Dear horror game developers,

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Aria Genisi
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Dear horror game developers,

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Sun Nov 03, 2019 12:40 pm

Dear Horror game developers,

I understand that when trying to make a spooky, scary game, it's easy to lean on some basic fears in order to make things tense and scary for the player. However, in regards to spiders, could you just not?

I understand that the intention is to make things unnerving and scary for the player, and I respect that, but spiders do more than that. To me, they are absolutely terrifying. Terrifying to the point where to someone like me, getting thrown into situations with spiders, especially if they're made to be larger, hairier, and more realistic, absolutely can drive me away from ever wanting to play your game again.

For example, one of my favorite games on the PS4 is Bloodborne, an amazing game that takes the Dark Souls basics, and leans more on horror for it's theme and setting. However, the endgame area, the Nightmare of Mensis, has an unavoidable room that has the scariest fucking spiders I could ever imagine, and it actually drove me to approach literally any other bit of content I could, in hopes of never seeing that room ever again. Unfortunately I was wrong, and had to push myself to actually get past it in what was the most terrifying few moments I have experienced in a game. Bloodborne is a game that I would absolutely love to replay again, because I do believe that it is just so good of a game. However, that single, unavoidable room that is in the way of progress is so absolutely horrifying to me that I genuinely find it hard to bring myself to actually playing the game again.

I would like to play more good horror games, or games with a horror bent to them, but I don't want to have to take a chance and roll the dice in hopes that there aren't any spiders in them, or that what spiders there are aren't too innately terrifying to me. I love the recently released Luigi's Mansion 3, but there are instances with spiders that freak me out enough to call it a noticeable negative against the game. I want to play Resident Evil 1 and it's remake, or even replay Resident Evil 2 or Resident Evil 3 but I just absolutely cannot because of the spiders they contain. I do not care how easy they are to deal with. I just cannot handle even the mere sight of them. They're way too much for me to handle, and I hate it.

Please, stop including spiders in horror video games like this. Or if you absolutely *have* to include them, could you at least include the option to remove them entirely?

Sincerely, an arachnophobe
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Highbrow Dash (?) » Sun Nov 03, 2019 12:58 pm

There's usually a Remove All Spiders mod for every PC game in existence.

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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Sun Nov 03, 2019 3:05 pm

Highbrow Dash wrote:
Sun Nov 03, 2019 12:58 pm
There's usually a Remove All Spiders mod for every PC game in existence.
my PC is too garbage to play modern games and nearly every game that I'm genuinely interested in is on console only

like, the two examples I gave of Bloodborne and Luigi's Mansion 3 are console only
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Sun Nov 03, 2019 3:11 pm

Like, yeah it's good that there exists mods on PC games that do fix those problems when they arise, but I'm basically stuck outside of that, and even if I did have a good PC, it would do nothing to fix the spiders thing happening on games that don't get the luxury of having mods because they're on console
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Fizzbuzz (?) » Sun Nov 03, 2019 3:21 pm

Highbrow Dash wrote:
Sun Nov 03, 2019 12:58 pm
There's usually a Remove All Spiders mod for every PC game in existence.
Does this sort of mod exist for other common scary things, or is arachnophobia particularly widespread and severe in ways that others aren't?
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by DaikatunaRevengeance (?) » Sun Nov 03, 2019 4:05 pm

There are mods for removing monsters entirely or making them passive (I know SOMA has that, which the devs later made an option), but yeah, I get the impression that arachnophobia is pretty common and probably so are remove spiders mods. I know Legend of Grimrock has one.
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Gloomy Rube (?) » Sun Nov 03, 2019 4:11 pm

I support this but I also want a 'more spiders' option too for people like me who love them and want to hug them.

