Trail of Fears

[newwiseman]

I was just playing that on the iPad, the updated version is a lot more colorful than the one I played as a kid.

 

[emeraldrafael]

So who is the villain in The Oregon Trail? We could say there are none (with the notable exception of dysentery) but really the game just skips the more convenient and obvious "bad guys" in favor of two of mankind's oldest and deadliest foes: Scarcity and Entropy.

you forgot water and drowning. i dont think Ive ever played an Oregon Trail game without having someone drown when crossing a river.

 

[Dastardly]

So who is the villain in The Oregon Trail? We could say there are none (with the notable exception of dysentery) but really the game just skips the more convenient and obvious "bad guys" in favor of two of mankind's oldest and deadliest foes: Scarcity and Entropy.

you forgot water and drowning. i dont think Ive ever played an Oregon Trail game without having someone drown when crossing a river.

Buy lots of clothes and hire guides!

 

[Andrew_C]

Amazing game. I just finally managed to completed Oregon Trail with no deaths! And I floated down the Columbia River and lost almost all my supplies to a wagon fire so I had to survive by hunting! Best I've managed before is 2 survivors.

 

[Dastardly]

There is one set of games you forgot about when mentioning entropy and scarcity:

ROGUELIKES.

... "Saved the world" on that one really did feel like saving the world.

I think this really comes back to the idea of a game targeting the player rather than the character. It's easy to write a situation in which a character would be nervous or afraid, and it's easy to tell the player that is the case... and it's just as easy for the player to ignore that information. But if the mechanics behave in such a way that they make the player nervous, tense, or scared... well, you don't even need a "character" at all, really.

Game mechanics can create just as much emotion as a story. And if the mechanics don't back up the story, it's going to fall flat anyway. Make the game feel right, and most of your job is done!

Try get into the characters shoes, and let the brilliant sounds take you to dark places.
Lights off, heaphones on... and possibly some diapers

What I liked about Amnesia is that I didn't have to get into the character -- the atmosphere was spooky enough on its own. And I like that it didn't lead my around by the nose. Not only did that give me freedom, it also gave me ownership: I had to actually move toward the scary thing, because the game wasn't going to do it for me.

The folks behind that game avoided the assumption that scaring the character means scaring the player.

Y'know what you might really enjoy? Fatal Frame (XBox). The original. Play it in the dark.

 

[praetor_alpha]

This leads to an "arms race" that turns a lot of survival horror into yet-another-run-and-gun.

Let's not forget those chest high walls in the cover-based survival horror!

 

[Vault101]

what I want to know is why a Banker from boston would want to go on the Oregon Trail in the first place?

 

[emeraldrafael]

So who is the villain in The Oregon Trail? We could say there are none (with the notable exception of dysentery) but really the game just skips the more convenient and obvious "bad guys" in favor of two of mankind's oldest and deadliest foes: Scarcity and Entropy.

you forgot water and drowning. i dont think Ive ever played an Oregon Trail game without having someone drown when crossing a river.

Buy lots of clothes and hire guides!

Pfft thats the cowards way. the west wsnt made by the faint of heart. XD

 

[ThunderCavalier]

Definitely an interesting article, and what some people brought up I really agree with.

Actually, this brought to mind his ruminations on "what if we levelled backwards", because come to think of it, OT is a bit like this. You don't really get extra stuff once you're on the trail, for the most part, and especially if you didn't play as the banker (I tried, it was rough), once you get close to the end, your stockpiles are low, you may be running up against winter, and you're scraping the bottom of the barrel. You finish weaker than you started. Maybe there's something there?

This especially. You lose the 'survival' aspect, and part of the 'horror' aspect, if you can actively fight against the thing trying to kill you, or if you get stronger than you were before or strong enough to fight the 'big bad'. In a true survival horror game, you either start with a lot of stuff that rapidly becomes really, really useless in the predicament you're stuck with, or you don't start out with a lot and nothing you get helps your situation, and the enemies in all situations should not be so easy to fend off that you can encounter even the most basic of grunts and not feel like your progress is about to come to a halt.

In a true survival horror fashion, 'stand and fight' should never, EVER be in the Top 5 list of available options.

