A game that really sends the chills down your spine

Event Horizon was one freaky book, if they do a good job it''ll definitely be a scary game.

I can think of three basic elements which have often made me a little scared during gameplay...

Knowledge of my own mortality (ie. I *think* 1 more hit will kill me)

Lack of knowledge of my enemy (ie. I have no idea what it looks like, where it is, or even *if* it is)

Infrequent encounters (ie. It''s been five minutes since I was last in combat, and I keep expecting something around the next corner, but it never comes, so the suspense builds)

A really good plot helps too. In fact, I think some of my best experiences have been times when all of the above conditions were met, but due to the plot I needed to rush through an area recklessly to get somewhere quickly (save a hostage, escape an explosive device on a timer, ...etc.)

One of the scariest parts of a game for me was in half-life when i was trying to line up the air-strike to hit the huge monster who was about 1 second from eating me whole.

Generally movies don''t scare me anymore because they are just tooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo predictable.

Definition of Progress: Durability control (see Financial interests of stockholders)

I think a game based around the movie ''Pitch Black'' would be a nice idea. The movie itself was scary and having to live in a world with no light would scare me shitless.

"Even a stopped clock gives the right time twice a day!"

If you *really* want to understand what fear is, and how it works: Find a moderately->densely wooded area near where you live...and go out there during a new moon(Readitch Black)..just walk around a bit...you will see what I mean.


This RtS-Babble© has been brought to you by:
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-Run_The_Shadows@excite.com

Don''t forget eerie music and percussive/haunting sound effects!

Think about good horror movies like Alien 3, or Blair Witch. You can''t scare the sh!t out of people by showing them lots of blood and gore - it''s what they don''t see that scares them. Let players catch a small glimpse of the monster every know and then, so they know they''re being hunted, but don''t let them see the whole monster unless it''s jumping in on them out of nowhere to rip their guts out.

What people imagine is always scarier than what you can model in your game. This is why I disagree with Paul Cunningham: the airstrike scene with the big monster in HL was exciting, because you were about to get killed, but it was not scary. Scary was when that scientist got dragged into the airvent by something that you couldn''t quite identify. Scary was when you had some scientist following right behind you, then suddenly heard him scream, and you turned around to find out that he wasn''t there anymore.

I think stuff is scary when the people don''t know what it is. Like in a book i just read, there was a disease that was killing everyone automatically, or if they lived through it, they would go insane. Nobody knew why this town had 5000 + people laying in the streets dead, and one guy walking around and acting really crazy.
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System Shock 2 had many of those qualities though at the end it turned into a shooter.
- The ghosts ( sad and chilling)
- ass-kicking monkey
- positional sound
Take a look at that for a successful attempt at fear

ZoomBoy
Developing a 2D RPG with skills, weapons, and adventure.
See my character editor, old Hex-Tile editor, diary, 3D Art resources at
Check out my web-site

Try playing the Resident Evil series...those zombies just pop out of nowhere in part 1.