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al-azad posted:Stephen King crawled too far up his own metaverse that we lost a great writer who had a diverse portfolio ranging from "crazy fan who loves the artist's work so much she'll threaten to murder the artist" to "haunted car wooooahhh" the car was the image people remember most about Christine but the book’s real focus was the car’s malignant influence on Arnie, which ties into a pretty obvious set of anxieties (loss of friends, loss of recognition, etc) as well as the general mental degradation that characterized a lot of King’s work from that era. it also had a scary car, because King liked cars. still does, presumably, though probably not hatchbacks so much
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Feb 23, 2022 17:39
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Manager Hoyden posted:Well I think that all horror is based on some kind of animal PT is about being trapped in an endless cycle that seems impossible to escape from, a hell that is both of your own creation and you are also being forced to stay in. Only through tremendous suffering can you eventually break free to something new.
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Feb 23, 2022 17:40
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FNAF is an interesting case of a story without a lot of navel gazing. Its underlying plot is *absurdly* complicated for what it is, and yet it is by and large just "what if some dude wanted to become immortal so he started killing kids, wouldnt that be hosed up". No real focus on mental health or whatever, just a bunch of haunted fursuits, go sit in a corner and wait til morning. I know people think it's pretty  but I still think that Among The Sleep was pretty good. It was all about Abuse Monsters but it was done in a way that wasn't just some 30 year old bank clerk running away from a guy with a knife, and the theme bled into the game over time rather than HEY GUESS WHAT ABUSE
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Feb 23, 2022 17:44
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1stGear posted:PT is about being trapped in an endless cycle that seems impossible to escape from, a hell that is both of your own creation and you are also being forced to stay in. Only through tremendous suffering can you eventually break free to something new. Nah pretty sure it was the small horse thing
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Feb 23, 2022 17:47
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I always thought the cult from Silent Hill was horribly underutilized, and misused when it did get used. The cult absolutely can be used effectively in the game if they're something other than a generic conspiracy or antagonists; if they're depicted as individuals who have an incomplete and incorrect understanding of what the town is, then there's plenty of potential there. Basically more SH1 or 3, less SHO, no SH5.
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Feb 23, 2022 17:53
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Oxxidation posted:they’re talking about fillerfillerfiller Returnal fillerfillerfiller I've been working through that game. I just got to the third area yesterday. So far it doesn't seem to even have a plot
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Feb 23, 2022 18:01
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Inspector Gesicht posted:The only moden horror about mental illness I'd give props to is Devotion. If they were able to release it on ps4 I'd buy it in a second. Very unhappy about this.
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Feb 23, 2022 18:03
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In Sound Mind was incredibly surprising in how it handled people suffering from mental problems while also being a game that is forward about taking place in your own mind (not a spoiler, it's in the game's description). The way it handles things makes it so that metaphors are still present and you can definitely see the different themes between the various locations but it also has an actual reason for why any of this is happening and why the things you're dealing with inside your head are still very real and very dangerous.
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Feb 23, 2022 18:05
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al-azad posted:Stephen King crawled too far up his own metaverse that we lost a great writer who had a diverse portfolio ranging from "crazy fan who loves the artist's work so much she'll threaten to murder the artist" to "haunted car wooooahhh" Christine was written and published before Misery.  Oxxidation posted:the car was the image people remember most about Christine but the book’s real focus was the car’s malignant influence on Arnie, which ties into a pretty obvious set of anxieties (loss of friends, loss of recognition, etc) as well as the general mental degradation that characterized a lot of King’s work from that era. it also had a scary car, because King liked cars. still does, presumably, though probably not hatchbacks so much Christine is literally "yandere-but-it's-a-car", which I fuckin' love.
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Feb 23, 2022 20:30
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FirstAidKite posted:In Sound Mind was incredibly surprising in how it handled people suffering from mental problems while also being a game that is forward about taking place in your own mind (not a spoiler, it's in the game's description). The way it handles things makes it so that metaphors are still present and you can definitely see the different themes between the various locations but it also has an actual reason for why any of this is happening and why the things you're dealing with inside your head are still very real and very dangerous. I think this is the key thing a lot of post-SH2 games (*and also movies) miss: it worked because the poo poo was actually happening. Regardless of how deeply the monsters were based on James' issues, the monsters were real and he was actually there and some of the endings strongly imply he can take a little of the nightmare out with him. Alice Actually Goes To Wonderland And Doesn't Just Dream About It For Three Hours (edit: And on a similar note, Neo waking up to discover the Matrix was all a dream would not have significantly improved the movie) I don't have a problem with "ooh brains are spooky" (I've been writing the same spooky brain CYOA for almost three years now), I just hate that it tends to always hit the same notes. Silent HIll Homecoming setup an amazing opportunity to talk about PTSD and the trauma of war but instead whoops the protagonist is just delusional. Man, brains ARE spooky. Left brain-right brain divide is spooky. Prions are spooky. Genetic brain problems that your family have known about the whole time but they're in denial because society's just kinda like that, are spooky. Purple isn't even a real color, and that's pretty spooky. Capgras delusion, gradual deterioration of personhood, the sort of living conditions that depression/mental illness can lead to (the apartment I live in right now is a hundred times weirder than actually being depressed is), all spooky as hell. Of all the brain things that absolutely loving terrify me, waking up to discover I'm secretly a serial killer is very low on a looong list Lunatic Sledge fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 20:43
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Read After Burning posted:Christine was written and published before Misery. I don’t think that was a dig at Christine, just an indication that King had a… wide array of stories, let’s say.
