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What Scares Game Developers?
John Callaham writes "Gamecloud has a new feature this Halloween asking game developers from id, Epic, Gearbox (among others) about what games scared them and why." From the article: "Todd Hollenshead - id Software: 'DOOM 3! Of course.' John Romero - former id and Ion Storm designer: 'My personal second scariest game was probably the Ravenholm section of Half Life 2. Man, when those screaming, galloping zombies are tearing around on top of a building and coming at you or clawing their way up a drainpipe - it's INSANE!'"
...of his own game! That's scary! :)
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Want to know what really scares game developers??
I thought Alone in the Dark (the first one) was pretty scary....
I can't believe nobody mentioned System Shock 2. Not for the "Holy Bajeezus" startle-the-crap-outta-you kind of scare, but for the unnerving, menacing, heebie-jeebies kind of scare that you get when a blood-covered guy with a parasite going out of his chest and onto his head runs at you with a steel pipe, saying, "I'm sooorrrrrrrryyyyy...." Or when a protocol droid steps gingerly toward you, saying, "That's the Tri-Optimum way," and you know you've got to beat feet before it explodes in your face. The game robs you of human* contact, constantly holding the possibility of finding someone else still alive on the ship just out of reach.
(*Yeah, I know "human" contact is something of a stretch, since it's just a game, but I couldn't help thinking throughout the game that there's safety in numbers.)
To a limited extent. The two most recent frightening experiences were the "We don't go to Ravenholm" level in Half-Life 2 and Resident Evil 4. Doom 3, not so much scary, I mean, it's doom, monster-in-a-closet is old hat, and it's cheap.
Going back further though, we have System Shock 1&2, which were both excellent.
System Shock 2 had me sitting wide-eyed the whole time.
So, I'll have to go with System Shock 2.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
That game scared the living crap out of me. I walked around with the lights on for a week after that game. My wife sat with me while I was playing and after 2 minutes she walked out of the room since it scared her so much. It creates this environment that is just so suspenseful you nearly wet yourself when something jumps out at you.
I was quoted out of context in my autobiography...
"...and we're releasing it next month."
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
The scariest video game moments, a few come to mind.
The last level of Zelda 1, that music was eery. In fact, the whole northwest corner of the map was scary. The second quest even moreso.
Castlevania 2, all of it.
There's one more that I immediately think of, though I think a few will disagree, Legacy of the Wizard. It wasn't supposed to be a scary game, but there was just something about it where I was scared to shit whenever I was deep in the dungeons.
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"It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue."
Scarier words have never been written into a game. Never thought that text games would give my nephews nightmares... boy was I mistaken.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I almost had an heart attack playing Alien Versus Predator with a 4 speaker system. Just remembering those "blips" on the radar gives me chills... System Shock 2 was also very scary: because of the constant respawn of zombies and other not so friendly beings, one never could feel safe, there was no "clear area". Also, the best hard science fiction game I ever played!
All those are fairly scary .. but what truly terrifies them is Working for EA
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Anyone that has played Thief sure remember the haunts mumbling "Flames, nothing but flames, burning my flesh..." in the cathedral level. Not only that, when you disturbed them, they started shouting "Join us!! Join us now!!!".
Try to stand calm in a corner of a room with four of those haunts in "search-mode". Eric Brosius, the sound designer, did a fantastic job with Thief and System Shock 2, other of my favourites. Also very scary.
Those two, Thief and System Shock 2, should definitely be topping the list of the scariest games ever made. Weird none of those designers even mention them.
The craddle level in Thief 3 was "good" too...
Just my two cents.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former" - Albert Einstein.
Civ III - when the enemy discovers motorized transport and all you have are those stupid knights. Now that's scary!
Use to get scared in the dungeons especially when your torch was running out, then getting attacked by ghouls and skeletons.. also the destroyed city was creepy.
Not only did this game have a really good story, but it was damn scary. With positional audio, a mere walk through some woods was reduced to a white knuckled adventure because as you're walking, suddenly you hear a second set of footsteps - which stop the second you quit moving.
Or being in a hotel at night and walking into a room with some... THING... in there, that's covered in rusty metal and dried blood that just turns and tries to kill you mindlessly. Don't even get me started on the nurses.
Anyway, the SH series of games has always been great for scares. They're my favorites.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
Play the Ocean House part with headphones and the lights turned off. IF YOU DARE!