Maybe make it a slider in the options menu. 1 side is "No spiders" and the other side is "everyone's a spider"
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Highbrow Dash (?) » Sun Nov 03, 2019 4:18 pm

Fizzbuzz wrote:
Sun Nov 03, 2019 3:21 pm
Does this sort of mod exist for other common scary things, or is arachnophobia particularly widespread and severe in ways that others aren't?
You made me curious, I was always terrified of Barnacles in Half-Life games. I can't find a mod that removes them, but I did find this group about it :v:

There's something about those things that completely creeps me out. It took me a long time to get through the barnacle room in HL: Opposing Force. Also the elevator pit in HL2 Episode 2, where you had to jump right between two barnacle tongues to get to the other side and there was no way to kill them before you did that.

I should consider myself fortunate since they're only one single, static, type of enemy from a very specific game series, and not something you can run into in any game :-I
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Gloomy Rube (?) » Sun Nov 03, 2019 4:21 pm

Barnacles never bothered me but the slimes in Duke 3d always bugged me because they just crawl up your screen ICK and so I've still never played past episode 1 in Duke 3d :-I

There's no mods to remove 'em either since they're hard coded in and can't be removed as easy as the other enemies, which you can just edit out of the .CON file.
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Gloomy Rube (?) » Sun Nov 03, 2019 4:23 pm

I have a feeling that my issue with them also means I'd have an issue with literally any Aliens FPS so those are out too :-I
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Gloomy Rube (?) » Sun Nov 03, 2019 4:24 pm

Highbrow Dash wrote:
Sun Nov 03, 2019 4:18 pm
I should consider myself fortunate since they're only one single, static, type of enemy from a very specific game series, and not something you can run into in any game :-I
They're in Deep Rock Galactic as "cave leeches" so... watch out for that
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Highbrow Dash (?) » Sun Nov 03, 2019 4:27 pm

Gloomy Rube wrote:
Sun Nov 03, 2019 4:24 pm
They're in Deep Rock Galactic as "cave leeches" so... watch out for that
...Good to know :-I

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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by DaikatunaRevengeance (?) » Sun Nov 03, 2019 4:41 pm

Gloomy Rube wrote:
Sun Nov 03, 2019 4:21 pm
Barnacles never bothered me but the slimes in Duke 3d always bugged me because they just crawl up your screen ICK and so I've still never played past episode 1 in Duke 3d :-I
I remember those things bother me, too. Even when I recently tried playing Duke 3D I still didn't like seeing them.
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Highbrow Dash (?) » Sun Nov 03, 2019 4:52 pm

I remember shrieking the first time one of those got stuck on my camera, since it caught me by surprise. Similar to how that first barnacle caught me by surprise (I thought I was climbing a rope... but I wasn't). The slimes didn't leave a long lasting impression, though.

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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Gloomy Rube (?) » Sun Nov 03, 2019 5:56 pm

Highbrow Dash wrote:
Sun Nov 03, 2019 4:27 pm
...Good to know :-I
They're worse though because you can't see the tongue before it gets you, they shoot it out at you and pull you up, if barnacles got you in Halflife 2, the cave leeches would be... yeah.
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Perpetual Motion (?) » Sun Nov 03, 2019 6:15 pm

I'm terribly afraid of drowning in video games. Underwater stuff is fine, but as soon as a tight drowning time limit is introduced, my anxiety goes off the charts. I blame this:


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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Sun Nov 03, 2019 8:29 pm

here's another solid example of this sort of shit: somewhere in (what I assume is) the midgame of Luigi's Mansion 3, you reach a floor that's a movie studio, and you gotta get a particular item from one of the four sets, and to get it, you need to burn it out of a large web in a box in this oversized workbench set. You do a whole puzzle sequence over the sets to get a torch and light it on fire. Then you get into the workbench set with the box and in the active movie set, you open the box to get at the web, and a giant monster spider pops out of it.

In the middle of watching this happen, I immediately instinctively recoil as I realize what it is and pause the game, kinda freaking out because ever since I saw that they were pests in the game, I kinda expected that there would be some sort of large one and dreaded it happening. I was worried that it was going to start moving and that I'd have to fight it or something. It then took me a few minutes to really bring myself to just unpause the game, continue and get past it, even though I figured it would just be some sort of prop or whatever, given it's location.

