What creeps you out the most in games?

[Simon D. Aelsi]

a map that is determined to make it HARD for you to get away.

No.  A map that is hard to get away will only frustrate your players and earn you not only negative reviews, they'll tell everyone they know to avoid your game like the plague. Also, you'll earn a reputation for being a sadist...

Another thing:  you can have the best game in the world, but if you don't MARKET YOURSELF, you're doomed to fall.

 

[enothehippie]

The feeling you get when you realize all the characters have the same body model. It's like someone crapped them out of an endless cloning machine.

 

[Arkane609]

Anyone tried "Five Nights at Freddy's" yet?

Mascots are now in par with Mannequins in my NOPE list.

 

[Prescott]

I never liked jump scares. They're cheap and completely overdone. It's only good when there isn't a sound associated with it and it still scares you, or when it's something like a glass falling off a shelf, because it's not actually "scary" but it does instill a little bit more fear. You can't throw too many in there though otherwise the player will get used to them, and that's no fun. Gore is the same way. Tons of gore doesn't really work on people anymore, unless it's stuff that you haven't ever seen before (see Evil Dead; that movie sends shivers down my spine just thinking of the crazy crap that goes on), because even the casual gamer is used to gallons of blood. It has to be used in the right context, or mixed with some other terrible thing to really have a lasting effect.

Chase scenes for me never get old. They aren't permanently scary, but you freak out during the chase like no other. Outlast is a prime example of a chase scene horror game. It really freaks you out.

My personal favourite, however, is psychological horror. The early Silent Hill games, including the new P.T. and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories are perfect examples of psychological horror. The "uncanny valley" kind of stuff really jacks you up, because it takes something normal and completely turns it around on your brain so that you just naturally don't feel comfortable. There have been numerous moments in SH that have left a scar on my brain forever, most notably the strange fetus-like thing in the sink in P.T. that talks to you... nothing about that is right. That's why it's so freaky.

Creepy things are generally better than scary things, because scary things scare you for just a little bit. Creepy things affect you so much that you can't help but think of it at night. Sleeping with the lights on kind of stuff. Creepypasta is also a good example of having generally more creepy things over scary things.

Besides that, a lot of things contribute to the perfect horror experience, and I think games like Silent Hill(s) do that perfectly. Dark, morbid environments with low lighting and enclosed spaces, containing things that are "off" that make your mind triple guess itself and send you spiraling into a never-ending freak out session.

 

[Shelby]

Well it might sound weird but spelling errors! I just cringe when I play a RPG maker game buy some asian country and it's all misspelled. I even offer to fix the english! And all I get isfhfh gherethh fhffklefh dhfjdj. So yeah...your welcome.

 

[Diretooth]

Not... going to point out the irony.

For me, the true horror lies in the fridge horror. You play a game, you beat it, there's a twist at the end, and you go to the refrigerator to get something. Then, all of a sudden, you realize that the twist was foreshadowed subtly throughout the game.

Though, it's often more than that. Fridge Horror comes with realization, sometimes it's not intentional, sometimes it is. Unintentional would be realizing just how horrible a fate a character was dealt while it was played for laughs, intentional would be something odd about a scene, such as a strange clown offering to sell you potions and realizing that the color of the potions and their supposed effects match the blood color of certain dead characters...

I'll just leave you with this... http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeHorror

 

[Simon D. Aelsi]

Well it might sound weird but spelling errors! I just cringe when I play a RPG maker game buy some asian country and it's all misspelled. I even offer to fix the english! And all I get isfhfh gherethh fhffklefh dhfjdj. So yeah...your welcome.

That... could NOT be more racist...

 

[Shelby]

That... could NOT be more racist...

lol I did not tell them to make their game in English, i'm actually pretty sure nobody did, they have many RPG maker forums. If you are going to make a game and post it here for feedback then yea guess what people are gonna say something about it. And if you say your not even gonna fix the spelling errors then yea.

 

[Simon D. Aelsi]

lol I did not tell them to make their game in English, i'm actually pretty sure nobody did, they have many RPG maker forums.

Not everyone can be perfect at English. Of course, though, the fact that it's not even their native tongue is NOOO excuse, right? Not even a LITTLE consideration, eh?

 If you are going to make a game and post it here for feedback then yea guess what people are gonna say something about it.

Just because you CAN say something doesn't mean you SHOULD. Also, there's a world of difference between being CONSTRUCTIVE, things that can ACTUALLY HELP, and just being... well, mean.  Seeing this kind of rude and arrogant attitude really just makes me shake my head in disdain...

