horror game tips and ideas

[johndfg 4]

I'm just starting a new horror game "half dead" and I need some help

The game is about a young boy in a bad coma because of brain damage from traumatic deaths of loved ones, which he blames himself for. He must go through a "dungeon" for each of those memories in the dream/ nightmare world, and after progressing through the dungeon, the number of flashbacks the player recovers will determine what ending the player gets.

What I want to know is, how do I make the game scary? I have the first few rooms of the first dungeon done, and I like the 'Witches House' style it has, but I need the game to stay scary throughout the story, and not be a carbon copy of the witches house or Ib.

I'm going to have the monsters of each dungeon be centered around the person/animal that the boy blames himself for their death, but I want to find a way for there to be one monster, but have different forms or something somehow so it doesn't get old.

I'm having trouble thinking of puzzles and clever ways to make each dungeon last a while, but also maintain the horror atmosphere.

-Thanks so much

EDIT

I found a tilesets/sprite designer!

Edited November 4, 2015 by johndfg

[Lord Vectra 414]

Sound effects are a great way to make the game scary. Like footsteps or whatnot. Random screams, yells, and make sure to tint the screen so it's dark.

[johndfg 4]

Sound effects are a great way to make the game scary. Like footsteps or whatnot. Random screams, yells, and make sure to tint the screen so it's dark.

I'm starting to implement those in my game, I don't know when or how to raise the atmosphere so the effects are scary

[Lord Vectra 414]

I'm not experienced in horror games.

From what I hear from ones who do, do you have a flashlight script?

[johndfg 4]

I'm not experienced in horror games.

From what I hear from ones who do, do you have a flashlight script?

Yes I do, but I've decided not to use one as of now

[Lord Vectra 414]

Interesting...

do you have blood tilesets?

[johndfg 4]

Interesting...

do you have blood tilesets?

Yes

[Lord Vectra 414]

Objects and walls?

[johndfg 4]

Objects and walls?

Yes, I have already started the game, I just need ideas on how to keep the horror atmosphere throughout the game with a good story and puzzle elements

[Lord Vectra 414]

SE is all I got. You could do scary BGS' and BGM's that play throughout the game. Have the music sound dark and evil, or dark and sad, or both.

[johndfg 4]

SE is all I got. You could do scary BGS' and BGM's that play throughout the game. Have the music sound dark and evil, or dark and sad, or both.

Yep, got that too

[Lord Vectra 414]

This is my last piece of advice. After this, I don't know what else to say...

 

You might just need a playtester.

Do you have one of those?

 

The reason I said playtester is because you aren't going to know if it's scary because it isn't scary to you. Of course, that's mainly because you made it.

Edited September 10, 2015 by Vectra

[johndfg 4]

This is my last piece of advice. After this, I don't know what else to say...

 

You might just need a playtester.

Do you have one of those?

 

The reason I said playtester is because you aren't going to know if it's scary because it isn't scary to you. Of course, that's mainly because you made it.

No...I never thought of that. Do you know how I could find someone willing to help me play test?

Thanks so much for your help, I understand you don't have much horror experience, but I really appreciate it!

[Lord Vectra 414]

Go to the recruitment forum and ask for one; someone is should be able to help you. I would help but I'm helping others and school so my days are really tight.

[johndfg 4]

Go to the recruitment forum and ask for one; someone is should be able to help you. I would help but I'm helping others and school so my days are really tight.

Haha I understand, I'm getting in about 1/2 scenes in a week because of school

[+ CVincent 234]

Be very careful about how you structure your game. Horror projects are already on ill-standing with many people and require a lot of effort and time to make interesting. The general concept of your game sounds fine, I might recommend focusing more on character building before moving into gameplay.

 

To start you have your main character. You need to make it clear why the boy went into a coma. How would he have received brain damage from seeing his loved ones pass away and why would he blame himself for these things? There should be a reason for this because it's important to have this information relevant throughout the entire game as you're setting a theme which has to be consistent.

 

In my opinion psychological horror is particularly interesting. You should use your character's history to make this even more apparent. Having a character been traumatized can be useful when building reasons to warp the character's vision, such as seeing the reanimated corpse of a family member after they had been in an accident. Things like these aren't normal, which is exactly something you'd be looking for. Maybe if the player fails to successfully complete a flashback then there would be consequences.

 

In terms of gameplay you wanted to have flashbacks, so as I mentioned above you can use these events in the character's life to build gameplay. Things the player does to prevent problems before they happen. I don't really know what kind of gameplay you're going for so this is just a suggestion.

 

Your game also doesn't seem to have a very clear resolution at the end. He wakes up from his coma and the player receives an ending sequence. Would any of it matter though? He'd still be upset knowing that his loved ones were gone, that pain would not fade over being in a dream-like state.

 

In terms of using scripts and resources to make your game; I want to inform you that it's not necessary to use a flashlight or lighting script. You could just as easily make your own light sources or do parallax mapping. It's amazing how many people make horror games and think they are scary simply because their view is limited. If it's an important tool in your game then make it used in specific areas for things such as the puzzles you wanted to make.

 

Overall just really think about your game's story, its characters and the plot from start to finish. If you want to make a scary game then everything needs to line up correctly or else the game may end up not being scary at all.

[johndfg 4]

Be very careful about how you structure your game. Horror projects are already on ill-standing with many people and require a lot of effort and time to make interesting. The general concept of your game sounds fine, I might recommend focusing more on character building before moving into gameplay.

 

To start you have your main character. You need to make it clear why the boy went into a coma. How would he have received brain damage from seeing his loved ones pass away and why would he blame himself for these things? There should be a reason for this because it's important to have this information relevant throughout the entire game as you're setting a theme which has to be consistent.

 

In my opinion psychological horror is particularly interesting. You should use your character's history to make this even more apparent. Having a character been traumatized can be useful when building reasons to warp the character's vision, such as seeing the reanimated corpse of a family member after they had been in an accident. Things like these aren't normal, which is exactly something you'd be looking for. Maybe if the player fails to successfully complete a flashback then there would be consequences.

 

In terms of gameplay you wanted to have flashbacks, so as I mentioned above you can use these events in the character's life to build gameplay. Things the player does to prevent problems before they happen. I don't really know what kind of gameplay you're going for so this is just a suggestion.

 

Your game also doesn't seem to have a very clear resolution at the end. He wakes up from his coma and the player receives an ending sequence. Would any of it matter though? He'd still be upset knowing that his loved ones were gone, that pain would not fade over being in a dream-like state.

 

In terms of using scripts and resources to make your game; I want to inform you that it's not necessary to use a flashlight or lighting script. You could just as easily make your own light sources or do parallax mapping. It's amazing how many people make horror games and think they are scary simply because their view is limited. If it's an important tool in your game then make it used in specific areas for things such as the puzzles you wanted to make.

 

Overall just really think about your game's story, its characters and the plot from start to finish. If you want to make a scary game then everything needs to line up correctly or else the game may end up not being scary at all.

In the story each of the dungeons are part of the character memory, the dungeon itself is the flashback, with the warped horror feel. As the player completes the dungeon, they can view the true flashback, where the character realizes the death was not his fault. As you progress, you see that the character was in so much psychological trauma, he fell into a coma(I'm looking for a scientific way to explain it as of now) as he successfully or unsuccessful completes the flashbacks, he will either get rid of the trauma that put him into a coma, or become deeper into the coma and ultimately die(good/bad endings)

Hope that helps, thanks

Edited September 10, 2015 by johndfg

[Rikifive 3,411]

For me:

- The most important are BGM/BGS (weirder = better [silent Hill didn't have that much music, simple weird loops and that really creates the ambiance])) Actually wrong music breaks the atmosphere, for me, simple short totally weird looped sounds are really great, since it makes you fell the ambiance. Personally I'd avoid using long music like in horror movies etc..

- Graphics - disgusting and weird ones can also create a great ambiance. (it'll be good for dream/nightmare world)

- Not much of RTP can be used, as it's simply not scary (simply lack of horror resources). You either need to search for resources or create/edit something by myself.