Luckily, I was right in the end, as it's just a big static prop that doesn't do anything besides look a bit scary and you can burn it away with the torch you needed to finish the puzzle to begin with. Ultimately, I got freaked out over nothing and I enjoyed the rest of the floor and shit, but it just highlights why this is a bit of a problem for me. I just want to enjoy a spooky or spoopy game and not get so utterly terrified at the idea of these fuckers popping out and attacking, even if the whole thing is harmless
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Venusy (?) » Mon Nov 04, 2019 2:37 am

It is an accessibility option that it would be nice if games could include, but I'm curious about the restriction to horror games here - do they have less of an impact for you in a non-horror setting? Zelda has the Skulltulas, Skyrim has those big cave spiders you find occasionally, even Spyro has that one level with robot spiders, there's Pokémon like Galvantula... I suppose all of these may give greater agency than your average horror game for dealing with them, but still.

EDIT: There is at least a listing on DoesTheDogDie so you can avoid media with spiders in: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/are-there-spiders

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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Captain Rufus (?) » Mon Nov 04, 2019 4:15 pm

I saw a good article once about how hiding from fears is super bad. So use these games with Spiders as a safe way to slowly overcome your fear. Face the demons and become triumphant over them.

https://www.youtube.com/user/joshuaslice or watch the continuing short and adorable adventures of Lucas the Spider. He just wants to make new friends and boop doggie shoots! He just has too many eyeballs and it's not his fault!

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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Tue Nov 05, 2019 12:54 am

Venusy wrote:
Mon Nov 04, 2019 2:37 am
It is an accessibility option that it would be nice if games could include, but I'm curious about the restriction to horror games here - do they have less of an impact for you in a non-horror setting? Zelda has the Skulltulas, Skyrim has those big cave spiders you find occasionally, even Spyro has that one level with robot spiders, there's Pokémon like Galvantula... I suppose all of these may give greater agency than your average horror game for dealing with them, but still.

EDIT: There is at least a listing on DoesTheDogDie so you can avoid media with spiders in: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/are-there-spiders
I tend to single out horror games because those are the absolute worst offenders. for me, at least, the spookier, the hairier, and the larger it is in it's design, the more it's going to freak me out. Resident Evil style ones and similar are mostly going to be the ones I freak out over. I'm scared of these things, but it starts dropping off if it's smaller and more "normal" looking, and especially if it doesn't look very realistic.

Skulltulas in Zelda don't really bother me. Well, most of the time. Those ones in Twilight Princess lean a bit too close for comfort, but what's worse is the boss in the Temple of Time, which bothers me a lot. The ones in Skyrim feel a bit weird, because it didn't bother me *too* much. It felt...oddly more cartoonish, I suppose? The pokemon is also really cute and cartoonish and doesn't count at all

The ones in Lugi's Mansion 3 should count in that "they look cartoonish enough that it feels kinda whatever" but the normal design and their presentation in the game makes em scarier to me than they might normally be otherwise. Also they're about as big as rats. So, uh, that doesn't help either.

thanks for the list though
Captain Rufus wrote:
Mon Nov 04, 2019 4:15 pm
I saw a good article once about how hiding from fears is super bad. So use these games with Spiders as a safe way to slowly overcome your fear. Face the demons and become triumphant over them.
hey i know that you mean well by this post and i appreciate it, but at the same time my only appropriate reaction is something along the lines of "how about you fuckin mind your own fuckin business, motherfucker"

it's a bit of a deep irrational fear that hits me regardless of what I might actual think. I'd love it if I didn't have this fucking fear but no, I'm stuck with it, so something like this honestly reads to me more like "pffft, just get over it!", to which I can't help but respond "hey, fuck off."

