Essence of a creepy game

[Blindga]

So here's my thought.

I want to make a game that's 'creepy'. Not even really really creepy, just unsettling. Definitely not horror. I want to make a game that's disturbing. Wierd like 'Hotline Miami'. Disturbing, but not disruptive.

Here's my current shot at the idea. It's a bit of a mouthful but I'm not rambling; I swear.

In a far off sci-fi future, the protagonist is forced by her completely immoral totalarian government into an experimental military program that harvests her DNA for a rare mutation they need to make super-humans. These semi-clones are made from a mix of other people's DNA; with the protagonist's being the strongest core component in it(thus they are all female too). The resulting clones are artificially aged (literally, most of the girls are the same age as the protagonist in a month) and trained in combat (more like modified and turned into weapons), but to give them emotional stability and establish loyalty they are raised during their brief maturity period to have a daughter mentality to the protagonist, and the protagonist is forced to take care of them and establish a positive emotional bond as their mother or else the government will execute her innocent clones as failures and banish her for incompetence.

So, basically forced to be a mother and leader to her artificially matured daughters, the protagonist must take care of a slowly expanding team of girls made from her DNA by loving them, planning strategies for harder and harder combat missions, and leading them through battle safely all while meeting the government's ever increasing demands for performance from her daughters. There is this slight eerieness of having to love the clones made from the protagonist herself, but it sort of dies off as the protagonist starts to accept them as her own blood.

The main creep of the story that I am trying to make with all that is that the world is absolutely insane. In a world of supertechnology and supernatural forces, insanity is literally a common thing, and the galactic world is in a state of unrest. So there is this mix of a sweet love story about a young woman who gets a chance to explore a side of herself she's never known, a sort of surreal family tale, but then there are the battle sequences, the intrigue, conspiracies, an evil plot, and a violent world going on around that.

I'm trying to create a creepy dissonance of two different worlds; a sweet one that the protagonist starts to build up for herself, and the bitter real world outside it. The protagonist is this innocent young woman who is turned into this chemical mother for these innocent and naive women, but then is basically forced to lead her daughters out into a world that is absolutely horrific and literally wants to kill them. Do you think that's a good approach?

What other things do you think make something creepy, but not scary? What sort of mannerisms would make a character unsettling? What makes a place unsettling to you, but not so much so that it's too scary? What makes the balance between acceptable enough that you don't run away, but odd enough to make you uncomfortable. Any sort of suggestion outside the initial idea I mentioned are appreciated.

Thank you for reading.

 

[Eschaton]

Creepy.  Imagine something that is as close to human without actually being human.  It doesn't look quite right, or sound quite right, or walk quite right.  You heard the phrase "it's just a little... off."

Appeal to the uncanny valley.

Things that are slightly less than human.  Off-pitch voices. Speaking backwards.  Unusually long limbs or fingers.  A faceless head.  Or a face that's only a mouth.

Children make things creepy.  It's an appeal to primal adult fear.  Put kids where they don't belong, like a haunted house.  But not kids, but their voice.

Kids acting off are probably creepier than adults or corpses acting off.

 

[Berylstone]

There is creepy then there is disturbing.

Creepy is more about giving someone a nervous sensation I think.  A scene that is anticipating something scary, but you haven't had the scare quite yet.  That is how I would describe creepy.

Disturbing is what I would consider abnormalities that make a negative impression... like gruesome deformities shown up close and things of that nature. 

Some people like to be disturbed.  Other's don't.  So where to draw the line is anyone's guess.  But my own personal tolerance for it is rather limited ^^

 

[mlogan]

One of the creepiest/disturbing books I read was for one simple reason: no hope.  If you think about it, most stories have hope in them.  No matter how creepy yucky bad the bad guy is, there is always hope.  It's the point.  Get to the end, to the happy ending where the good guy wins.  Not in this book.  Disturbing ending, no happiness about it, every single character dies, and no hope for anyone who stumbled across it in the future.

 

[Blindga]

Creepy.  Imagine something that is as close to human without actually being human.  It doesn't look quite right, or sound quite right, or walk quite right.  You heard the phrase "it's just a little... off."

Appeal to the uncanny valley.

Things that are slightly less than human.  Off-pitch voices. Speaking backwards.  Unusually long limbs or fingers.  A faceless head.  Or a face that's only a mouth.

Children make things creepy.  It's an appeal to primal adult fear.  Put kids where they don't belong, like a haunted house.  But not kids, but their voice.

Kids acting off are probably creepier than adults or corpses acting off.

There's an idea I might make work.

Initially, I had a no hope situation where the protagonist dies, but it was too over the top (just in general).I find this falls more into tragedy than creepy anyways. I got rid of the idea in favor of a different one though (this one).

All good suggestions though. I'll consider them all. Feel free to suggest others.

 

[Jollan]

I can quote an MTG card

"More disturbing than the unknown is a distortion of the familiar." from Fleshmad Steed

When you think about it its true. Hope this helps!

 

[Imemperor]

What other things do you think make something creepy, but not scary? What sort of mannerisms would make a character unsettling? What makes a place unsettling to you, but not so much so that it's too scary? What makes the balance between acceptable enough that you don't run away, but odd enough to make you uncomfortable. Any sort of suggestion outside the initial idea I mentioned are appreciated.

 

You want to really mess with the player's mind with mind games. Blur the line between uniformity and imprisonment. For instance, have one of the 'defective' daughter whisper "Help me!" before turning back into an expressionless droid, only to be sent into a mission (and killed). String together a long line of breadcrumbs of abnormalities which leads to a major mind**** moment.

Have a sanity meter which decreases with each glitch encounter, changing the world ever weirder while the main character questions her sanity. Mothering and losing so many daughters (even though they are clones) can truly traumatize the human psyche.

But what really sells the creep factor would be the artwork. It must be disturbing. A dystopian future. Something like this.

All things considered, this is a great idea for a good game.