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Not that it's really horror but remembering it from an old thread this scooby doo flash tie-in game for the release of the second movie had this as a jumpscare. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrAWCZpQKZQ I bet children loved this.
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Aug 15, 2020 09:44
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As someone who has played quite a bit of Cthulhu RPGs you have some workhorse monsters like ghouls, deep ones, night haunts, byakhees, and dimensional shamblers you can take on with conventional weapons but most encounters are meant as a puzzle like “blow up the entrance of this cave before the shoggoth the size of a subway train gets you” and they’re always the end of an adventure because you’ll probably die. Eldritch horror just isn’t suited to video games except the strictest narrative stuff otherwise you’re just asking for players to circle strafe the monster that’s invisible, impervious to conventional weapons, and regenerates half its health every second.
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Aug 15, 2020 09:53
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al-azad posted:Eldritch horror just isn’t suited to video games except the strictest narrative stuff Bloodborne, the greatest game ever made, is based on Eldritch horror and it's pretty far removed from narrative stuff.
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Aug 15, 2020 10:02
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SpitztheGreat posted:Games like this always seem to struggle with combat. It reminded me immediately of Dear Esther, but with combat gameplay. From a thematic perspective, I'm not sure if combat works in an eldritch horror game. I haven't gotten too far into the demo yet, and I haven't watched the videos of combat on youtube, but I'm skeptical if I believe a mortal could effectively combat even the minor eldritch creatures in Lovecraft's universe. But I'm also tired of games where you're defenseless and always forced to hide or flee. I like having the options to be both proactive and reactive, but they need to make sense thematically. Hiding from an eldritch creature may make sense, but I would also like to be proactive with some offensive capabilities. But if those offensive capabilities are actual weapons or guns, you lose me. Even in Lovecraft's own stories there's some instances of successful direct physical combat, but it's often used to emphasize the pointlessness of victory. At the end of The Shadow over Innsmouth (spoilers for a century-old short story) the US government just rolls into the town guns blazing, wins, ships all the Deep One hybrids off to concentration camps, and uses a navy submarine to drop explosives down devil's reef. The point comes afterward though, where even that physical victory does nothing to halt the protagonist's own personal metamorphosis, and he still hears the call from the deep, and goes to great lengths to explain how the Deep One cities are far deeper and older than anybody knows. The problem with translating that dynamic to a video game is ludonarrative dissonance. Like, you win the shoot shoot monster game but the cutscene tells you that everything is bad afterward, who cares? Bloodborne's most difficult ending managed it though.
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Aug 15, 2020 10:07
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sigher posted:Bloodborne, the greatest game ever made, is based on Eldritch horror and it's pretty far removed from narrative stuff. Bloodborne nails the aesthetic but it’s about as much of a horror game as Monster Squad is a horror movie. Hungry posted:Even in Lovecraft's own stories there's some instances of successful direct physical combat, but it's often used to emphasize the pointlessness of victory. At the end of The Shadow over Innsmouth (spoilers for a century-old short story) the US government just rolls into the town guns blazing, wins, ships all the Deep One hybrids off to concentration camps, and uses a navy submarine to drop explosives down devil's reef. The point comes afterward though, where even that physical victory does nothing to halt the protagonist's own personal metamorphosis, and he still hears the call from the deep, and goes to great lengths to explain how the Deep One cities are far deeper and older than anybody knows. There are some goofy encounters like Cthulhu or a star spawn whatever goes back to sleep after being rammed by a ship but in almost every encounter with the actual mythos the point is almost always “close the loving gate” while the object of a video game is to intensely study every detail. I think it was John Wolfe complaining about a recentish game despawned a monster too quickly and he goes on this tangent “always assume the player wants to see the thing that just flashed by” which is just the antithesis of eldritch horror. Video game: poking Cthulhu will kill you Gamer: well how could I not poke Cthulhu? *cthulhu kills you* Gamer: wow, bad game. al-azad fucked around with this message at 10:36 on Aug 15, 2020 |
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Aug 15, 2020 10:30
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I always thought the ending of Shadow was even though the Navy bombed the reef, Dagon and his Deep Ones didn't give a single toss about it and things went on as they always were going to, the entire thing was the usual meaningless flailing at the inevitable.
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Aug 15, 2020 11:26
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Control is also a pretty good game that is very much based around eldritch horror (though it's not really a horror game). I think combat can work but in order to be really effective in a horror game it needs to be like... a thing you use by necessity, and not just "time for the combat section 17/68". There aren't many games that do this well, but Darkwood definitely comes to mind.