Again, I'm pretty sure you mean well, but, dude, seriously. This sort of thing is way fucking easier said than done.
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Perrydotto (?) » Tue Nov 05, 2019 3:05 am

Rufus, no offense but honestly, from your posting in general, you seem to have some issues with being empathetic and tactful about other viewpoints. It's fine not to know everything, so honest tip, please try to have the humility to ask questions and be open to other people's feelings. It shows consideration and people tend to appreciate it.

Exposure therapy and such are real things and can seriously help but usually done best with professional support, and that's up to Aria to consider.



As for the thread subject, I'm of two minds about it, since I'm a creator myself. When you create stuff, you can never please everyone, and the tightrope walk between "include as many people as possible" and "be true to your creative vision" can get really tricky. Spiders are a particularly interesting case since they are both incredibly common AND an incredibly common fear. When I read this thread first, my initial reaction was to wonder what alternatives there could be to create some neat spooky vibes without using spiders. To me, it's an interesting creative challenge, and if my intent isn't to purposefully tap into specific things like arachnophobia for whatever reason, it seems worth trying. In general, evaluating the worth of common shorthands and how much we should or need to rely on them is always important to me. Spiders are an easy shorthand for spooky things, fish in bowl is an easy shorthand for a fish as a pet, etc etc - But does it always have to be that stuff?

Anyway, I'm rambling, but I hope you get the idea. I think not all fears can always be accomodated, and there is something to be said for healthy exposure, but at the same time I really do think more creators would benefit from questioning their shorthands more often and coming up with alternatives to things. Nobody is obligated to cater to a specific idea, no, but being open to other experiences can actually foster creativity quite a bit, and being inclusive isn't automatically equal to neutering something. Come up with more neat things that aren't spiders, I say.
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Captain Rufus (?) » Tue Nov 05, 2019 5:18 am

Perrydotto wrote:
Tue Nov 05, 2019 3:05 am
Rufus, no offense but honestly, from your posting in general, you seem to have some issues with being empathetic and tactful about other viewpoints. It's fine not to know everything, so honest tip, please try to have the humility to ask questions and be open to other people's feelings. It shows consideration and people tend to appreciate it.

Exposure therapy and such are real things and can seriously help but usually done best with professional support, and that's up to Aria to consider.

Or maybe you might be putting negative connotations to what I said because like most people it's easier to think the worst analysis of anything anyone says or does first as to just find someone to abuse cuz it's an easy Target cuz they deserve it cuz Reasons. (The reason being needing an easy target to abuse without anyone daring to question it. Also see lots of wingnuts on both sides of the political spectrum.)

If I was actually trying to be mean I might have said something like LOL SCARED OF A VIDEOGAME SPIDER. Not repeating thoughts that have been written about by multiple essayists, commentators, and actual mental health professionals which you know is what I did.

In fact a second's look on Google gave an entire damn pile of articles on it talking about the issue and many are from this very year. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wj9b ... ually-work here is but one of a metric buttload that seems to actually been kinder than the one I remember reading a few years back.

Heck, have a bunch of articles. https://www.google.com/search?q=problem ... e&ie=UTF-8

But nope MUST THINK WORST THOUGHT FIRST NEED TO RAGE ON SOMEONE. Instead of maybe using this empathy and finding out I've had this sort of problem myself personally and also having to deal with an abusive parent who had a couple things she would nope the hell out of while belittling anything I may have had an aversion to.

Ever thought of maybe not jumping to the worst conclusions on people? Try it Perry. You might learn something if you aren't in a goddamn hurry to find anyone you can talk down to.

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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by DaikatunaRevengeance (?) » Tue Nov 05, 2019 6:34 am

Chill dude.
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Perrydotto (?) » Tue Nov 05, 2019 6:54 am

Captain Rufus wrote:
Tue Nov 05, 2019 5:18 am
Ever thought of maybe not jumping to the worst conclusions on people? Try it Perry. You might learn something if you aren't in a goddamn hurry to find anyone you can talk down to.
I was really putting it as sincerely and respectfully as I could. I know how you post here and on SA, and simply told you my honest impression from that. If you don't care about how you come across to people who have no beef with you, that's your choice, but I figured it'd be courteous to at least tell you honestly how to avoid making people feel rubbed the wrong way in the future. Telling someone with a phobia "just conquer it, give it a try" is well intended but ignorant. Telling people that you don't care for LGBT rep in shows because it doesn't partain to you personally and you think it's just for shitty shippers might be sincerely how you see things, but it's also ignorant. The list goes on. You're not a bad guy for not knowing how things make people feel, that's why I tried telling you, because learning seriously helps. However, you come across like a jerk if you don't care about how you make people feel and choose to instead attack them over it.

