Fellow student Jess and myself decided to have a scare night as our dissertations were on the same lines of horror, i rented some films and games from work and we borrowed four cameras and tripods from AV resources to record our experience, we did this so that we could analyse our reactions and go over our commentaries of playing the games.
The first game we played was Silent Hill Homecoming -
I played this one and straight away i found myself immersed in the game and terrified of travelling further into it however i just couldn't stop myself, after analysis i noticed that the thing that scared me the most was the lighting and the long corridors, the fact of anything jumping out and getting me, the build up of the suspense was hard to bare and as soon as the first 'scare' happened we both screamed and jumped. The charter design for silent hill is flawless conjuring up sick and twisted nightmares and then giving them weapons, the nurses terrify me.
Being focused on environments i always pay more attention to them and silent hill really got me with it, its dark and dim lighting its horrible sound effects to go with objects, its textures of blood placed every which way, it was good to just play it and fully take in how other games companies use these things to create the desired effect of horror which is exactly what i'm hoping to do for my practical and figure out how to do it through my dissertation.
The second game we played was F.E.A.R. 2 - this time Jess played
I noticed that this one was a lot faster and you had a gun to protect yourself with but with it being faster there were a lot more scares and surprise surprise a little girl was at the helm of it all.
It gave you a sense of control and safety as you were given a team to go in with at the beginning however this team was taken away from you as they had to go find another exit (god knows why) and then the control was suddenly taken away from, this is a good tactic to use giving the player a false sense of security and then forcefully taking it away.
F.E.A.R. 2 also used lighting very well silhouetting enemies and creating more Illusion and mystery causing you not to look away even though you feel like you have too.
Overall the night was a success and gave us both valuable information into analysing fear and by feeling it we got a better understanding of how to create it. I realised also that when you're with some else you feel safer, this again is a psychological thing, i really do think that fear comes down to psychology and the mind.
Here's a screenshot of Jess and Myself freaking out to F.E.A.R. 2
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