And if you say your not even gonna fix the spelling errors then yea.

They really said that? Huh... whatevs, that's between you and them.

 

[Shelby]

Yep no excuse, there is spell check. If I cannot understand the game story because the English is so bad I am going to say something, but no I did even more and offered to fix it and now your all sad about it. Not my fault, you post on here you gonna get feedback/opinions.

 

[Alexander Amnell]

That... could NOT be more racist...

   Actually it could, easily. That said (and this may sound weird to but...) I agree with Shelby here. I can speak Japanese well enough to understand/be understood by others; but I'd never try to translate my own game into Japanese and post it on a Japanese rpgmaker site as is because I'd probably be chased out by native speakers from that country with Shelby's own points angry about how I'm butchering their language into a nearly unintelligible mess. If English isn't your native language and you don't have the firmest grasp of it then fine, find someone who understands it better to proofread it for you before trying to release the game in English for an English community. I don't see how that isn't constructive criticism, the simple fact is if people can't even understand the dialogue in your games they probably aren't going to be playing it for very long let alone willing to buy it (ff7 not withstanding.).

   Honestly even if you are an English doctorate with half a dozen dictionary-sized novels under your belt I'd still say you need proofreaders before releasing anything written(as in a full public/commercial release), because everyone slips up and makes mistakes from time to time. That's not going to stop me from becoming perturbed whenever I purchase a book or a game only to find it riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, however. Something created that you expect people to purchase is a world away from posting topics in forums and all that, and expecting/demanding that people be okay with paying for something so unfinished as to not even be proofread is just unacceptable.

Edit: I just realized that this topic was about actual scary game mechanics and not scary game design choices, apologies.

   I have a hard time being scared by games honestly. I can't actually think of any jump-scares that got to me or even environmental effects that have unhinged me in the slightest. What Diretooth is referring to is probably the most effective use of horror elements in a game, but it really isn't 'scary' unless such elements where to come about in your actual life. (i.e. you see connections in actual events rather than how a game you've already moved on from comes together.) Foreshadowing can be a powerful tool though; I'll even use an rpgmaker example for this. The game 'unraveled' uses a lot of foreshadowing and symbolism out of the gate to give you a clear idea of it's direction from the very start. Because of this, even as the game goes into brighter and more colorful scenarios you know from the start that this isn't reality (within the game) and that as you keep going the story is going to deteriorate into sadness and solitude. This is the best example of true fear I can think of in a video game, when even in the midst of beauty and wonder you perceive that the characters in game are heading towards a tangible real world sorrow and you don't want that to happen. At the same time you want to beat the game, so you lead them onward ever present of their eventual tragedy. At the very least this type of foreshadowing causes me to become uneasy.

 

[Simon D. Aelsi]

Spoiler

   Actually it could, easily. That said (and this may sound weird to) but I agree with Shelby here. I can speak Japanese well enough to understand/be understood by others; but I'd never try to translate my own game into Japanese and post it on a Japanese rpgmaker site as is because I'd probably be chased out by native speakers from that country with Shelby's own points angry about how I'm butchering their language into a nearly unintelligible mess. If English isn't your native language and you don't have the firmest grasp of it then fine, find someone who understands it better to proofread it for you before trying to release the game in English for an English community. I don't see how that isn't constructive criticism, the simple fact is if people can't even understand the dialogue in your games they probably aren't going to be playing it for very long let alone willing to buy it (ff7 not withstanding.).

   Honestly even if you are an English doctorate with half a dozen dictionary-sized novels under your belt I'd still say you need proofreaders before releasing anything written(as in a full public/commercial release), because everyone slips up and makes mistakes from time to time. That's not going to stop me from becoming perturbed whenever I purchase a book or a game only to find it riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, however. Something created that you expect people to purchase is a world away from posting topics in forums and all that, and expecting/demanding that people be okay with paying for something so unfinished as to not even be proofread is just unacceptable.

Well said.

 

[Diretooth]

AAAANNNNYYYYWWWWAAAAYYYY...

The Uncanny Valley. You know, something that looks extremely real, but it's not, and there's just something not right about it. Like, the character has great expressiveness, but their eyes just seem dead, or maybe their smile is a bit too wide, maybe it's the awkward way they move, or the way their lips move when they speak.

 

[Perversewolf]

when I first met the tank on the first left 4 dead.

course after he killed me I shot the carp outta him