If you want to debate me personally or take umbridge with me further, please PM me instead of using Aria's thread. But yes, I think you come across as ignorant and callous more often than you might intend, and it can make people feel bad, and you can take responsibility for your part in that or not. I simply said that part of that is on you, and it would get better if you listened to people and asked questions first. Take it or leave it.
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Nautilee (?) » Wed Nov 06, 2019 7:59 pm

Venusy wrote:
Mon Nov 04, 2019 2:37 am
It is an accessibility option that it would be nice if games could include, but I'm curious about the restriction to horror games here - do they have less of an impact for you in a non-horror setting? Zelda has the Skulltulas, Skyrim has those big cave spiders you find occasionally, even Spyro has that one level with robot spiders, there's Pokémon like Galvantula... I suppose all of these may give greater agency than your average horror game for dealing with them, but still.
As a kid skulltulas freaked me the hell out, although these days I have much less issues with the skulltulas in the n64 games since they're... they don't hit my phobia as bad, since they're mostly static. That said, the ones in Twilight Princess? I legit always have trouble with the one room near the boss in the forest temple where they're dangling above you and can easily drop down on you. And, er, don't get me started on Skyrim... especially Dawnguard's use of them, that one cave where you're basically flushed down a river past a swarm of them that come chasing you gave me nightmares. So what I'm saying is, at least for me, it's not limited to horror games. Hell, minecraft's spiders give me issues. Legend of Grimrock's are some of the worst since they really like surrounding you with multiple of them and at least in the first game their attack animation from behind you clips through the camera. Iiick.

That said, some no spider mods can actually make things *worse* for me. Satisfactory comes to mind, it's got a no spiders option built in that's... a really lazily coded thing that just replaces them with a static picture of a cat, that can still move and attack as normal and frankly that's freakier to me than the actual spiderish bugs. Although it helps that satisfactory's spiderish bugs don't really look like spiders as much. On a similar note Galvantula doesn't really bother me b/c it's only got four legs, and my phobia is specific enough that it's gotta both have the right number of legs and the right shape and/or move in a specific way to trip.

Phobias are weird, yo. :pinkieshrug:


Also WRT Rufus' stuff: Videogames aren't really the medium to use for exposure. As I understand it exposure like that to dull a fear has to be done carefully and controlled, and videogames, especially horror ones, can't really do that. And take it from me, someone who's soldiered through a lot of situations with spiders in them in games to try to push past the fear, it just doesn't work, I'm still as afraid of them now as I was years ago.

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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by DaikatunaRevengeance (?) » Wed Nov 06, 2019 8:17 pm

I'm not particularly afraid of spiders and Legend of Grimrock's ended up creeping me out specifically because of how they tend to surround you.
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Wed Nov 06, 2019 11:59 pm

Nautilee wrote:
Wed Nov 06, 2019 7:59 pm
Hell, minecraft's spiders give me issues.
oh god, yeah, same. something about how it is in the game just really gets to me. playing the original survival mode alpha didn't help things for me either. that was where there were way too many mobs hanging around in general in a small map, and while I would be surrounded by lots of enemies, the big boys seemed to show up a lot more and having a swarm around was awful
DaikatunaRevengeance wrote:
Wed Nov 06, 2019 8:17 pm
I'm not particularly afraid of spiders and Legend of Grimrock's ended up creeping me out specifically because of how they tend to surround you.
yeah that's kind of a thing I missed in my previous posts. It's mostly the appearance for me, but their actions tend to compound matters and make it way worse. It's a mix of things and sometimes, due to perspective or the appearance of them or even what they do, it can maybe be manageable or it could be NOPE city
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Ragnar (?) » Sun Nov 24, 2019 6:35 pm

