Boo!
Happy Leap Day y’all 
! Did I scare you? I don’t think so.
Let me try again (click at your own risk!):
Okay, that’s a little better. Oh, don’t hide it! I see that sweat bead crawlin’ down your spine!
Anyways, BOO is the star of this tutorial (which is mainly informational and not a step-by-step process) and it stands for "Best effects, Objective, and Originality. I know that they sound pretty trite initially, but they are essential in creating the horror. In short, this tutorial will allow you to learn how to present your players with “the BOO.”
Contributors to this Tutorial
Thank you to these who helped elaborate and further explain this tutorial:
@CaptLincoln
@LtB_KiLLerU
@RuizuKun_Dev
— Best Effects
Darkness & Lighting
This is one of the most important aspects of horror: the dark. Players wouldn’t be as scared of a killer clown in broad daylight as opposed to at night.
As an easy way to achieve this is by:
- using black fog that starts and ends very close (i.e. FogEnd at 25 and Start at 0)
- setting the time to night (usually ClockTime 0 or midnight)
- setting OutdoorAmbient and Ambient to a dark gray or black color
- setting a low brightness
Example:
This usually creates a nice fade effect where farther things are exponentially less visible (like the evil noob there). Also, notice the little circle of light at the bottom of the image: that’s the result of FogStart and Fog End.
Additionally, developers sometimes like to sprinkle in some lamps, or other light sources, within this sea of darkness not to show mercy for the players (which you shouldn’t do in horror), but to guide them in the objective of the game. That way, your players won’t get lost and therefore not bore out and leave the game.
Audio
To make the experience more immersive and realistic, you need to ring up them ears! In other words, your horror game definitely needs to have scary or ominous music and/or sound effects. Although having a very large void in audio can raise player anxiety (because of the suspense or the fear of the unknown), having no audio brings diminishing returns. So, it’s a good practice to have moderate audio while not abusing it (aka severely irritating a player’s ears). I mean, you don’t want your game to result in the hearing loss of your players!
Horror games sometimes rely on jump scares and sudden audio (and a decal of a scary figure). But do be careful using them because they prove to be very inefficient and some people even despise them (for furthur information, see @LtB_KiLLerU’s reply down below). And, if you have seen horror movies, suspense is a big thing (and surprise surprise–it’s also from the audio). A way to create suspense is by elevating the music’s pitch–and don’t drop the suspense until the pitch has reached the maximum level. Usually, after that, everything stops–no audio, no movement. Then, someone or something emerges and reveals themselves when the audience least expects it (which you can decide what you want that to be yourself). For a very in-depth explanation, see @CaptLincoln’s post about creating suspense via audio.
If you don’t have access to professional sound-creating software or libraries, no need to worry! If you do, good for you. But, your horror dream isn’t going to die out otherwise. The next best place to look is the Roblox Sound Library (Create > Library > Dropdown Audio). Sometimes it can be difficult finding audios here because they’re user-generated and some of them do not have a relevant name (and some don’t even work), but most of the time, it yields excellent results. But, if the sound you’re playing out in your head is not what you find in the Roblox Sound Library, then you can create your own sounds in websites like SoundTrap (which I sometimes use).
There’s nothing more to say here other than keeping your audio volumes at a REASONABLE level! Again, you don’t want to get in deep trouble for ruining your audience’s ears!
Realism and Colors
Although it’s quite obvious, I do feel the need to stress this: do not make your horror game low-poly. That’s going to absorb the juice out of the fruit (aka the horror out of your horror game). But, that doesn’t mean that you need to use custom textures; Roblox materials are mostly enough. In fact, materials are more optimized for performance because they are Roblox-made and Roblox-maintained textures and take up less memory. By adding custom textures, sure you’ll increase the realism dramatically, but you’ll narrow down the range of devices that your players can handle your game on (i.e. not phones).
The choice is yours:
Also, if the setting of your game takes place outdoors, then it’s best to use Roblox’s smooth terrain–not terrain using parts. Not only would it be easier to create (especially with the recent updates of the editor), but it’s also optimized for performance. Plus, the terrain water looks awesome, you can never replicate it and beat its look via parts.
Now onto the color of the landscape. Here’s another perk of using smooth terrain: you can easily change the colors of different materials anytime. To enhance the horror experience, it’s best to use colors that aren’t very saturated:
The left has 255 saturation in HSV terms, and the right has 150.