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Aug 15, 2020 11:47
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Dreadwroth2 posted:I always thought the ending of Shadow was even though the Navy bombed the reef, Dagon and his Deep Ones didn't give a single toss about it and things went on as they always were going to, the entire thing was the usual meaningless flailing at the inevitable. Yeah that's what I was trying to say but I used too many words.
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Aug 15, 2020 12:08
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Dreadwroth2 posted:I always thought the ending of Shadow was even though the Navy bombed the reef, Dagon and his Deep Ones didn't give a single toss about it and things went on as they always were going to, the entire thing was the usual meaningless flailing at the inevitable. But really, it's not wrong to point out that the protagonists in Lovecraft stories actually win fairly regularly, even in violent confrontations. Even in The Call of Cthulhu, they get rid of Big C by ramming him with a ship until he decides to just go back to bed for another eon. The horrid futility comes from the realization that there's an entire universe of those things out there and that we can't defeat them all, not forever.
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Aug 15, 2020 12:16
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al-azad posted:Bloodborne nails the aesthetic but it’s about as much of a horror game as Monster Squad is a horror movie. If a game with horrific, grotesque creatures brutally mutilating you ain't horror then I'm not sure what is. Monster Squad is also a great horror film, so you're right, Bloodborne is a great horror game.
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Aug 15, 2020 12:24
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Bloodborne is all about empowering you against those creatures. You literally use their blood to heal yourself. It's hard for anything to work as horror when the implacable slasher hunting down the innocent gribblies is you.
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Aug 15, 2020 12:44
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If the purpose of horror games is to frighten and unnerve the player then Bloodborne doesn't really feel like a horror game to me, despite its obvious Lovecraftian aesthetic. It's an action game designed to make you think the unknowable evils of a bygone era are stupid cheap-rear end fuckers until you finally kill them, amazing reads pros only, GG bitch no RE.
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Aug 15, 2020 12:49
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Cardiovorax posted:Bloodborne is all about empowering you against those creatures. You literally use their blood to heal yourself. It's hard for anything to work as horror when the implacable slasher hunting down the innocent gribblies is you. Right, much like Doom the player is the slasher villain and the monsters just can’t get out of your way. Definitely so in Bloodborne where some of the enemies are portrayed as being really pathetic, like yeah they’re an amorphous blob of gnashing teeth or a giant brain that can melt you within line of sight but they’re also found shivering in a dark corner or weeping over their mother’s corpse. E: when thinking about bloodborne monsters I can’t help but think of Monster Party’s jack-o-lantern boss that shouts “please don’t pick on me” before hopping around the screen. al-azad fucked around with this message at 13:01 on Aug 15, 2020 |
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Aug 15, 2020 12:55
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The fact that there are some boss fights where you have to actively make the first strike against a creature that otherwise ignores you really brings in the ambivalence there.
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Aug 15, 2020 12:59
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al-azad posted:I think it was John Wolfe complaining about a recentish game despawned a monster too quickly and he goes on this tangent “always assume the player wants to see the thing that just flashed by” which is just the antithesis of eldritch horror. I took that complaint as if you despawn something too quickly, based on the assumption that the player will freeze or run away immediately, you might end up with some immersion-breaking experiences when the big, physical beast that should be in the hallway it turned into a second ago is just gone.
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Aug 15, 2020 15:25
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Wasn't the rant even in the context of "I heard the spooky sound but have no idea wtf the spooky thing was I missed it"?
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Aug 15, 2020 15:47
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For once I think he's pretty much correct, because when you put a spooky monster in a horror game then yeah duh do players want to see the spooky monster that they're playing the game for.
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Aug 15, 2020 16:12
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Cardiovorax posted:For once I think he's pretty much correct, because when you put a spooky monster in a horror game then yeah duh do players want to see the spooky monster that they're playing the game for. Right, you don't have to make it so the player can stare the monster down and get a real good look to see how ridiculous it is but at the least they should be able to see the spooky thing
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Aug 15, 2020 16:13
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Most of Bloodborne you can get killed pretty easily and there are straight up creepy horror areas like the dancing witches in Hemwick and getting kidnapped. Also don't they defeat Cthulu by pulling a Jaws the Revenge on him?
