matt wrote:The Baby-monster was alright but maybe it was just "overplayed" since it was the first one introduced and I've encountered it just way too much. Also, I don't like "waiting around", so hiding in the closet and waiting for the creature to move on - at least to me - wasn't so much tense as a little bit tedious. Especially once I knew I was completely safe inside the cupboard, as even the shaking did nothing to harm Thomas. The threat just disappeared.
Did you play Outlast or Alien: Isolation? It seems to be pretty popular horror design to hide in a locker. I'm wondering what they did right that we failed to do with that. Even Amnesia had plenty of hiding although it was a little more organic. I don't think they had hide points, but I often crouched behind boxes.
I think one thing that adds to the tension in games is that when you hide in or behind something, you intentionally also obscure your vision and so you can't see that which you are afraid of. You get a slight feeling of safety, but not necessarily complete safety as you can't see everything and so can't tell where the creature is, how far it is, or when it's truly "ok" to get out and run.
Hiding from the baby, even inside a cabinet, you can "see" the entire screen. granted you may not know hiow far off the baby has walked offscreen, but the fact your view hasn't been hindered in the least has an effect. If, say, while in the cabinet your view was limited to only about 5-6 feet it would be a LOT more tense (if the cabinet had a etched design so yu could believably look out the holes I guess). Instead we hide, wait, go. And yes after you get a feel for it, it does become tedious. I think also having the baby's walk patterns be a bit more random and less of a scripted " walk from point a to bo and back, pausing every few steps" would help as if you can't easily predict you are a lot more nervous about how to proceed and when to make your move.
The scariest monster in the game for me was the end of what I think was the first nightmare when you proceed towards the doorway to hack off the boards and the lights shut off behind you as you go. The idea of something chasing you and forcing the darkness on you just felt far more monstrous and tense than 'large cartoon baby' or 'girl with bloody weapon' or 'inmate with no eyes or ears but the amazing ability to pounce and rip your throat out". I think i was more nervous in the asylum based on what i couldn't see (but rather heard) than what i could. That is to say, the random noises of the crazies were far more evocative than seeing the patients themselves. I think the fact the patients were so lethal, yet in my mind shouldn't have been so lethal, is part of what bugged me. I can easily believe someone can get overwhelmed and taken quickly by an insane person with all of their faculties. I can also believe it with an insane person with no eyes. No ears too, I start to raise an eyebrow. No useable ARMS and I'm going to really wonder why my character can't just sidestep or kick it in the stomach to deflect the diving creature. If the inmates were hiding and waiting to pounce, it would have been far more scary because of not knowing where they'd strike, where to walk to avoid them, or if they were going to pop out of one of the many cell doors.
Also I think a degree of tension is lost knowing if you die in a matter of moments you'll just awaken near where you left off perfectly unharmed. This makes death and "losing" more of a brief hindrance rather than an actual punishment. If the game had a system designed to reward players for NEVER dying in a nightmare (except where it's scripted they have to) in some way, or possibly having dying have a direct effect on your astham, that might make it more compelling. Like say you manage to go through nightmare 1 without death and so into nightmare 2 you can sprint longer before you wheeze so bad you have to stop and catch your breath. If you get through 2 nightmares untouched you can sprint indefinitely and despite wheezing, you don't ever have to stop and catch your breath. It might seem like this would make everyone rush through the game, but you have 2 details that would force them to still be mindful: 1: sprinting into an enemy means death and LOSING that great ability(and so having to go a long ways before regaining any or all of it). 2: sprinting is just what the asylum creatures use to detect you, so it becomes a lot less useful in that nightmare and in first playthroughs would get players killed and reset to base every time.
I would be a lot more nervous and tense if the enemies in the asylum were hard to see or detect, seemed to come out of nowhere, could hear me sprinting and in dying I lose any boost my sprint had, and were insta death if they caught me.
The same goes for the baby monster, by the time you come to those you may have some of full sprint engaged but sprinting allows you to run right into the monster and so lose it. Hiding in a cabinet and not getting the timing right would mean death (and also losing sprint). Really, since there is nothing to "lose" with death there is no reason to care. Whereas knowing you lose something you worked hard to GAIN makes it desirable not to get caught.
I realize having a longer sprint time would make the player feel more empowered, but the sprint itself is not very fast, it can easily put you in harms way, and if you end up dead you lose it for an entire nightmare if not more. It is sort of like handing you a gun with 5 bullets in it for you to use for an entire game. Yes it is empowering, you have a powerful weapon that can easily kill up to 5 monsters. But when the game has dozens of creatures, and you really never want to rely on it because you may need it later, or if using it also attracts the attention of OTHER monsters, it is a false sense of empowerment. still, the player will work hard and be invested to KEEP THAT GUN as long as possible, even if they rarely use it.