Coming up with/remembering effective horror stories (in whatever medium one prefers) that don't trip the most common phobias is an interesting mental exercise. Common phobias include fear of the dark, fear of tight spaces, crowds, being alone, spiders obviously, bugs (unless that goes with spiders, but personally I've never had a problem with spiders whereas damn near every other carapaced invertebrate fucks me up), heights, bodies of water, snakes, germs, dogs and probably a few other things. I feel like we could throw death and corpses in there as well. And while we're being socially responsible, I prefer to avoid irresponsible depictions of mental illness.

This covers some incredibly common ways games like to make you feel helpless, especially darkness and being alone, and death/corpses if we're doing that as well. So we need bright lights, a small group of friends that never really leaves you but NOT a crowd, and nobody dies possibly. I think we're in body horror territory (more like terrortory!!!!!). Surgery, aliens and demons are fairly common fears, so maybe it just kind of happens and an explanation is never provided, like a Junji Ito thing.

Other than body horror, what have we got? Well, gods are one thing that occurs to me, because I'm sick of seeing that pic of Saturn eating his son. Lovecraft-inspired stories have a knack for being socially irresponsible even when the writers are trying to be decent people, because Lovecraft's metaphors are ingeniously well designed for inciting and referencing xenophobia. The Classical as well as the Old Testament gods are horrifying, so there's lots of room to maneuver there. Maybe you're an oracle in a temple of oracles and you've all just figured out some fucked up shit that's about to happen RIGHT NOW. I don't know.

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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Princess Flufflebutt (?) » Sun Nov 24, 2019 7:20 pm

A horror game where you're a single monster mom trying to feed your kid.You must convince excel-brained bureaucrats who do not and can not know your plight that you really do need help. The real horror is unyielding and inhuman bureaucracy.
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Gloomy Rube (?) » Sun Nov 24, 2019 9:15 pm

Ragnar wrote:
Sun Nov 24, 2019 6:35 pm

Other than body horror, what have we got? Well, gods are one thing that occurs to me
This is overused honestly if you ask me. Mostly because a lot of horror content is "What if there's an all powerful being that traps you in a spooky house" :-I
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Mechanical Ape (?) » Tue Nov 26, 2019 11:03 am

Gloomy Rube wrote:
Sun Nov 24, 2019 9:15 pm
This is overused honestly if you ask me. Mostly because a lot of horror content is "What if there's an all powerful being that traps you in a spooky house" :-I
Mike Stoklasa of Red Letter Media cites this as a pet peeve. He prefers “horror with rules”, meaning the monster has limitations or at least a well-defined M.O. Like how Freddy Krueger can only get you in dreams, or how It Follows employs the weirdly specific and arbitrary rules of its monster to make great tension. The audience needs to know what to be scared of, in short.

The opposite would be something like, there’s a haunted house and the ghost can do anything the writers need to pull off a scare.

That sort of thing can be used to good effect (Evil Dead for instance, although it’s horror-comedy so the looser rules are OK). But other times it reeks of the writers writing by the seat of their pants: “we don’t know what our monster is or how it works, we’re just trying to get from one jumpscare to the next”.
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by DaikatunaRevengeance (?) » Thu Nov 28, 2019 12:38 pm

Like outside of it looking like the writers are just throwing anything, a monster that can do anything and has no rules is boring. Like where's the tension?
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;) ❤️ :twasnothin: ❤️ :fancyhat:

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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Gloomy Rube (?) » Thu Nov 28, 2019 2:03 pm

The only time that kinda character works is if they're not the actual antagonist. Like if they make it "This is an innocent creature trying to interact with the world" then it actually has meaning and explains why you aren't just dead immediately, but an actual antagonistic version of the character is just poor writing.

