Hi there, recently i’ve been making a horror game, but something keeps coming back to my mind and i don’t have an answer for it (yet). I want this game to cause fear and anxiety, like games such as Alien Isolation and Silent Hill, and i also want to make it have replayability, like how Grace does it (random room generation, random monster selection, etc), but a dilema appears with this decision, being that if i make the game to be more to the horror factor, it will not be replayable (because horror loses its touch when you know what will happen, and this kind of replayability i want to acheive is all about patterns), or if i decide to push towards the replayability, it will not be (or will be less) horror, as stated above. So, is it possible to have a game to cause genuine fear while also making players want to come back to it by its replayability factor? Do i need to reconsider what’s replayability to this game?
Instead of going down a procedural route, maybe you could have different endings or permanent decisions that would change the entire experience. So the player would need to replay the game again to see what the other options would do kind of like how the game undertale or deltarune dose it, and maybe you could reveal a piece of the story that is only gotten by getting all the endings or a ugc accessory seeing all the outcomes.
I think you should make something similar to doors, I used to get extremely scared between doors 90-100 (last 10 doors). Why? Because I progressed a lot to get here, and the fact that I’m nearing the end AND this is an extremely dangerous area causes a lot of fear. You get what i mean? Long game, but gets different throughout it (bosses like seek chase or figure’s library, second seek chase), at the end an extremely dangerous area that feels long and you never know what’s coming. Like, rush spawns basically every second door (he kills you if you don’t hide) you need to camp at hiding spots. What I’m saying is you really just need a lot of progress in your game. Replayability? Add more levels, maybe unlocking modifiers to existing ones, sub-levels, you get me? Try getting inspired by more horror games that are popular and that create a sense of fear and are replayable.
Edit: Also do something unique yourself, no need to copy much if you come up with something good!
I hope this helps, good luck!