that more gaming companies don't do this.

 

[Kruxxor]

Shadow Hearts has an Insanity system.

However it's pretty much just a bar, that when full, your character just goes confused and beserk as opposed to insane.

 

[khululy]

In Silent hill there is no need for a insanity mechanic because one ending up in silenthill means that one is pretty insane already.
Also The suffering used an insanity effect although it was much more scripted but it sure gave me the creeps from time to time.

 

[Therumancer]

Well to be honest I've never been a huge fan of the mechanic, as it seems mostly to create an artificial sense of vulnerability.

The first game I saw that really used it on the computer was "Legacy: Realm Of Terror" which would have your character panic or freak out when confronted by monsters and such to prevent you from taking effective action. It got annoying quickly to be honest. Though admittedly it mostly worked based on fright, I believe the sanity aspect mostly came into play when you went through a vortex into a parallel dimension (it's been a while however). The "Elvira" games also had a mechanic where you could die of fright and even had a heartbeat counter to register how scared your character was. It was possible to kill yourself by say lifting the lid of a covered platter on a table to reveal a severed head and have your heart basically explode.... but then again that was pretty tongue in cheek.

Having not played any of the "FX" games like Eternal Darkness I can't judge them fairly, but I'll be frank in saying that if a game faked turning off on me and got me to ruin my game and go back to a save point by tricking me into getting up to turning it back on (and accidently turning it off) like many people did, I would probably be less than amused (I guess I'd have to be in exactly the right mood).

My opinion goes back as far as PnP RPGs like "Call Of Cthulhu" which while a decent game used the idea of a "SAN" point system, which work like Hit Points in most RPGs except you lose them simply by seeing scary or disturbing things, and if you lose all of them your character goes bonkers to the point where they are unplayable and basically "dead". The idea being to portray the characters as being unusually frail and vulnerable (besides the mechanics and all the physical threats), but in many cases it wound up being sort of annoying, and while Lovecraft's mythos was full of many insane fellows who went crazy dealing with the mythos, it also involved some pretty heroic stuff at times.

I guess my big problem is that I don't think anyone has done it right, and a lot of times it seems like a design crutch. Basically if you can't convey something to the player, make it a hamhanded number crunch to reinforce a description, or a hinderance in a computer game. In many cases it gets just as ridiculous as someone always acting like "Billy Badass", especially seeing as I figure after a while people are going to become jaded to this kind of thing without going insane. Such systems being based totally on the "introductory aspects" of horror and being unable to really deal with the idea of people becoming assimilated to extraordinary situations. After your third monster, I'd think you'd get past the "OMG an unnatural creature" thing, and after a couple of horribly mutilated corpses, or disturbing books you'd start to take it in stride... rather than going bug nuts, or dealing with visual hallucinations added by a programmer.


Apologies for my (typical) ramble legnth, I guess the short version is that I do not care for it. But I am also trying to say that I've never seen such a system done well (in any format) in my opinion. Eternal Darkness *could* be an exception, but going by Heresay what struck some people as "cool" strikes me as being more of an irritation than atmospheric.

 

[The Madman]

Aside from Call of Cthulhu, which you mentioned, the only other game I've played where insanity is a gameplay mechanic would be Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, and that's only if you play as a malkavian.

Ridiculously well done however, some of the best written and most fluid dialogue I've ever heard or read in that game. Even the seemingly insane babble of the Malkavian players crazed font dialogue is clever, full of lymeric and wit as well as hidden prophesy and even comic 4th wall breaking comments that remain in-character and yet insanely funny/insightful. Truly a joy to play as.

Plus there's the entire 'spreading your madness' mechanic, again only for the malkavian players, where you're capable of getting specific dialogue options and solutions to puzzles where you're essentially driving a person insane bit by bit by bit.

Damn I love that game. It's less of a 'going insane' mechanic however so much as a 'completely batshit insane from the start' thing. Once your character becomes a malkavian, there's no going back after all!

 

[Xodion]

Having an insanity meter seems like a very counter-productive way of creating the atmosphere of playing a character who isn't all there. A better idea could be having the game start changing the way you interact with the world - change some of the scenery and characters to show them as your character is seeing them, maybe have hallucinations and whispering voices that stop/disappear when you turn around.

This kind of sounds like what I imagine Silent Hill to be like, but I've not actually played them either, so I don't know. How did they do it?

 

[Mr. GameBrain]

I'd love game to utilise the cranium some more.

