231 - Stephen King's It

Developer diaries about creating Neverending Nightmares.
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matt
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231 - Stephen King's It

Post by matt »

In this developer diary, I talk about how effective the horror was in Stephen King's It, and what made it the scariest book I've read.

-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
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RightClickSaveAs
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Re: 231 - Stephen King's It

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Stephen King disturbs me more than scares me, which I guess is it's own successful form of horror? And the monsters and supernatural parts aren't what disturb me, but the horrible people he writes into most of his books, and all the very specifically disturbing things they do. It's been a while, but if I remember It, there was a kid in there who tried to kill his little sister when she was a baby, then grew up to torture animals and tried to kill some of the main characters as kids by throwing rocks at them.

I'm with you on the ending of It, the idea of the monster just taking the form of whatever scares you the most was way more interesting than what it turned out to be when they confront it at the end. Also I think I know the part you're talking about that happened when they first defeated it as children, and... yeah that's a really weird part.
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matt
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Re: 231 - Stephen King's It

Post by matt »

You are correct about that! The character you are talking about is Patrick Hockstetter, and his sections were really screwed up. He was a sociopath and killed his infant sister when he was 5 because she was stealing attention away. Besides all the things you mentioned, he gave the main bully, Henry Bowers, a hand job and offered him oral sex, which was especially weird because the characters were like 12 and Henry at least didn't seem to have a good understanding of his sexuality. Eeek... His section was super disturbing! You are very right!
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
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