My favorite part was when you fall into the basement laundry room and read a newspaper article about the decapitated child that was found there years ago. Then suddenly the washing machine turns on. THUNK-THUNK, THUNK-THUNK
"He's right behind you!"
It's a shame that it and the sequel, "The 11th Hour", became fairly unplayable (with respect to system compatibility) once the new waves of computers came down the pipe.
The Beowerewulf
Pac-Man. When that little red ghost is quickly closing in...
so close...
gaining...
the faint sound of 'wakka.... wakka.... (silence)'
so close... the air is chilled.
THEN HE GETS YOU! "Mwah mwah mwah".
*shiver*
And they said zombies weren't real!
Doom 3 was pretty scary, but it was mostly just jump/shit-your-pants tactics such as stuff jumping out at you from the dark... Not to mention that that game was dark the entire time and that kind of ruined it.
Half-Life 2 had its moments as well, as was mentioned in the story, Ravenholm was scary. I don't really remember many other parts of HL2 that were incredibly scary though.
F.E.A.R. was just downright creepy from the start, and it just gets creepier as you go.
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The 7th Guest and the 11th Hour were really scary with all the live video mixed in with the haunted house and creepy people talking.
Phanasmagioria ...
It was probably the first major Horror videogame; it had some disturbing scenes that could really mess people up.
Here I am, sitting in my basement, 30 years old, finding myself having to save the game and go upstairs (during the day, I might add) after hearing that faint whisper:
"Sssssave me."
or
"This way."
or
"Follow me..."
*gah*
Towards the end of the game, the imp summoning was nothing. I'd wait until they were close, and blast them with my shotgun. But when I first started playing that game, I found I was more freaked out than the first time watching the Nightmare on Elm Street.
And they said zombies weren't real!
The Shalebridge Cradle.. Definitely one of the more scary video game experiences as of late.
Now that game was scary. The sites and sounds of your brothers screaming as there're been ripped to shreds by the Genestealers.
Not only was it a FPS, you can also fight hand to hand with the monsters.
The sound was awesome.I remember playing the game with a friend and the stereo was up. All you can hear were gene stealers coming closer and your brothers fighting them off as bet they could. Eventually our defense was breached I started fighting them off hand to claw. As soon as I killed one I turned around and a genestealer clawed me in the neck and killed me.I was so startled I fell out the chair, my friend ejected himself from the bed where he was sitting into the wall hitting his head.We looked at each other and and laughed.I was never terrified by any game before or since.
'Pluvius behind you'
'Curses my bolters jammed'
'We are there DOOM!'
I loved that game, wish there was a proper sequel.
Too bad EA doesn't make games like that anymore.
I can not for the life of me remember this game which I'll describe. If someone else does, please do tell since I would like to perhaps try and find it for an emulator. Anyway, you are doing various rescue missions on desolate planets, you have to pick up humans which you see as blips on the screen. When you land you turn off your shields and whatnot and wait for the "person" to come into view running towards the ship. They begin to knock and you either decide to let them in, or fry them with the shields... see if they are human, they slowly begin to knock slower and slower... until they die... if it is an alien, it jumps violently onto your windshield with a spooky looking face and errie sounds which always made me jump. Was a fun game, just cant think of it!
The problem is that the game repeats the same scares over and over for too long until they're no longer scary. It's like watching Nightmare on Elm Street 1 to 6, by the time you get to part 6 it's no longer scary and you forget how scary it was in the first place. I can't help but think the game would have been a lot better if they shortened it and took out most of the monster closets, allowing the tension to build more in places.
For a moment I thought it was a list of scary things from Todd Hollenshead, and that John Romero was the second scariest thing to him. ;p
DAIKATANA!!! Oh, imagine the nightmare of having that attached to your resume on your way to your next job, being that a flop that big probably cost your current one.
Bill Kunkel - Running With Scissors
The first scare is always the best, and the first time a disguised Jaggi got into my ship in the early 80s LucasFilm (pre-LucasArts) game, "Rescue on Fractalus" for the C64 and Atari computers from Epyx. If you didn't recognize the telltale greenish tint on the "pilot" you thought you were rescuing and let it into your airlock, a great monster suddenly looms up in front of the windshield and slammed it to pieces. It was the first time a game ever actually frightened me.
(bold added)
That's what scares me...