— Objective
There’s nothing worse than creating an awesome game with all these nice, scary effects–and then your players leave the game because they are lost and don’t know what they have to do. 
It’s always recommended to have an objective in a horror game. For example, take the non-Roblox horror games Slenderman, Granny, and Slendrina. They each have a goal that players need to achieve in order to win the game. But, you may be thinking: if players win the game, won’t they just never play it ever again?
Well, there are several ways you can combat that:
- include various difficulty levels
- add achievements/badges
- update the game often
- add secret ways to win
- plant some Easter eggs (hints about what’s to come in the future or ones that vaguely outline a storyline)
Let’s talk a bit about the last bullet. Easter eggs are very interesting especially when you find them as a player. Many songwriters and singers use them today, such as Taylor Swift (oh man, she doesn’t have a music video without a single one) and they cause this sort of hype and excitement. You can bring that over to your game by simply adding pictures, words, patterns, notes, etc. that foreshadow something (perhaps your next game) or allow players to piece together the information and picture the backstory.
For example, take a look at this and try to piece together the story:
ANSWER: Guest 666 was bullied horribly by several students. One night, the bullies pushed Guest 666 off the roof of the high school and he died. If you don’t already know, this is from @ObliviousHD’s Guest 666 series.
That was kind of fun trying to figure that out, right? This is the same with players. They love piecing together backstories and spreading rumors and conspiracy theories about the story.
However, when I say that players should be able to get the story in your game, I’m not saying to make it really obvious. One of the key factors that can really make your players shiver is the fear of the unknown. Humans tend to get more anxious when they don’t know what is about to come than after the revelation (no matter how scary). They have a premonition, but about what? When? From where? This is one of the greatest ways to establish horror in your game.
Basically, try to include a way to guide your players throughout the course of your horror game.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen games and movies replicate the exact same aspect from other games and movies and then switching the characters, objects, items, and the setting with something different to hide the replication. Take, for example, a game where you need to find 8 runes to escape the evil rune temple. This sounds very much like slenderman where you have to find 8 papers to escape. Same aspect, just different items to disguise the acting of copying. And also, when a Youtuber played a horror game (I can’t remember which one), I still remember them saying, “Oh, so it’s like slender!” This is something that shouldn’t happen to your audience. Originality is key to a successful horror game.
If players find out that a game is very much like another game, they tend to beat the game more easily. This is because they are familiar with the other game and know how to beat it.
A simple tip for fabricating a new idea is to just sit down and meditate for 5-10 minutes. In your thought process, start somewhere. Anywhere. Start with the objective in mind. Perhaps, the player has to obtain lost treasure in a creepy temple? Oh, that sounds good. Maybe, you can have an evil ghost roaming through the corridors. And also, the player has to watch out for traps and dangerous animals. Wow, that just sounds so good, doesn’t it?
That is literally what I thought of when I meditated for about 10 minutes. It’s really easy to get creative while in this relaxed state of mind!
In short, just don’t get impatient and stress out about coming up with something new (which is where many people go wrong). The correct thing to do is to stay patient, because who knows–an idea may just hit you when you least expect it!
Review of Key Information
- darkness
- low brightness
- utilize black fog
- set the time to night or midnight
- dark color values for Ambient and OutdoorAmbient properties
- lights
- use them to guide your players
- relevant audio
- music
- sound effects
- elevate music to raise the suspense
- realism
- no low-poly
- but no need for textures–materials are enough
- colors
- low saturation (in HSV)
- objective
- make sure your players are not lost
- have an end goal that players need to achieve
- do not lose your players after they complete the game
- update your game frequently
- include secret endings or secrets in general
- add Easter eggs–form a story in the players’ minds or foreshadow a future event of any kind
- allow players to play in many different difficult levels (easy, medium, hard, insane, etc.)
- have badges and achievements that can be obtained by doing special things
- don’t make it too obvious–keep in mind: fear of the unknown
- originality
- come up with a completely unique idea for your game
- if you have any difficulties, meditate and brainstorm
The End
This is my first dive into informing you about elements of horror and I want to see just how well I did it. Please take some time to leave your feedback:
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Thank you for reading and for your feedback,
and happy Leap Day once again !
