IMMERSED IN HORROR

Luca Manley Design: Sam Angel

The calculated psychology of creepy video games

What do you associate with horror? Monsters? The dark? Creepy serial killers that you saw on some documentary? What scares you? Now imagine being completely immersed in that horror, that’s what video games have achieved. With groundbreaking technology, the gaming industry has been able to strike gold.

Ever since the ‘90s the gaming industry has been reinventing horror. For example, in March 2000 Capcom created survival horror Resident Evil. The game set the bar for survival horror and horror games in general with sound design and graphics which at that time were impressive. However the magic lay with the gameplay. Throughout the whole experience you play through a fixed camera, watching your character from the end of a hallway or from the top of a door frame. It created a claustrophobic environment, keeping the player constantly guessing and dreading what would be around the next corner. Resident Evil caught the attention of the public and its success led to it being the IP it is today, with 28 games, seven movies and four shows. With over 100,000 concurrent players active after the latest release and with 70–80% of them completing the game to its fullest, it seems Capcom won’t be running out of success any time soon.

Reasons for success

So what made it so accomplished? One word: immersion. This is key to creating a successful game. Sure, watching a movie can be spooky when you’re yelling at the character to not go into the haunted house, but when immersion is done well and the responsibility for survival falls on you. It can stimulate the part of your brain associated with fight or flight, releasing the hormone adrenaline in a similar way to the effect a roller-coaster might have.

So what creates successful immersion? Setting is the key first step, allowing visuals to let the player feel like they are really there. Whether it’s running from an alien in the middle of a space station or investigating a haunted house, the visuals need to make you feel immersed in the location. Secondly, sound design needs to be factored in. Most players use headphones or speakers so a developer must always put time and effort into the audio environment – the weight of footsteps, creaking doors, howling of the wind and the sound of whatever the threat may be.

Psychology and manipulating the mind of the player

The third step to immersing a player is by subverting their expectation. A perfect example of this is in the hit game PT. Your character wakes up in an empty house, a radio plays describing a gruesome crime and you walk down the hallway of this house. The layout of the environment you’re in is an L-shaped hallway. When you reach the door at the end of the hallway you expect to open it and unlock a new section of the house, but when the player goes through that door they find themselves back at the beginning of the hallway, so you’re stuck in an endless loop.

It’s scenarios like these that succeed in immersion, applying something small, within a grand concept. Another key to creating a successful horror game is the method of show-not-tell. A game can lose it’s immersive quality when it holds the player’s hand and tells them where to go, what to do and what thing to pick up. But a successful horror game strips the player of any resource they might expect to have. A good example of this is in a game called Outlast. You have no weapon, no to-do list, no set goal in mind, allowing the player to find their own approach to survival. The environments are mostly dark so you’re armed with a night vision camera, but what happens when the player loses that camera in a story point? You become more involved with what you’re doing. It introduces new threats or expands upon those already in the game, basically dragging the player deeper into the screen.

The instrusion of reality

The final step in the process that a developer might use is to break the fourth wall. Doing so creates an atmosphere and tension that induces a sense of unease for the player. There’s something unsettling and exciting when a game directly interacts with you and can trigger a chemical reaction that floods your body with adrenaline, which can often be exhilarating for the player. An example of this occurs the game PT, when at a certain point in the game many players found themselves stuck, not knowing what to interact with. Experienced players searched deep into the files to see if they could get the answer there, and lo and behold, the game requires you to say out loud into the microphone, the name of a character when a man in the radio suddenly addresses the player directly. Another great example of this can be seen in Doki Doki literatur Club. On the surface level it seems like your average dating sim but when you play enough the fourth wall and the game breaks, sending the player spiralling into a rabbit hole of disturbing stories. At the end the game reads the profile you are playing on, and calls you by your name, not the username but your legal name.

Your creepiest favorites

So what horror game do you think is the best? 40% of students said that Phasmaphobia, an online multiplayer ghost simulator, was their favourite, while 60% of other students claimed that single player horror is better and more effective. No matter the popularity, does your number one game follow the criteria? If you’re not sure, why don’t you experiment? Below we feature some age-suitable games you could try today. What are you waiting for? Grab the controller and the popcorn, turn off those lights and experience the horror first hand.

AGE-SUITABLE HORROR GAMES

The Little Nightmare series Rated age 12 and up. Among the Sleep Rated for age 10 and up. Slender: The Arrival Rated age 10 and up.