I think FEAR is a good example of the kind of scary you seem to be talking about. Your enemy is barely defined and you know you stand no chance against it if it ever saw you.

What a lot of games end up messing up in a lot of cases is revealing too much about the enemy or making the player think they can kill the enemy. When this starts happening, you may as well set the player in God Mode because that's the feeling they approach.

When ever you watch a horror movie, the main character is at one end of the hallway or corridor or room or what have ya and suddenly the spirit or a person walks in front of the screen? I have not experienced that in any video game yet. That would be interesting to see in this genre of a horror game.

Unless I am wrong about this suggestion in a video game let me know. Cause I haven't experienced that before.

it is very hard to do a coop horror game well, the problem is it's hard to build up suspense or tension in this kind of game. Jump scares can be done fairly easilly but tension is nigh on impossible.

The reason is thus, if it's co-op you need to communicate, if you need to communicate well you need to talk, if you need to talk you will be taken out of the immersion. I know alot of people who couldn't focus of Gears of wars 2s story because they were chatting in co op, it's hard to take something seriously. If people can't focus in cutscenes, how are they supposed to feel tense and scared?

They can't because they've just been chatting with their friends in a conversation that began about tactics and ended up becoming a conversation that, say, ended up talking about whether or not to watch the social network.

you also have to take into account connection issues and people having to go to dinner or whatever and the immersion really falls apart.

I don't think a co-op horror game can work at this stage in the industies life. Sorry :(

Quote:Original post by Bladerz666
it is very hard to do a coop horror game well, the problem is it's hard to build up suspense or tension in this kind of game. Jump scares can be done fairly easilly but tension is nigh on impossible.

I have to disagree with this point. If I was to read a horror novel or watch horror shows that are episodic, as long as I leave wondering what will happen next, I will be in the "zone" the next day.

I also don't agree that communication/strategy in any way distracts the player from tension. As long as the focus is on the game and the events that are happening in the game are interesting, all players would probably keep talking about the game.

The key I think is to:
a) focus on a good and tension filled story line to get players talking.
b) design purpose built breaks at key tension points in order to leave the player wanting more.
c) there should be an ultimate horror/evil being or creature that the players can't and won't kill throughout the game - call this being a dungeon master but it manifests itself in all sorts of frightening ways.

Co-Op is great, because two players are more than twice as powerful as one player. Twice the gun, twice the eyes, twice the thinking, and since video games are not as visceral as real life, you can avoid panic and have three players surrounded by dozens of aliens and their chief concern is maintaining headshot streaks and getting combos, rather than the pure pants-shitting terror that would likely accomodate such a situation in real life. The biggest power players have in the game is communication and consensus. In a scary movie, a guy says, "Did you hear that?" and his buddy says, "Shhh, I'm trying to peep into the girls' locker room." In a game, the guy says, "Sounds like a licker, check the windows," and his buddy says, "Right. I've got the shotgun, so stay in the corner of the room and hit me with the flashlight while I kick in all these doors."

So mess with their communication and consensus. In general, mess with what they can see. Is there a little waypoint marker on your screen when your mate is around a corner? Have it move around or vanish or turn red for no good reason if they've been gone a while. Is their status shown on the bottom of your screen? Switch it to "dead" or put a monster face there now and again. Not a lot, just sometimes. Make it so that players wonder whether or not they should disregard a piece of information they're given.

Hallucinations, unique to one or another character, are great for this. Have sounds that only one guy hears, or make lighting different for each player, so they'll hug certain walls and avoid certain corners for reasons their buddies can't see. Have an enemy that looks to every player like a different member of the team, right down to the little floating name above his head, and have it travel around with you, collecting items and getting healed by your medic, until someone notices that you've got a six-man team instead of the five you left with, or that there are two Jerry Browns restocking at that ammo crate. And then, which one do you shoot?

How about an enemy that latches onto a player, undetectable to that player, and psychically makes the other team members look like monsters? You turn away from your team for a second, and when you look back, the three riflemen have suddenly become two riflemen and a zombie. You open up on the zombie, and then what? Do they assume you're one of the dopplegangers and fire back, do they realize what's up and yell at you to stop? Once the situation's resolved, everyone has to take a moment to scan each other and find the parasite, then remove it before moving forward. And then the next time a zombie shows up in a room, you might think twice before dropping the hammer on them. Maybe they'll get you.

It doesn't even have to be that specific. Open a door or airlock and toxic fog sweeps out. Everyone dives for their gas masks and you go in, but your health is still draining slowly. You look for another way out, but there isn't one. You find one tiny alien lifeform in there, clinging to the ceiling, and when you kill it, the fog vanishes, your health is restored, the lights come back on and the doors are all plainly visible. That's annoying, but when there are eight zombies in that room with you, and you're fighting them in the dark, with your vision occluded by the gas mask and feeling trapped, that's a serious tractical consideration. Ten minutes later, you open a door and gas comes out and you think, "Is it real? Do I put on the mask? Is my health really going down?"

That kind of stuff, that uses the players' fast reflexes and love of headshots against them, can turn the sort of skills and tendencies that make a player so good at games and use them against the team. It's cool to have a hyper-elite Halo nut holding the sniper rifle, but if he gets mind-controlled at the same time that a demon wave hits the team, he'll be looking at ten targets and not be able to tell which three are his guys. Does he take his time, watch behavior patterns and pick his targets? Does he open up and hope it goes well? Does he take a few precious moments to sling his rifle and get out his medkit and take the antidote?