For me, I have never been more scared when playing the Paris Catacombs levels in Deus Ex (the first one). After playing more populated levels (such as New York and the very bright and not-scary Hong Kong) the isolation and darkness of the Catacombs was a very good contrast. Also, the much tougher enemies started to appear which only magnified the effect. Although Doom 3 was well scary, it still did not match the atmosphere that the developers of Deus Ex created for the Catacombs levels, probably because you were expecting to be scared by Doom 3.
I bought a Playstation, bought RE2 after deciding FF7 wasn't for me. I tried playing it, frustrated with the controls and the zombies biting me. Scared me pretty bad in that I gave up playing it and I was only 1 minute into the game. My neighbors in college picked it up and played in my room. All of the sudden, while I was there, he shrieked out very loud. Not to insult the ladies, but he literally sounded like a girl. I didn't experience it first hand, but I sure had a good laugh.
Don't know what it is called, but it is the level you walk through in its entirety without encountering a single enemy, and then switch some system on, and go back again.
The game never gave me any indication that this would now be a phase without enemies, and the further I went, the more my palms started to sweat (always play with dimmed lights and with good headphones) because "pretty soon something just has to happen", and I really began shadow hugging and turned around corners as if it was a stealth game.
Then after tunrning that switch, the lighting changes from some green-orange tint to eerie blue, all the doors close again (but they are transparent, so you can still see far), the machines begin to hum again and a faint fog is added. And then suddenly these scary flying monsters that detach themselves from the wall and can teleport around and make this otherworldy shrieks...
Definately the scariest game scene for me in the last months.
I agree with a lot of other comments... System Shock 2 was scary, as was Resident Evil 4 (the Gamecube Resident Evils in general were quite well made).
I also remember Undying being pretty scary in parts... I thought that game was underrated.
my religion lies somewhere between buddhism and super monkey ball - pamphlet?
Ok.. not most of Max Payne, but the nightmare/hallucination scenes? Really creepy as you try to follow the cries of your baby.
Of course, System Shock 2 as well... 7th Guest had its moments.
Let us not forget getting chased by those ghosts in Super Mario either..
- In hell, treason is the work of angels.
threads. the multi-core cpus in next generation consoles are forcing the issue.
There's a point in Eternal Darkness where, just as you leave one of the rooms, there's a loud pounding on a door somewhere. I was too scared to go on for several minutes.
Shortly after that, I went upstairs, explored the bathroom, and realized my first instincts were probably right.
"Do you expect me to talk?" "No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die!"
Monolith's "F.EAR" is the most recent game to actally creep me out. It's got hallucinatory effects that are genuinely spooky. Silicon Knights' "Eternal Darkness" had something similar (and was creepy in its own right), but it was tied to a "sanity meter"- so if you played right, you'd never even encounter them. Kinda unfortunate, since they made it possible (and desirable) to avoid the coolest feature of the game. FEAR, on the other hand, does it at set points so that it's unavoidable. It's definitely a game best played in the dark with the sound turned way up.
Another creepy game is Thief 3: Dark Shadows. It's not necessarily the atmosphere that's scary, as the constant tension of sneaking around. That's not saying the game isn't scary in its own right, though- the sanitarium is one of the single creepiest levels I've ever played.
Has no one mentioned Thief: Deadly Shadows? Even though you play as the 'terror that lurks in the night,' the atmosphere of that game is thick with horror.
For example, the mansion with the grieving, insane, widow-in-denial. As you lurk about in the shadows, lightning flashes over the sea, sporadically illuminating the dark corridors and stairwells. The servants and guests at the estate wander about, humming to themselves, unaware of you, laughing nervously when they catch the sound of your footsteps.
What's so eerie about that level is that the widow's late husband was lost at sea, after having discovered something that you want to get your hands on. You are essentially grave-robbing. Even though you are the 'terror' in the mansion, you wonder if the late Captain is scowling over your shoulder, from beyond the grave. Suddenly, the shadows don't seem so welcoming as they have been, up to this point.
Then there is the matter of the widow herself, whom you must talk to. In her tower, at the top of a long, spiralling staircase, she looks out over the sea, waiting for her husband to return. Convincing herself, in her insane grief, that he will return, she sings and coos, inquiring for her husband at every rustle. The edge in her voice is lonely and terrifying, and it echoes throughout the entire top floor of the estate.