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Aug 15, 2020 16:17
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Groovelord Neato posted:Most of Bloodborne you can get killed pretty easily and there are straight up creepy horror areas like the dancing witches in Hemwick and getting kidnapped. He wasn't beaten he just decided the stars weren't actually right and went back to sleep  Yes they hit him with a boat
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Aug 15, 2020 16:21
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Bloodborne might not be frequently scary, but it is one of the only cosmic horror games I've played where the supernatural elements were repulsive and unnerving. Alot of Lovecraft inspired media really seems to rest on its laurels and just give you a hosed up squid dude with an eldritch number of tentacles which needless to say is the most terrifying thing you've ever seen, lose 10 sanity points. Actually focusing on some weird and gross concepts, like 'eyes on the inside' and the warping of the human form from abusing alien knowledge was alot more interesting than pretending to be as scared of race mixing and the very concept of other sapient species as a early 20th century hyper-racist
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Aug 15, 2020 17:09
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Right? There are so many other options but it's always deep ones and Cthulhu. Give me some Hastur or Yig. Depending on which aspect Nyarlethotep could be a fun one? But nah it's always fish men
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Aug 15, 2020 17:12
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I want the penguins
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Aug 15, 2020 17:19
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Len posted:Give me some Hastur or Yig. Depending on which aspect Nyarlethotep could be a fun one?
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Aug 15, 2020 17:24
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SirDrone posted:Not that it's really horror but remembering it from an old thread this scooby doo flash tie-in game for the release of the second movie had this as a jumpscare. Oh my loving god I was just thinking about this the other day. I remember way back in elementary computer class that some kid managed to find this and scare the bajeezus out of everyone in what was supposed to be safe fun monitored website hours. Who'da thunk Scooby-Doo would traumatize the whole class? On that tangent, remember that The Grudge flash game? That was the ultimate scariest thing to a bunch of 11 year olds.
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Aug 15, 2020 17:27
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The Shore is pretty interesting, I think a somber and melancholy take more focused on personal traumas than the eldritch horrors is unexplored ground in video games. (I mean, it's hard to tell if that's truly what they're going for but it feels like they super compressed things for the demo) And anyway, It's always Cthulhu makes you insane or eats you but like, it seems like this part always gets skipped quote:"Then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom." Oddly enough, the Red Flood mod for hearts of iron gives me the same vibes as this
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Aug 15, 2020 17:34
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Len posted:Right, you don't have to make it so the player can stare the monster down and get a real good look to see how ridiculous it is but at the least they should be able to see the spooky thing I just find it a failing of the limitations of the medium that inherently pulls you out of the experience. You shouldn’t want to see the spook but also it’s pretty drat easy to tell if a game does/doesn’t have combat, yet if you kill the player for being curious like a Sierra adventure game it’s bad design.
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Aug 15, 2020 17:38
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multijoe posted:Bloodborne might not be frequently scary, but it is one of the only cosmic horror games I've played where the supernatural elements were repulsive and unnerving. Alot of Lovecraft inspired media really seems to rest on its laurels and just give you a hosed up squid dude with an eldritch number of tentacles which needless to say is the most terrifying thing you've ever seen, lose 10 sanity points. Bloodborne does so many interesting things with Lovecraftian-style mythos. I like the implication that people live in awareness of Elder Gods or Great Old Ones, and the idea that people are trying to communicate with them, and even make one. I wonder if you could make interesting combat for a horror game by just having the character flail and kick at monsters, but it'd eat away at an endurance meter you also use to run. Like, kicking a monster away from you makes it stumble a bit and gives you time to run, but do it too much and you can't.
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Aug 15, 2020 17:46
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al-azad posted:You shouldn’t want to see the spook Any horror game that tries to present itself as if that's how you're supposed to feel is going to be a failed game, because no one ever does.
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Aug 15, 2020 17:51
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davidspackage posted:Bloodborne does so many interesting things with Lovecraftian-style mythos. I like the implication that people live in awareness of Elder Gods or Great Old Ones, and the idea that people are trying to communicate with them, and even make one. I've always liked the model from the old Resident Evil & Silent Hill games where you can take a fight but you can't take every fight, and there's tension in when to fight and when to evade. Modern style first person abject powerlessness sims where you run away until your camera gets mugged and you get a screamer have never appealed to me, the jump scares are just too scary but also it's just kind of boring conceptually alot of the time when your only option is to disengage until the bad thing goes away. Cardiovorax posted:I think that this statement is losing sight a little of the fact that horror games and other media are still entertainment, not a real experience of fear and terror. Why shouldn't you want see the spook? In the end, you're there for fun, not to be genuinely terrified of a horrid, life-threatening monstrosity that you are too scared to look at. ooh wow look at this guy who's never had a nightmare about a monster from a horror movie or game
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Aug 15, 2020 18:08
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Yahtzee is kind of a dick these days, but one thing he said in one of his early videos I have always agreed with: jumpscares are not horror. They're not scary. They're startling. A fuzzy little kitten can startle you if it jumps in your face when you're least expecting it, but that does not make it a feline Stanley Kubrick. Any horror that relies on jumpscares is poo poo horror.
