A couple weeks ago I had my second last ever un-graded progress presentation! It's absolutely terrifying how quickly this year is going. I also just realised I forgot to post my second progress presentation, however it was mostly just concept art I've already posted on here and going over the design of my game.
After playing a lot of 3D horror games for research I've personally found that hyper-realistic first-person 3D games tend to be scariest. There's something about having that ability to move around freely in 3D space that's just really immersive.
However, even if I can't make a 2D horror game that's as frightening or immersive as 3D it's still possible to create a scary 2D horror game.
So the cognitive science theory of the Two Factor Theory of emotion states that in order for an emotion to be felt there must be a physiological change in the person, such as an elevated heart rate and something in their surroundings for them to associate with that physiological change. Game designer Dan Cook applied this theory to horror games and suggested that it's not actually fear a player feels when playing them, it's actually stress.
Players might feel stressed due to a high difficulty level or jump scare and because of the horror imagery in their surroundings they mislabel the stress they are feeling as fear.
Therefore a horror atmosphere is essential in creating fear in games, which is something 2D horror games are more than capable of, making them a valid platform for the horror genre.
Even though there's not exactly a formula for creating horror atmosphere, we've already established that horror imagery and stress are essential in creating atmosphere. However pacing and anticipation also play a major role. It's important to build tension and suspense through little things like bespoke animation the player will see out the corner of their eye, eerie sounds, horror imagery appearing for a single frame on screen etc - subtle things that will help build the tension - then add a bigger scary like an enemy appearing, before giving them a bit of breathing room, a calm before the storm, before building the tension again.
Another important factor which I briefly covered in my last presentation is the monster design. The enemy needs to look threatening and epitomise death through it's looks and sounds. However it's also important to not reveal it to soon. The second the player gets to know the enemy it looses that mystery and fear of the unknown.
There's also the concept of "nothing is scarier". This trope is the idea that the player will fill in all blanks with their imagination which will always be more twisted that what the designer can come up with. The idea is to take visual information away from the player for example through thick mist or sudden darkness to confuse them.
Project wise I've been working on some concept art for the portals and the design and animation for the main character.
I also created this map of the game level for my audio designer however I thought I'd show it here to give you an idea of the size of the map.
"Ritual" build as of the 4th of February.
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