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!'"

Comments

Fatal Frame 2

[AdamWeeden]

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.

Re:Fatal Frame 2

[KDR_11k]

I only played the first one but I got to say it's the only scary game I ever played. Sure, I missed out on System Shock but modern "scary" games like Doom 3, Eternal Darkness, Resident Evil or FEAR don't even seem mildly creepy to me. I guess it's rather hard to be afraid when you are the one holding the BFG. Hearing noises and stuff isn't creepy, in a game it's normal to have a monster right around the corner and most of it is ambient noise anyway. Project Zero/Fatal Frame is the only game I know of that makes the enemies themselves frightening instead of merely relying on darkness and cheap scares. In PZ the ghosts that appear can hurt you and they are hard to track so there's always uncertainity to combat. There's no uncertainity when you're blowing away soldiers or demons with machineguns, rocketlaunchers and BFGs. There's also the difference between seeing the walls turn to blood or some nasty scene because in a game that just happens and those harmless ghosts in Project Zero because they aren't easy to tell apart from the harmful ones.

Having hallucinations, visions, apparitions in games doesn't mean jack if those things don't hurt the player. While finding yourself wading through blood and seeing screaming faces coming out of the wall will freak you out in real life, in a game it's just part of the level design and isn't surprising for the same reason you aren't surprised when you hear that shy girl you've been travelling with in jRPG #311 is the key to saving the world or when you encounter an unknown alien race on a simple scout mission.

7th Guest!

[cbrichar]

The 7th Guest still holds a place of honour in my memory for delivering some of the creepiest gaming moments I've ever had. I can still remember that awful, mocking laugh of Henry Stauf bouncing off the walls as the paintings suddenly came to life with gruesome depictions. And that haunting violin that plays in the opening cinematic? Classic haunted house horror.

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.

Re:Huh?

[dave-tx]

...I couldn't help thinking throughout the game that there's safety in numbers

Nicely put. Thinking back, I can specifically remember the feeling of being completely alone and paranoid that System Shock 2 created. SS2 was far and away the creepiest game that I've ever played - it left me jittery even after I'd turned it off and left the computer.

Doom 3, I agree.

[Sierpinski]

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.

Clive Barker's Undying

[TheWickedKingJeremy]

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.

Re:Huh?

[Tim C]

Doom 3 had me feeling reluctant to go on at times, but only System Shock 2 (so far) has actually, properly unnerved me.

I was playing it late at night one time, and eventually gave in to the lateness of the hour. Before going to bed, I popped downstairs to grab a drink. Standing in the kitchen, looking out into the pitch dark of the wee small hours of the morning, I couldn't shake the feeling that any moment now, a hybrid was going to smash its way in through the glass door, muttering "Silence the discord..."

Other games have made me nervous while I've been playing them, but only Shock 2 has kept it up after the PC has powered down. If only there was a chance of a third.

While we're on the subject, I really liked that aspect of other people being constantly just out of reach too. As you say, it helped to emphasise your solitude - if you could just get through the next area a little faster, maybe you could catch up...

Re:I'll Tell You What Scares Game Developers

[cgenman]

"The publisher wants Multiplayer. Online. The ship date can't slip."

"The design isn't finished, and the art won't be ready until next month. Could you code up the interface this week?"

"Just make the code do whatever it is that it's supposed to do."

"How hard could adding a story be?"

"Don't worry, we won't crunch for long this time."

"At the publisher's behest, we're going to have a focus test. With the publisher's kids."

"Of course I put it in. That was a full system re-write. Besides, we have at least a day before E3."

"We have a milestone due later today, so I finally got around to creating those task lists."

"The president thinks we don't need a lead artist."

"There is an e-mail virus going around today. If you're reading this, your e-mail client is open and you're probably infected. Yank your ethernet cable now!"

"On this project, we're using all publisher QA."

My list

[sabit666]

3. Max Payne - dream sequence
2. KOTOR 2 - Sith Tomb
1. Half Life 2 - Ravenhome

Re:Thief: The Dark Project

[cortana]

Having just read Journey into the Cradle, I simply have to share a choice quotation. It is haloween, after all. ;)

PC Gamer: Any particular incidents stuck in your memory from your research?

Jordan Thomas: One story involved a patient who managed to escape into the storage wings of the asylum, and because of her eroded state-of-mind, she became lost and succumbed to starvation. The
place was such a teeming 'snake pit' that she wasn't missed, and the stain from her body seeped permanently into the wood.

Another involved a man who was committed as a toddler. Decades later, when asked to sign his own name, he drew a rough silhouette of the hospital. The place was so omnipresent and dominant a force in his life that it eclipsed his identity. The Cradle was built out of that sort of cheery material.