I have never in my long life as a gamer been more reluctant to walk up a set of steps.
And then there are the ratmen and statues. Let's not mention them.
That game scared the hell out of me. And Myst III: Exile is the only game so far that has scared me half to death because something moved..
"he, who has quotes in his signature, is a douche" - unknown.
The fact that Duke Nuke 'Em Forever may actually hit the shelves... Or: 1. Management change the minimum spec from a 5Ghz CPU to 286. 2. Deadline mysteriously alters from next year to next month. 3. Asked to put in a simulated porn film easter egg which could potentially kill the company through law suits and make you loose your job...
Judging by the characters left out of their games, developers are apparantly scared of gay people, women who don't fit some weird pubescent fantasy, and foreigners who aren't ethnic stereotypes.
apt-get install deathstar && deathstar alderaan && echo "You're far too trusting"
A friend of mine actually owned a PC when I was in college. He had just gotten a huge 1GB hard drive and was downloading DOOM wads like a madman when he came across the Alien wad. The damn mobs moved so friggin fast. Playing the game with all of the lights turned off, a blanket over my head and monitor, with headphones on literally had me jumping out of the seat when one of the aliens would pop out of its hiding place and rip my face off.
assert(expired(knowledge));
I would have thought Electronic Arts would have got a much better run
Absolutely the first level of the Aliens TC for Doom. The first level. Not one monster on the whole level, but I wasted just about all my ammo shooting at random noises and doors that opened by themselves. -shudder-
The zombie grungily walking towards you is now "that model made by Kenneth Scott with the grunting made by that voice actor (we had some pretty fun times creating those grunting loops !) that gets triggered once you walk past that cabinet".
I think it's lame to call Doom 3 the scariest game : Not even because he is (partly) the creator of it himself, but because it just... wasn't.
3. Max Payne - dream sequence
2. KOTOR 2 - Sith Tomb
1. Half Life 2 - Ravenhome
omg read the part about half life 2 just gave me goosepumps.. uh.. remember back when you were trapped in the forgotten city full of zombies jumping roof to roof pumping up and slashing at you... then the guy setting himself on fire to kill all the zombies... god.. IMO, games are alot scarrier if it provide you with breaks. for games like Doom 3 and FEAR, i found it very scary the first hour of game time, then it just became like "o yea, im going to turn this corner, and 10 [insert scary monster name] is going to pop out and there is going to be freaky music etc etc. so it wasn't scary anymore because i was expecting something to pop out around every corner.
Im sorry but I really dont see what was so scary about that level. To me it was just another level, samething but a little darker and with some kool traps. Doom III actually was scary, when a monster jumped out it really would scare you. F.E.A.R I cannt comment on because THEY DONT HAVE A LINUX PORT AND CEDEGA DOSNT WORK WITH IT!!!
Has anyone else played Illbleed for the Dreamcast? The game's scariness did not come from shock/jump tactics that were employed in Doom 3, for example, but from the outright twisted ideas behind the game. Though plagued by horrendous controls, the mere concept of some of the challenges were enough to keep me from playing for extended periods of time.
Imagine a young girl playing jumprope with some happy playground music going in the background.
Now imagine that girl being told by something invisible that she was going to play jumprope with it, and the rope would now be made of razors.
Alone in the dark! Atmospheric sounds and low-poly monsters played in a dark basement..
The Alien game on the old C64 was the only game to ever really scare me.
There I was, watching the bright-gray scenery drift by as I was looking for aliens when suddenly one popped up right in front of me.
Took me about half a second to find the "Off" switch on the computer.
Tried playing the game again on several occasions but it never got anywhere even close to that experience again.
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I remember playing 7th guest with my brother and thinking that it was one of the most atmopheric games ever. We were only about 7 or 8 but it left us pretty twitchy.
While Dark Seed wasn't a very good game (puzzles weren't as good as Monkey Island for example), the creature designs and backdrops were very creepy.
Alien breed on the Amiga when the siren went off and you had to run !!
s hots.php
bring it back
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/xavnet/alienbreed/
http://www.mentalillusion.co.uk/alienbreed/screen
ERR 411[Max number of witty sigs reached]
. . . In resident evil, you see through the super zombies eyes as it runs across the courtyard and through the door towards you, and you can't do anything. I just died straight away. . . . In Balders Gate 2 when you first turn into a crazy stalker demon and attack your party, you are desperately trying to get them to run away while it takes chunks out of your people.
