I have seen many games that try to achieve the goal of making a game scary, but you never get scared when you get jump scared the second time. What other factors can you include to make a game scary?
I have been working on a project to build a horror game but once thing I noticed is that every attempt to scare a player fails because of the fact that jump scares are to cliché.
Right now, I have no idea of scaring a player other than scary sounds and footsteps running up to you. I have also noticed that dark rooms where you have no ability to fight back against things like monsters seem to work but that’s the best thing I got. EX:
Try adding mist or something, and separate the players so they are alone, and maybe make the monster a disfigured clone of the character…? So when I walk down the hall, I am separated from other players, and then see a clone of my character screaming with blank pupils and a grin or something…
The same thing happens to me with the horror genre reading scientific texts to understand how the brain processes stimuli gave me ideas to try
my English is not good
In some horror films, i noticed that they use the sense of mystery instead of jump scares. For example, The Lighthouse. It’s a horror film and yet they didn’t used any jump scares. They used the unknown to fear the viewers, they hide the obvious with a metaphor, they showed a symbol but not its literal meaning.
So i guess, you use mysterious gestures or objects (but not too graphic or anything religious) around the map
If you change someones expectations slowly overtime and suddenly introduce them to new ones it makes them feel shocked and that’s what you want.
Generally people enter a horror game expecting a jumpscare.
Make it so that the game is generally calm and feeling a tiny bit off.
Make them feel like they’re completing the objectives so they forget that it’s scary.
Then introduce them to something scary.
Or you can make the game scary then introduce something funny and lightbearted like a rabbit running across the field or following you
The horror genre does feature different elements and ways to make a game feel scary showing the monster or elements straight away well not feel scary a second attempt to certain players. Researching and reading certain articles or videos, will give you information on how to accomplish those proper elements and then you incorporate them inside your game.
You can see there are many ways to make a horror game feel scary I do feel like showing the creatures or monsters well lack the scary attempts, you should add jump scares throughout the gameplay perhaps in areas that it’s needed ‘locations’ in the game.
But do assist of researching on your own as it will help, add sounds, a proper atmosphere, shadows play online horror games; to see what features and elements they add that make it scary. Here is a thread related to how to make a horror game scary, it seems relevant:
