Horror is a genre of gaming that most people don’t like getting into, but once they do, they can’t stop playing. They play many great horror games made by big companies and then start playing horror games made by smaller companies or one person. A game developer never wants to let down a player, but with so many great horror games out there that their audience has probably played or at least seen, it is hard to top them. They need to know what makes a good horror game. There are two “flavors of horror” that developers use. Western horror is visceral and the horror comes from the fear of being painfully murdered or eaten. Eastern horror is cerebral. The horror comes from feelings of isolation and paranoia. Once the developer figures out the
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The character should be designed to be very relatable. This means giving him/her very generic features like brown eyes to relate to a very wide audience. It is very important for the player to relate to the character, because that creates empathy. Because relatability is so important, the character should also have realistic power and emotions. He/she shouldn’t be incredibly weak, but they shouldn’t be able to kill everything with one hit either. The character’s emotions should be the same as a real person’s emotions in that situation. One of the most frustrating parts about a character is their incompetence. It is most frustrating when you can’t do anything about it. This is why the character should not show incompetence in things like cutscenes where the player has no control. Even though incompetence can be frustrating, it can sometimes be a very useful tool for the developer. Incompetence is used to make the player panic. You can do this by making the character fumble with their weapon when they are being chased, trip over a rock in a forest, etc. When the character is designed, they need an intriguing backstory. In the game, reveal the backstory in pieces. This will keep the player thinking and leave them open for any scares you want to give …show more content…
They can get very frustrated because the game is not made or designed well. A frustration can be bad camera control. This means the camera is not focused on the character most of the time or that the player has to somehow control a very inconvenient camera. Another frustration is glitches. They can be very funny, but that takes a lot of the horror out of a horror game. Most of the time, accidental glitches can crash the game or prevent the character from performing an important action. The last frustration I will tell you about is plot holes. These just make the game more unrealistic and annoying. Plot holes can be things like the character, not throwing a knife that was right next to them at an important enemy, to the character being born in 1942, but having his/her twentieth birthday in 1965. A player can also lose interest because of boredom. This can be triggered by having too many useful items at the beginning of the game. These items can be armor, health drops, weapons, etc. Another thing that can trigger boredom is cliches. Cliches are overused elements in games. This can be zombies, silent halls, etc. The last thing that can make a player lose interest in the game is if the game is geared toward the other gender or a different age group. It is hard to make this mistake in horror games, but it can happen. If it does, the game just lost many people who would have otherwise played
The character should be designed to be very relatable. This means giving him/her very generic features like brown eyes to relate to a very wide audience. It is very important for the player to relate to the character, because that creates empathy. Because relatability is so important, the character should also have realistic power and emotions. He/she shouldn’t be incredibly weak, but they shouldn’t be able to kill everything with one hit either. The character’s emotions should be the same as a real person’s emotions in that situation. One of the most frustrating parts about a character is their incompetence. It is most frustrating when you can’t do anything about it. This is why the character should not show incompetence in things like cutscenes where the player has no control. Even though incompetence can be frustrating, it can sometimes be a very useful tool for the developer. Incompetence is used to make the player panic. You can do this by making the character fumble with their weapon when they are being chased, trip over a rock in a forest, etc. When the character is designed, they need an intriguing backstory. In the game, reveal the backstory in pieces. This will keep the player thinking and leave them open for any scares you want to give …show more content…
They can get very frustrated because the game is not made or designed well. A frustration can be bad camera control. This means the camera is not focused on the character most of the time or that the player has to somehow control a very inconvenient camera. Another frustration is glitches. They can be very funny, but that takes a lot of the horror out of a horror game. Most of the time, accidental glitches can crash the game or prevent the character from performing an important action. The last frustration I will tell you about is plot holes. These just make the game more unrealistic and annoying. Plot holes can be things like the character, not throwing a knife that was right next to them at an important enemy, to the character being born in 1942, but having his/her twentieth birthday in 1965. A player can also lose interest because of boredom. This can be triggered by having too many useful items at the beginning of the game. These items can be armor, health drops, weapons, etc. Another thing that can trigger boredom is cliches. Cliches are overused elements in games. This can be zombies, silent halls, etc. The last thing that can make a player lose interest in the game is if the game is geared toward the other gender or a different age group. It is hard to make this mistake in horror games, but it can happen. If it does, the game just lost many people who would have otherwise played