Blog - geokes

0 comments by geokes on Feb 24th, 2009 digg this super bookmark

This is basically a short guide or selection of tips for devs making a horror mod.

Personally I find 1st Person horror alot scarier than 3rd person horror. Just think, whats scarier something jumping out at someone on the screen or someone jumping out at you.

There are two main types of horror:
1. Jump out scares (eg. a zombie jumps out at you from the dark)
2. Opressive Horror (eg. knowing there are lots of monster around)

If your doing a jump out horror event don't always give clues because the player will expect something to jump out at you (eg. FEAR 2, the lights always flicker before something jumps out at you so the player just expects the shock so they will be ready for it and the scare will have less impact) so mix things up by eg. having the monster grab you from behind or you just walking around a corner and have a monster right up close to you.

Opressive horror is a bit harder because the player has to be immersed (fluid and realistic animations help alot). An example of this is a dustbin with blood leading to it and the bin being splattered in blood so the player know something or someone was dragged into the bin, making the player scared of going near the bin.