Tandem wrote:I know that "Knock-Knock" had about half the budget as our Neverending Nightmares, and maybe that could be half of the problem. I also think that you're right about the random generator in Knock-Knock, but i feel like it is a bad idea to avoid combat altogether. Depending on what audience is being catered to, certain people like to fight, and some like to flee. I feel that being able to provide for both audiences in Neverending Nightmares would make it reach out to other gamers.
I agree that the best horror games aren't all about avoidance (running away and hiding), but I would make a distinction between fighting back and engaging in direct combat. Fighting back is a crucial part of survival horror. Direct combat needs to be subtle.
My idea of fighting back includes setting traps, or actively keeping creatures at bay (eg with shoving or lights or other sorts of physical confrontations). This sort of interaction with monsters fosters a good horror environment because it forces the player to confront fears. The player is forced to take risks in order to survive rather than hide, which increases the anxiety in facing creatures.
On the other hand, there is direct combat, where the player overpowers creatures through force. This can fit in well in a horror game, but it's best if it is used subtly and sparingly. A good horror game should never give the player the sense that she or he is empowered. The point of a horror game is to create a sense of helpless struggle. That feeling is diminished if you have the ability to go around beating up enemies one after another. Enemies have to be a struggle. You have to feel like at any given moment, you might not survive the next confrontation.
So in order to maintain the sense of helplessness, direct combat is best serves a horror game when it is a brief moment of empowerment that then gets taken away. Direct combat should be used to defeat a creature in order to help you survive long enough to face the next horror. If you have to retrieve a bloody axe and hit a pursuing four-foot-tall monster with it a few times to fend it off and slay it, the axe handle breaks in the process, and then you realize its ten-foot-tall monster mom is behind you, that is great suspense and horror (perhaps to the point of being cliche!). On the other hand, if you can go around beating up all the monsters with the axe all game, there's not much to be afraid of, because that makes you an empowered action hero, not a struggling survivor.
