209 - The Slasher Genre in Games?

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matt
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209 - The Slasher Genre in Games?

Post by matt »

Slasher films is a popular sub-genre in films where the villains are the real stars of the films and you hope the body counts are as high as possible. How would that work for a game? I discuss some ideas.

-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
ranger_lennier
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Re: 209 - The Slasher Genre in Games?

Post by ranger_lennier »

It seems to me that there should be a way to play as the slasher villain, though you might have to adjust some of the genre cliches. Of course the villain is going to be powerful, but he'll also be outnumbered by the intended victims. Now, imagine that everyone is trapped together (a cruise ship with the communications systems destroyed, or whatever). At first, the villain can just pick people off one at a time, but once the passengers figure out what's going on, they realize they have to team up and take down the villain to survive. They'll try to set up traps and catch the villain by surprise, as he does the same. So it's a hunt or be hunted situation for both sides.
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evilkinggumby
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Re: 209 - The Slasher Genre in Games?

Post by evilkinggumby »

Games to investigate that could fall into a bit of what you talk about: Bloody Good Time and the Tecmo's Deception series. BGT is more directly in line with slasher type films in it's premise, but I think the Tecmo games can be as well, except that you don't directly kill the invaders so much as set up traps and combinations to kill them in all kinds of creative and gruesome ways.

At the heart of what you are saying, the idea of rooting for the bad guy and enjoying the body count rack up and see people die in all kinds of terrible ways, I think the TECMO games align really well. They allow for a lot of creative, sinister thinking, planning, a degree of skill, a nice growth of possibilities and a satisfying conclusion when you pull off a really hard bu massively cruel combination (moreso if you catch several people in it at the same time). Not the bloodiest of games (though it certainly could have been) but very very infectiously fun.

Also as a game mechanic (though odd as it can be) is the remake for Baroque, which had you fighting through level adfter level, delving deeper into a maze, but you could only progress through the game by dying. I know that sounds odd but if you research how the game operates, it makes sense and generally works. Having that as a mechanic, that you play as the hero (or as one of a large group of teens) and as you explore a house/island/castle you both have to gather information and items and also find the killer in hopes of glimpsing a weak point, a detail you can exploit, or at least the killer's location, you would build up the typical body count and lead yourself into certain death but in regards to a 'greater good' your team would be working towards a method to stop the killer (if only for that story). Think of it like the old MTV FEAR tv show where the characters each go out with a task in mind and a mini cam strapped to their head (that the other characters can watch on a local monitor). You'd have a reason to send yourself into the arms of the killer, you'd have goals to try and accomplish along the way, you have all the opportunity to built tension and atmosphere as they do it, and you get the violent bloody deaths a slasher flick offers from the killer. Along the journey, whether the "story" is a way to flesh out the killer, the lore and history of the location, or to show that the team you control is not so innocent themselves, is up to the developer.

I think it wouldn't be that hard to make a fun game that has some if not all of th slasher film vibe, but I also don't think it'd be easy to do as a lower budget indie game. There would be a lot of varying factors that would need significant attention paid to them.
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matt
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Re: 209 - The Slasher Genre in Games?

Post by matt »

Are any of those games scary? I think it is a unique challenge to still have scares when you identify with the killer. Interestingly, someone on youtube mentioned the [urhttps://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lastyear/l ... ry_popular]Last year kickstarter[/url] which is basically exactly what I was describing. Unfortunately, the budget is super low and the idea is to attract investors/developers given the success of the kickstater, which seems ridiculously risky...
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
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Re: 209 - The Slasher Genre in Games?

Post by evilkinggumby »

Scary? , but the fundamental gamepy is what I was looking at. These are examples of games where the core interaction and mechanic could work for a slasher game, but the developer would have to work to develop a mood, atmosphere, story and style that takes what is exciting/tense gameplay and ramps it up to scary/terrifying.
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matt
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Re: 209 - The Slasher Genre in Games?

Post by matt »

I think scary is an important aspect of the slasher genre (granted not many end up that way), so I was trying to include that in the design. In my opinion, creating a scary game requires a lot of fundamental design choices that shape the mechanics. I'm not sure you could have a scary game where you play as a killer because the balance of power is in your favor - even with a great atmosphere and tense action.
-Matt Gilgenbach
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Re: 209 - The Slasher Genre in Games?

Post by evilkinggumby »

Well if you think about both the movies and the games I listed, you have a single detail that balances this issue and creates a scary and potentially dangerous environment. You play the slasher and you are up against numerous people at the same time. You may be able to overpower individual people to varying degrees, but you truly would need to find ways to split the herd and fight them as they " go out on their own". Taking on a dozen teenagers will get you a game over, but weeding them out individually would prove successful, though not aggroing or attracting them all at once is also a factor. It's an odd dance of cat and mouse, and it also means you are the predator and at the same time the prey. But a lot of flicks I have seen, if the group teams up (even if it's just 2 people together) the odds they survive an encounter increase greatly. Or in the least that 1 of them gets away alive.

Splitting them up could be as simple as using supernatural abilities to lure/scare people into going certain ways, setting up your own traps, or using a limited possession ability to tell false information to the group to lead them astray or break their resolve. Dealing with crowd mentality and morale is also likely something to consider while doing this, as the more empowered and confident/courageous they get, the harder it will be to deal with them.

What is interesting is that really you are the slasher and out to get the kids, but there is a sense of fear when they turn on you, as the aggressor loses the very power and control it thought it had. In situations like this, you could see some interesting 'true nature' of people and themes like morality, sacrifice, and the human mind. By the end of the game the victims you are chasing could potentially turn into psychopaths and turn the very dynamic on it's ear, placing you in an awkward spot and possibly making the killer..sympathetic to some players. Or they turn on eachother and you lose points/exp/whatever because some kids die by means other than your own.

But it would require some really well calculated decisions, mechanics, writing, and ideas. I would say this is well outside of anything you guys could get funded and created, mostly due to scale, so not really anything I'm worried about. Maybe I'll kickstart it hehehe.

But I firmly believe it would work as a homage to the movie AND as a challenging, frightening and bloody good time. Maybe not AS scary as true horror games, but as you said, slasher flicks themselves are not usually "scary" in themselves, so the mileage for fear would vary depending on the final game design.
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matt
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Re: 209 - The Slasher Genre in Games?

Post by matt »

Those are some interesting ideas! I'll back your kickstarter when you launch. :-D
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
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matt
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Re: 209 - The Slasher Genre in Games?

Post by matt »

Sorry for the double post, but I wanted to bump this!

Until Dawn (a PS4 exclusive) definitely has that slasher feel. You can check it out in the extended trailer:


I don't know if it's the writing, the cliches, or my dislike of Hayden Panettiere, but I really want to see her character get eviscerated, which seems like it will sap the tension out of the game - kind of like I was talking about in this video.

Apparently there are a million branches, and all the characters can die. I just hope that I'll want to save them. hahah
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
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