- No 'obvious' jumpscares. Create a good atmosphere first, by slowly making things worse - if you combine a great BGM/BGS with proper graphics, than it can make players scared, even if there's nothing around.

- Silent Hill does have all the things - for me it's a really good horror game and there's no *cheap* jumpscares - atmosphere scares you on its own.

- It's a nightmare world - you can do nearly everything here. Children are scared of many things, weird things - use imagination to create some creepy scenes etc.. You can also do something totally weird, it's a nightmare after all, everything can change in just one second.

- a horror game? Backtracking! xD Well, many horror games involves backtracking (u got a key, go back and open a door *woah*) - that will increase the playtime, but use wisely. Nah, it'll be stupid here. A kid floating around with keys... xD Or perhaps? A little?

 

These are just some thoughts and they can be stupid. Anyway good luck! (=

[johndfg 4]

For me:

- The most important are BGM/BGS (weirder = better [silent Hill didn't have that much music, simple weird loops and that really creates the ambiance])) Actually wrong music breaks the atmosphere, for me, simple short totally weird looped sounds are really great, since it makes you fell the ambiance. Personally I'd avoid using long music like in horror movies etc..

- Graphics - disgusting and weird ones can also create a great ambiance. (it'll be good for dream/nightmare world)

- Not much of RTP can be used, as it's simply not scary (simply lack of horror resources). You either need to search for resources or create/edit something by myself.

- No 'obvious' jumpscares. Create a good atmosphere first, by slowly making things worse - if you combine a great BGM/BGS with proper graphics, than it can make players scared, even if there's nothing around.

- Silent Hill does have all the things - for me it's a really good horror game and there's no *cheap* jumpscares - atmosphere scares you on its own.

- It's a nightmare world - you can do nearly everything here. Children are scared of many things, weird things - use imagination to create some creepy scenes etc.. You can also do something totally weird, it's a nightmare after all, everything can change in just one second.

- a horror game? Backtracking! xD Well, many horror games involves backtracking (u got a key, go back and open a door *woah*) - that will increase the playtime, but use wisely. Nah, it'll be stupid here. A kid floating around with keys... xD Or perhaps? A little?

 

These are just some thoughts and they can be stupid. Anyway good luck! (=

Thanks, I'm getting some ideas from this......

[Rikifive 3,411]

 

(Í¡ ͡° Íœ つ ͡͡°)つ  -Snipman-

Thanks, I'm getting some ideas from this......

 

That's what I wanted to achieve! ^^

I'm curious how your game will look like. Story concept seems great, nice stuff can be made of this.

[johndfg 4]

That's what I wanted to achieve! ^^

I'm curious how your game will look like. Story concept seems great, nice stuff can be made of this.

If the game goes how I want it to, I'll post a demo on this page and on the forum to see people's reactions, might take a while though, I have a lot of stuff to work with here.

[Rikifive 3,411]

I know what you mean, it's a really time consuming progress. =P

I wish you best of luck with your project, remember to don't give up! (=

[johndfg 4]

Thanks!!

Edited September 10, 2015 by johndfg

[Mysticphoenix 8]

Jump-scares every single step the character walks = profits. (Just kidding.)

 

Creepy BGM/BGS, creepy random sounds, creepy monster sprites, limited sight does help.

Edited September 10, 2015 by Mysticphoenix

[Kayzee 4,032]

Personally I never find most horror games scary. I am a much bigger fan of Yume Nikki style surreal horror then anything else. The coma idea could be used as a good excuse to do something like that but eh. Besides that, I would probably try and do ultra minimalist stuff too. Very little music and sound, make every sound be a huge event. Make enemies have a iconic skittering that you can hear long before you see them coming. Maybe have most of the graphics be black and white with splashes of red, or involve solid color silhouettes. Have any monsters be really fast but move along scripted routes maybe? Charging at you so you can step out of the way i you are quick, and have it be very hard to tell exactly what the  monsters actually are. Could they stalk you? Skitter quickly across the screen behind the player as a dark silhouette as you walk down a path, poking out from time to time be ore attacking? I donno.