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[Psyco Jelly]

Recently, playing Demon's Souls for the PS3, I have found something that scared me. The game itself makes you paranoid about ambush, but one specific area takes it to a new level.

There is a place called the Tower of Latria. The inside is almost completely dark, except for a very small light source surrounding you (a gem on your belt). Upon my first exploration, there were distant screams and moans, and the place was filled with prison cells. After walking forward I heard a not-entirely-natural voice say "Please... Help me!". It sounded distressingly close, so I checked my immediate surroundings. Nothing, that's a good sign. Then, I see inside one of the cells a chair covered in spikes... An iron maiden, shackles... Standard dungeon affair, I suppose, but now I truly respect their ability to truly creep the fuck out of someone.

I find a lighted place where the ledge I'm standing on (in a tower, too dark to see the bottom) tapers to the right. There are some keys on the wall. Before I grab them, ding. I hear a distant ringing sound. I look around, and I see nothing. I pick up the keys, and then... DING. The bell is much closer. I turn, to be greeted to a wretched screech-gargle, coming from a robed humanoid figure with a number of tentacles surrounding a beak in place of a face. It is literally five feet in front of me, and it waves it's hand. A burst of energy radiates from it, pinning me in place. Then, it's tentacles begin to thrash, and from it's beak a long fleshy lance bursts forth, penetrating my helmet and piercing my skull, killing me.

This is the most scared I have ever been in a video game, I still loathe going to that place, it's not that it's more difficult than the other areas, but it is a hell of a lot scarier. As a tip, shock is sudden. Dread is built by atmosphere. You need to have a building sense of dread, followed by a moment of perceived safety. Then a surprise. The bell should be a plus on my side, I can tell when the things (turns out there are more than one) are coming, but you're more scared when you know something's coming.

[xdarkcodex]

It's one of those " it's quiet...too quiet." moments.

[Cthulhu]

Just remember that shock ceases to be effective if you do it too much.

[Hawkfrost]

All around are howls, cackles, and other sinister noises, and as soon as you step into the woods something starts chasing you.  I don't like the idea of vanilla nasties, just superpowered.  I think there should be one singularly horrifying monster that stalks you when you go into the woods, and you never get a really good look at it.  It's just like Jaws, it's scary because you never see the whole shark.

Exactly, when you don't know what it is, it's much scarier.
Some darting shadow among the trees that follows you and slowly gets closer is scarier than a big raging monster charging.

After walking forward I heard a not-entirely-natural voice say "Please... Help me!". It sounded distressingly close, so I checked my immediate surroundings. Nothing, that's a good sign. Then, I see inside one of the cells a chair covered in spikes... An iron maiden, shackles... Standard dungeon affair, I suppose, but now I truly respect their ability to truly creep the fuck out of someone.

Oh god, personally, I can't handle stuff like that.

I find a lighted place where the ledge I'm standing on (in a tower, too dark to see the bottom) tapers to the right. There are some keys on the wall. Before I grab them, ding. I hear a distant ringing sound. I look around, and I see nothing. I pick up the keys, and then... DING. The bell is much closer.

That kind of stuff is also good, especially if your trying to do something as you hear the noise approaching. A rather innocent sound like a bell is worse than the sound of snarls.



If you want it to be scary, foremost, it has to be unexpected.
Sometimes certain things happen, other times they don't.

Lets say, for an example, your walking down a hallway and steer into a room in the side.
As you cross the room to check a desk you see a mirror in the corner, reflecting the room.
You search the desk, maybe find a trinket.
As you walk back across the room in the corner of your eye you see something in the mirror, but as you turn to look, nothing is there.
You walk up to it, but nothing happens.
So you walk back across the room, glancing back a few times. Finally you shrug and get to the doorway, and take one last look back.

There is something right behind you.


If you do something like that, then there should only be a tiny chance that it could happen. Sometimes maybe you see something in the mirror once but nothing occurs, you never get attacked. Most times you never see anything in the mirror at all.
A good balance of real danger and perceived danger helps to keep the player guessing and not sure of what will happen.

[Cthulhu]

Or, you're walking down a hallway.  You hear something breathing right behind you.  You turn around, nothing's there, and the breathing quickly moves behind you.  You turn around again, still nothing.  It teases you for a few minutes like this, moving around you, until you're turned away from the direction you were originally walking and the breathing stops.  You decide nothing's wrong, and turn around.  There's a grayish face, featureless except for two dark spots where the eyes should be, right in front of you.  When your flashlight hits it it shrieks and bursts into mist, which dissipates.  All pants in the vicinity will be wet.