If this were really happening, what would you think?
I have the dubious pleasure of having a girlfriend that likes horror games.
...8)
...
So much that she makes me swap my xbox with a friends Cube so she can play Resident Evil.
Now the game that she likes/dislikes the most is Project Zero.
The sound is quite evil sounding, picture is always darkish, very well made, your only weapon is a camera, and you can't run...you can really speak about ambiance
and with 5.1, you really hear them coming at you from behind.
I know that my girlfriend don't want to play it too late at night.
And I found that reaction funny, because Lovecraft used to get the same from me
From what I read, when they showed the Project Zero -2 at the latest game convention, the poor guy doing the demo was freaked everytime a ghost came into view, which must have made his day quite long. Maybe I'll go and get it for her this christmas 8)
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
What's with everyone trying to reclassify Doom as a horror game ever since Doom 3 came out? It's an action game. It's always been an action game. It's not scary.
There was something terrifying to me, as a 9 year old, playing the game. You'd walk around peacefully and then out of NOWHERE, and seemingly entirely random, evil music plays and an enemy appears. And then you normally tried to hop into a lake to avoid dying.
The witch put you into her cauldron and made stew out of me. And my hat!
Something about how completely random it was...I *still* hate that music.
Also, to anyone else that played it, my memory is a bit fuzzy, and I need someone to tell me if I dreamed this up or not...but if you stood outside Hagatha's cave for a long period of time, would her car eventually drive past? I could swear I remember a Batmobile-like car driving around...does anyone else know?
I'm not scared of anonymous cowards.
When I was playing System Shock 2 and saw one of those creepy red ninja zombies scurry across the room, I involuntarily shoved my keyboard right off my desk.
Loved this article, and I've loved all the scary games that everyone's been mentioning.
I do award minus several hundred style points to Michael Capp (from Epic) though for using the opportunity to plug his current game.
Boo! Hiss!
Would've been greater had they spent the time to finish out the office building's scripted scenes so they didn't have to change some character roles and hack the story up into bits easy enough to digest via lots and lots of voicemail.
Worst scares for me? (Spoilers ahead naturally.)
Seriously, spoilers.
*The first time a vision of Fettel's victims flashes in your eyes.
*The early Alma attack that sends you flying out of the warehouse window.
*Alma surprising you from behind in the sewer access area early on. When you hear her laugh and turn around ot see her dart out of sight behind a corner.
*"STAY OUT OF MY WAY."
*The now semi-infamous ladder scene. EXCELLENT use (or abuse) of your visual range.
*Alma crawling after you in one of the crawlspaces. I about fell out of my chair.
*Watching Fettel wander down a hallway on a video screen, only to see Alma pop up.
*Funny enough, most of the times when you get the tell-tale *UNKNOWN SOURCE* static, and nothing happens outside of lights flickering.
*Some of the longer, more intense hallucinations.
*The ending. No, not the kinda lame ghost battle. The copter.
Haven't seen it mentioned, but it's a horror FPS that's set in a huge randomly generated building. There are screaming ghosts and silent dogs that look incredibly evil but make no noise as they just stare at you before attacking. It's very well done, with a old-skool movie style soft filter over everything that adds to the tension. It's a so-so game though, but the atmosphere is amazing. and it's really freaky.
The spiders in Doom3, the haunted house in Vampire : Bloodlines, most of AvP1 and 2 and the spiders/nurses in System Shock 2 have all made me pause the game and turn on the lights on occasion as well.
My girlfriend would sit and watch me play, and she's freak out by the ambient sounds; somehow the murderous spider monkeys made her particularily spooked. I liked it because she'd snuggle up to me in bed afterwards all scared and "big guy protect me from the monkeys."
When she started mumbling "I need meat for my little ones" during the day, then *I* was spooked.
The suffering 1, terrifing game. Creapy as hell.
Scary the whole way through.
That said, after watching House on Haunted Hill (no, not the lousy sequel), anyone else think a game based on that would be interesting? Random creepy things happening, but you're armed with a gun that has a limited number of bullets and you can't shoot innocent guests who startle you. The game is randomized as to which events might actually be real encounters so you have to wait to see if something is really attacking you rather than shooting at the first thing that moves.
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