232 - What makes a good horror game?

Developer diaries about creating Neverending Nightmares.
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matt
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Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2013 10:48 am

232 - What makes a good horror game?

Post by matt »

I was asked what makes a good horror game, and it is a difficult question to answer. Here are my thoughts!

PS. Also, I totally failed to upload this yesterday. Sorry!

-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
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RightClickSaveAs
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Re: 232 - What makes a good horror game?

Post by RightClickSaveAs »

Did you see the Uzumaki movie? I didn't know anything about the manga it was based on, but I thought it was a pretty effective horror movie. It got really weird to the point of being funny in some parts, so I don't know how true that was to the book.

Kairo is really good, I've seen it a few times but feel like I haven't fully absorbed it yet. What draws me in though is the super heavy atmosphere, it's so effectively bleak and surreal.
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matt
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Re: 232 - What makes a good horror game?

Post by matt »

I did. I saw the Uzamaki movie first, and I really enjoyed it, but I felt like it fell apart a bit in the end. I thought the ending of the manga had a better ending, and apparently they made the movie before the comic was finished, so they didn't know the ending apparently.

The comic is even weirder, and if you look at it, it's ridiculous, but somehow it still works. Gyo is possibly even MORE ridiculous since it's about killer fish with legs that are powered by farts. That's a bit of an oversimplification, but yeah... it's that weird. Despite all of that, it still manages to create this crazy bleak atmosphere. There was an anime adaptation of Gyo, but even though it was fairly similar to the manga, it just ended up a little silly.

Kairo definitely seems to have a lot of layers. Kiyoshi Kurosawa is an awesome director. I also saw "The Cure", and it also had the really thick atmosphere. It wasn't as good as Kairo, but still worth seeing if you like atmosphere. I was particularly impressed with the sound design in "The Cure". I made some notes about the audio to get pointers for Neverending Nightmares.
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
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