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Aug 15, 2020 18:11
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Len posted:Right, you don't have to make it so the player can stare the monster down and get a real good look to see how ridiculous it is but at the least they should be able to see the spooky thing I think the main cause of that is that there's almost the opposite of the futility of winning like some people were mentioning was a core thing for Locecraft. As in, for almost every game there's a futility in losing. You turn to see the monster because what does the player really lose? A bit of time? Even if there's an option for it to wipe your save. So what? The real world kicks in and folk less bothered about restarting will just start something else or look up things on YouTube.
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Aug 15, 2020 18:12
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Cardiovorax posted:I think that this statement is losing sight a little of the fact that horror games and other media are still entertainment, not a real experience of fear and terror. Why shouldn't you want see the spook? In the end, you're there for fun, not to be genuinely terrified of a horrid, life-threatening monstrosity that you are too scared to look at. It just defeats the purpose of horror in the same way sanity effects encourage the player to actively play poorly which makes it literally useless as a mechanism. And any clever attempts to dissuade the player from spoiling themselves like Amnesia’s screen blur are just called out as poor design. Video games are great at building suspense and encouraging immediacy in actions, but player agency and horror butt heads so even the best horror games are just “this is a third/first person shooter but the controls are bad.”
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Aug 15, 2020 18:30
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al-azad posted:Video game: poking Cthulhu will kill you I dunno, people loved Alien Isolation, which is basically "can i poke the alien" "sure" "oh gently caress i'm dead" "no poo poo its an alien" "fair". Even the flamer it gives you is temporary and it eventually kills you through it anyway.
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Aug 15, 2020 18:32
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Look as long as the checkpoints are close I'm absolutely going to do the thing I shouldn't do. It was like when Wolfenstein put Hitler in front of me, there was a 0%chance I wouldn't immediately kill Hitler when given the option
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Aug 15, 2020 18:34
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Cardiovorax posted:I think that this statement is losing sight a little of the fact that horror games and other media are still entertainment, not a real experience of fear and terror. Why shouldn't you want see the spook? In the end, you're there for fun, not to be genuinely terrified of a horrid, life-threatening monstrosity that you are too scared to look at. This is super reductive. Obviously games aren't "real", but that doesn't mean that you can't experience real fear and anxiety when playing a game. Plenty of people enjoy horror media for exactly this reason.
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Aug 15, 2020 18:35
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Len posted:Look as long as the checkpoints are close I'm absolutely going to do the thing I shouldn't do. It was like when Wolfenstein put Hitler in front of me, there was a 0%chance I wouldn't immediately kill Hitler when given the option This is the correct response to encountering Hitler but I’m talking about fictional monsters here.
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Aug 15, 2020 18:37
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King of Bleh posted:This is super reductive. Obviously games aren't "real", but that doesn't mean that you can't experience real fear and anxiety when playing a game. Plenty of people enjoy horror media for exactly this reason. I'm not saying you can't feel a degree of real fear and tension while playing a game, but it's never going to be more than the sort of 'titillating' quasi-fear that people look for when they read a spooky story. If you're not treating it fundamentally as an entertainment product first, you'll just not be able to do right by it. Just a personal opinion. Cardiovorax fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Aug 15, 2020 |
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Aug 15, 2020 18:46
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sometimes that remove IS the strength of the fear, though like, I know ghosts aren't real, I'm not scared of ghosts personally, but I had to put down the controller and take a few breaks from Fatal Frame. I was more scared of fake ghosts than I was, for example, almost actually dying several times in real life when you get engaged in the story, really absorbed into it, then the same sense of escapism that lets you enjoy decorating in Animal Crossing or gives you a rush of adrenaline from dropping off the tallest building in Spider-man can also give you an otherwise unattainable sort of fear I wouldn't consider it less than or limited, just different. You have to tailor to the sense of removal, like negative escapism, but I think horror games have hosed with me more as an adult than any genuine immediate fear has, and I know for a fact horror games hit me in a way no movie ever has like hypothetically getting burgled by three real men in pig masks would probably scare me more than digital ghosts do, but at present I don't have a source of fear greater than digital ghosts readily available, if that makes sense. There's a sliding scale between (the rush of watching spider-man jump off a building) | (jumping off the highest thing you can at your house) | (the rush of PLAYING spider-man jumping off a building) | (actually jumping off a building) and level 3 is what we're shooting for Lunatic Sledge fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Aug 15, 2020 |
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Aug 15, 2020 19:47
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There is a game called Horror Adventure on PSN for a tenner. It looks like the worst thing of all time. Anyone played it?
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Aug 15, 2020 20:31
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