 

[Farther than stars]

I just played the game, but I must have been playing a watered-down version, because I was able to carry 200 lbs of food back from the hunt. But I beat it as the carpenter with 5 fellow survivors in 127 days, so I'm still chalking it down to a win.

 

[Farther than stars]

What I liked about Amnesia is that I didn't have to get into the character -- the atmosphere was spooky enough on its own. And I like that it didn't lead my around by the nose. Not only did that give me freedom, it also gave me ownership: I had to actually move toward the scary thing, because the game wasn't going to do it for me.

The folks behind that game avoided the assumption that scaring the character means scaring the player.

Y'know what you might really enjoy? Fatal Frame (XBox). The original. Play it in the dark.

That's true actually. The fact that you have to take photographs of the ghosts to win the game also meant that you had to move toward the [insert fear-inducing image]. One of the main complaints about the horror in Silent Hill Downpour has been that you can run from the monsters, which makes them less of a threat. Although I also like Yahtzee's argument that giving the player the ability to run from the monstrosities makes it more like survival.

 

[Casey Goddard]

Just my take on what's needed to make video games scary for today's audience:

http://caseygoddard.blogspot.jp/2011/12/surviving-horror.html

 

[Druyn]

When I say the title and cover, I immediately thought "Woah, somebody made a zombie Oregon Trailer Game? I want to play!" And now I'm just as happy that I was wrong, because this was an excellent article that makes me want to play OT again. Well done, sir.

 

[Dastardly]

When I say the title and cover, I immediately thought "Woah, somebody made a zombie Oregon Trailer Game? I want to play!" And now I'm just as happy that I was wrong, because this was an excellent article that makes me want to play OT again. Well done, sir.

Thanks! .... but can't it be both?

 

[Mike Fang]

Back when I was younger, I enjoyed playing Oregon Trail in school. However, I never really found it scary. While I see what is being suggested here, and I think it could work, I don't think the Oregon Trail game had the proper setting to create a sense of dread. Sure, it could put you on edge since you never knew when something was going to go wrong, but it was more like the tension of a high stakes roulette or craps game. You never really got a sense that something was out to get you, stalking you, hunting you. Compare Oregon Trail to a survival horror game that works like, say, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and the latter is going to outperform the former hands down.

 

[Dastardly]

Back when I was younger, I enjoyed playing Oregon Trail in school. However, I never really found it scary. While I see what is being suggested here, and I think it could work, I don't think the Oregon Trail game had the proper setting to create a sense of dread. Sure, it could put you on edge since you never knew when something was going to go wrong, but it was more like the tension of a high stakes roulette or craps game. You never really got a sense that something was out to get you, stalking you, hunting you. Compare Oregon Trail to a survival horror game that works like, say, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and the latter is going to outperform the former hands down.

Certainly! I'm only suggesting here that The Oregon Trail presents us an interesting and different jumping-off point. We have plenty of games in which the writers set out to scare the character, and hopefully get the player in the process. In Trail, the game itself actually puts the player on edge directly... which can open the door for a lot more.

Trail had no characters. It had no monsters. It was severely limited by the technology of the time, but it still managed to get an emotional reaction (tension and fear are very close relatives). The idea here is that a game that does that first can then add all kinds zombies and ghosts, and they'll all be far more effective.

The "scary stuff" in a game is just a push. For a push to be effective, the player has to already be on the edge.

 

[darksakul]

Trail of Fears

The Oregon Trail is terrifying.

Read Full Article

I want to say you got it, right-on-the-head-of-the-nail accurate.

It is why i had Oregon Trail emulated, few modern games ever captured the spirit that Oregon Trail did.

 

[Druyn]

When I say the title and cover, I immediately thought "Woah, somebody made a zombie Oregon Trailer Game? I want to play!" And now I'm just as happy that I was wrong, because this was an excellent article that makes me want to play OT again. Well done, sir.

Thanks! .... but can't it be both?

Whyyyyyyyy? I was going to revamp my phone playlist, do some physics work, and go to bed early tonight! Why would you do this to me?

 

[galaktar]

Reminds me of Fallout New Vegas: Dead Money. Every part of the world wants to kill you slowly, and your most reliable weapon is a re-purposed bear trap that you pried off your foot.

 

[ThePenguinKnight]

Want to play a modernized version, with zombies?

http://hatsproductions.com/organtrail.html

BAM! You're welcome.