I've always wanted to make a co-op game where one person plays as a normal person and the other plays as the omnipotent ghost and you have to spook your friend to charge up your ghost powers, which would be registered by like them waving the mouse suddenly 'cause they got startled, and then you could use those powers to help out later by like changing how rooms are connected or making doors lock mysteriously to make it so the actual bad monster can't get your friend.
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Gloomy Rube (?) » Thu Nov 28, 2019 2:06 pm

And maybe the ghost can see the objectives easier than the person so you also gotta figure out how to funnel your friend towards the objective items by either warding them away from rooms by spooking them or by having them follow your spooky figure over to the fusebox or whatever. I'd think it'd have to be randomized levels somehow in order for this to have replay value.
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Mechanical Ape (?) » Thu Nov 28, 2019 2:48 pm

It would be interesting for a ghost player to have a (randomized) goal to achieve, the task binding them to this world, and they need humans to help them achieve it, but their ability to interact with the human world is limited to going “wooooo” and opening and closing doors and such. So although you are a nice ghost with nothing against humans, you need to creatively scare them into going and doing the things they need to do. Like you can spook them into running into the basement, where they can discover the Raggedy Andy doll that needs to be taken to the crib in the attic, etc.
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Angel Beat (?) » Thu Nov 28, 2019 9:12 pm

Weirdly, games with babies and foetuses tend to nope me out permanently, even if it's just promotional material or let's plays.

PT, Death Stranding etc... Nightmares for days. :nngh:
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Gloomy Rube (?) » Thu Nov 28, 2019 9:28 pm

Angel Beat wrote:
Thu Nov 28, 2019 9:12 pm
Weirdly, games with babies and foetuses tend to nope me out permanently, even if it's just promotional material or let's plays.

PT, Death Stranding etc... Nightmares for days. :nngh:
They make me really nervous since I really really don't want to harm a baby by accident aaa

and also stuff like super meat boy is just edgy for edge's sake and that annoys me on a different level :-I
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Sun Mar 08, 2020 12:24 pm

Apparently from a recent magazine preview, it's been revealed that spiders are indeed coming back in RE3 remake after they didn't show up in the RE2 remake

Great. Thanks. I love it when this shit happens.

RE spiders are the literal worst of the lot for me because I see the RE games, and I *really* want to play them, but I can't, because these older RE games decided to include the giant hairy bastards skittering around for some fucking reason, and those things set off my arachnophobia like crazy, to the point where I don't want to even look at them.

I mentioned this in some other discords (and not just the TRS discord) and they were like "well, maybe you can just mod them out of the game", but that's just the thing. I can't. I don't have a good computer, and I rely on consoles to play those kinds of things. Modding things out just isn't an option for me.

My only real option is to just entirely write off the RE3 remake as just yet another RE game I can't play.
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Angel Beat (?) » Sun Mar 08, 2020 2:17 pm

That really sucks. :fluttersmith:
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Re: Dear horror game developers,

Post by Aria Genisi (?) » Tue May 25, 2021 1:11 am

I just finished playing Resident Evil 7 and this is a game that contains some spiders. Namely, they're basically creepy keys with some small swarms blocking some lockers with resources and some doors in the Old House section in the middle of the game, and you unlock these by blasting them with fire. There's not a lot of these bits to begin with, and they're more of a nuisance added to help make things creepy in bug house.

Having watched a playthrough of this game back when it launched, I knew this was coming. I remembered that this shit was in there, and that it wasn't that bad as far as RE games goes with including these things. Having played this, it wasn't actually bad at all! Hell, the worst of it is like, the fixed event where Ma Baker slams a door in your face and summons them on your side of the door to block you, which sucks, but as far as my weird internal phobia metric, it's absolutely fine and manageable, especially since I can immediately just burn them away and that's it.

Didn't stop myself from feeling hella anxious about this anyways when I was on my way to this section of the game and I was looking for the burner to deal with them (and the rest of the bugs). Phobias suck, y'all.
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