Also, pianos.  Pianos in a dark mansion are all different kinds of scary, especially when they're playing for no reason.

[DennyTom]

I just started Bioshock. Man, I suck at scary games...

There was one lovely scene (spoilers obviously):

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The player is walking to a small room in a morgue where he can hear crazy doctor "playing" with some body on table and he can see his shadow stabbing the body with knife (or something). When he gets there, lights go out and he is in a pitch black for a while. I fired a few bullets and made a small fire where the doctor should be but he is not there. The lights come back online and really - doctor is missing and there is nowhere to go. Only thing there is a corpse with CRAZY grin. I thought "great .. not only thick atmosphere, hard enemies, but now halucinations" and loot what I can. I go back to the previous room (adjectant to the actual) and the doctor jumps out from the wall from the box for corpses. From that moment I am scared to get close to anything that potentialy might open.

Anyway the game uses one great mechanic. It shows you what you should fear with beautiful gruesome demonstrations. The Little Sister collects Adam, Splicer comes, attacks Little Sister, Big Daddy kills the Splicer, all behind the window. I like it. It is like a tutorial but without explicitely saying whats going on (sadly the friend on the radio tells you, but I guess that is only to be sure the game is idiot proof). Watch-n-Learn is much less breaks the theme than tutorial and much less frustrating than Try-n-Error (or how should I type it).

[Cthulhu]

Yeah, that scared me too.

Just wait until you meet the head doctor.  The first sequence when you find him isn't exactly scary, but it's really epic.


If you've played it, you know what I"m talking about.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Ugly!  Ugly!!!  UGGGLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

[qwertyuiopas]

Have GMOD?

Seen the Harmless Companion Cube?


Not especially bad, but if you spawn quite a few of them...

[Jackrabbit]

Alright. Let me first say I would never play this game in a million fucking years ever.

That said, I'd watch every single Youtube video about it, look up all info on the game itself and the collective weight of the scariness would cause insomnia for the rest of the year. So I'd like to be in on this.

Now, for the 'thing appears right in front of you' scare, here's my take.

Walking should cause noise. Not much noise, but enough that it's always on the edge of your hearing no matter what, so when you stop walking, the noise disappearing makes everything seem unnaturally silent. I think you can see where I'm going with this. At one point, after you've been playing the game for at least an hour, there is a totally random chance that once you stop walking, the sound will continue. Looking around, you'll see nothing. This effect keeps happening until about five minutes later, when it stops. Then, when you look around, a misty Grey vapor should be floating in front of you. It'll do nothing, even when you aim your flashlight at it (even if you accidentally the whole flashlight at it). Then, when you turn away, it grabs you, forcibly spins you around and screams in your face, its face now a horrifying gaunt visage of a tortured soul. Its eyes should implore you for something before a few seconds later, it's dragged backwards into the wall, still screaming. This would only ever happen once, and it'll make something so simple as stopping moving terrifying for the rest of the game.

[JoshuaFH]

Yeah, I remember Yahtzee describing something similar when he was describing Silent Hill 2. With the footsteps, but not the scary ghoul.

Man, alot of Yahtzee references on my part.

I wish I were actually a game developer or something, then I could actually make something like this.

[Jackrabbit]

I just took Cthulhus advice and thought up a situation with a shock scare that never happens again, though you think it will.

But hey, pitch it to some company. I bet they'll eat it up with a spoon.

[Sensei]

Bonus points if your character doesn't die (except when they blow themself up or whatever), only go insane- implying that that's what happened to the Raspy Voice and Dark Stalker.

[Cthulhu]

But hey, pitch it to some company. I bet they'll eat it up with a spoon.

We already went over this, that never happens because game developers don't want to spend a few years working on someone else's game when they have their own they want to make, among other reasons.

Anyway, journal.  I think that's the best way to do tutorials.  Have the main character keep a notebook and occasionally write something in it, with hints of how to do things.

[Outcast Orange]

If any of you want to feel suspense,
 and have an open mind,
 look up "Dear Ester".

It's a mod for Half Life 2,
 and one of my favorite Indy things ever.

I'll try the cube thing out when I get GMod.

[Jackrabbit]

I saw a bit of that yesterday. Voice acting is fantastic.