I mean, if games manipulate our feelings, though the input of our morality, why not do the same for our state of sanity?

I would definately play a game which messed with my head. It might cause me frustration at times, but if a game fights back, I'm the kind of guy that will come back with the stick to poke at it.

 

[Frequen-Z]

I hear Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy has you play as a mentally ill character, I've not played it myself thuogh so there isn't much more I can tell you.

 

[CAW4]

especially seeing as I figure after a while people are going to become jaded to this kind of thing without going insane. Such systems being based totally on the "introductory aspects" of horror and being unable to really deal with the idea of people becoming assimilated to extraordinary situations. After your third monster, I'd think you'd get past the "OMG an unnatural creature" thing, and after a couple of horribly mutilated corpses, or disturbing books you'd start to take it in stride... rather than going bug nuts, or dealing with visual hallucinations added by a programmer.

I'm sorry, but that's so stupid. That's like complaining about how the kid who lost both his parents to a car crash should be in school the next day. As for what happens in supernatural games, if you were there you're not going to get used to it for a long while, possibly never, and even after it's over there's still a high chance of going insane, even from simple paranoia. Saying that you should get used to seeing monsters after a few is like saying that after seeing someone you know die in front of you, you should be used to it if it happens again.

 

[Sneaklemming]

Aside from Call of Cthulhu, which you mentioned, the only other game I've played where insanity is a gameplay mechanic would be Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, and that's only if you play as a malkavian.

Ridiculously well done however, some of the best written and most fluid dialogue I've ever heard or read in that game. Even the seemingly insane babble of the Malkavian players crazed font dialogue is clever, full of lymeric and wit as well as hidden prophesy and even comic 4th wall breaking comments that remain in-character and yet insanely funny/insightful. Truly a joy to play as.

Plus there's the entire 'spreading your madness' mechanic, again only for the malkavian players, where you're capable of getting specific dialogue options and solutions to puzzles where you're essentially driving a person insane bit by bit by bit.

Damn I love that game. It's less of a 'going insane' mechanic however so much as a 'completely batshit insane from the start' thing. Once your character becomes a malkavian, there's no going back after all!

I'll have to second this. Playing as a Malkavian is truly insane, all the dialogue is replace with crazy insane stuff to the point where you havn't a clue what you're saying, and it has totally unintended consequences - which is pretty much what I'd say insanity is.

I had to restart a game of Vampire, because I didn't have a clue what was going on.

 

[Layz92]

I don't think much of it as a mechanic. However if it was a core element like a story where you travel through your own insanity, I think that could be intriguing. Kinda like Alundra 1 in a way even though that was dreams.

 

[Axeli]

Try going through the last parts of MGS2. It might not turn you insane, but it sure does try.

 

[DeadlyYellow]

Intriguing if done right. Frankly I find it hard to swallow the main character killing themselves from looking down a hole too long.

 

[Mozza444]

I don't think i have ever played a game with this "insanity effect"
but it sure does sound awesome, so yes, i wan't to see it in more games.

 

[Howlingwolf214]

Developers may have to tip-toe around the idea of insanity.

If for example they represent insanity in a bad light it will more than likely offend family members of people with diseases such as schizophrenia.

 

[MrPokeylope]

Amnesia [http://www.amnesiagame.com/], the next game from Frictional Games(the guys who made the Penumbra series) has an sanity/insanity system, apparently similar to the Call of Cthulhu system

 

[Halceon]

Where Dark Corners fails is in seperating the various effects. You do get desensitized to sights of mutilated corpses going from "OH GOD, what HORRIBLE creature could have done this" to "It was another poor soul fallen to the beast's claws." On the other hand, you accumulate an underlying dread when you see more and more said mutilations. As in "I pressed on through the seas of the dead, threatening to drown the world in the bodies of its people. This was more than any man should ever endure."
If they seperated these, then the first time you see a form of horror you'd be paralised, but accumulating the dread would be what really sends you to the maaaaadhouse! AND IT WOULD BE GLORIOUS.

 

[Proteus214]

In the Penumbra trilogy there is a mechanic where your character will "panic" if it looks at a monster for too long, which will cause them to start blathering uncontrollably and possibly lead to them screaming. Considering that this is a true survival horror game where hiding in dark corners is your only means of avoiding things, panic will blow your cover. I found it interesting since it creates this kind of behavior in the player when a creature comes around a little voice in the back of your head goes "OH GOD DON'T LOOK AT IT!"

It may sound kind of simple, but holy crap is it effective in creating tension.