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Feb 23, 2022 20:48
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Bussamove posted:I don’t think that was a dig at Christine, just an indication that King had a… wide array of stories, let’s say. Going back, you're right and I think I mis-read. At first I read it as "He was good during Misery but bad since Christine", but now I'm re-reading it as "He was good back during Misery and Christine, but recently has been bad". Sorry, Al-Azad! I think they're under his pseudonym (can't remember), but the "dystopian" poo poo he wrote like The Long Walk or the Running Man are pretty "different vibes" from his usual work, I feel.
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Feb 23, 2022 20:54
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"Haunted car" could also (sorta) describe From a Buick 8 which has a great idea but isn't a very good book.
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Feb 23, 2022 20:57
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Him doing The Regulators and Desperation under his pseudonym and real name respectively and using the same character names and antagonist but in extremely different roles was interesting.
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Feb 23, 2022 21:02
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Neo Rasa posted:Him doing The Regulators and Desperation under his pseudonym and real name respectively and using the same character names and antagonist but in extremely different roles was interesting. The dual-cover thing was sick. 
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Feb 23, 2022 21:05
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Groovelord Neato posted:"Haunted car" could also (sorta) describe From a Buick 8 which has a great idea but isn't a very good book. Buick 8 (which is bad, to be clear) was about fear of the unknown and inexplicable, subtly implied by King going “this is a story about fear of the unknown and inexplicable” every other god drat paragraph goes to show that theme doesn’t carry you very far if it’s not implemented well then there was Trucks, a story about man’s increasing irrelevance in an industrialized world (and scary trucks) and Uncle Otto’s Truck, a story about the corrosive effects of guilt and the terror of the inevitable (and a scary truck) and Maximum Overdrive, which is mostly cocaine Oxxidation fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 21:09
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This is probably trite but I was always under the impression that King wrote so many car based books not because he liked them but because one almost killed him
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Feb 23, 2022 21:24
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CuddleCryptid posted:This is probably trite but I was always under the impression that King wrote so many car based books not because he liked them but because one almost killed him That was in 1999; I believe Buick 8 was his only "murderous car" story written since then (2002). Christine was 1983, and Trucks (Maximum Overdrive) was first published in 1973. I haven't kept up with any of his stuff post, like, 2010, though. So grain of salt and all that.
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Feb 23, 2022 21:29
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Lunatic Sledge posted:I think this is the key thing a lot of post-SH2 games (*and also movies) miss: it worked because the poo poo was actually happening. Regardless of how deeply the monsters were based on James' issues, the monsters were real and he was actually there and some of the endings strongly imply he can take a little of the nightmare out with him. Alice Actually Goes To Wonderland And Doesn't Just Dream About It For Three Hours I think this is part of the problem, yeah. You can have your metaphors without the thing your game is a metaphor for being the literal monster. That said, the problem with 90% of all lovely horror games is hacks being hacks who would ruin any idea presented by them. One underused concept in psychological horror is having events at some times real and at other times very, very obviously fake. There's a movie I really like, Christmas Evil, which is basically a slow, realistic portrait of a proto-office shooter completely losing his mind one holiday season. Almost the entire running time of the movie is the main character doing perfectly realistic (and clearly disturbed) things except for a couple key occasions where what we're seeing obviously isn't what's really happening. They're played completely straight, they assume the audience is smart enough to understand they're fake without glaring callouts and they really get you into the mindset of the tormented main character in a simultaneously creepy and sympathetic way. Unrelated spooky brain stuff: I know someone who found out as an adult half her brain just... doesn't work. It's presumably been that way since birth, the other half is just doing what the rest of her brain isn't and she's a perfectly healthy, mentally stable person.
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Feb 23, 2022 21:33
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I was going to say "why can't any horror games just be about scary dudes/monsters" then remembered how people keep putting out indie horror games where you walk around until someone jumps out at you.
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Feb 23, 2022 21:38
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There needs to be more games revolving around slashers that doesn't just involve hide and seek. Either you are one or being chased by one, doesn't matter.
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Feb 23, 2022 21:44
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exquisite tea phrased the frustration behind “just a dream” or “all in your head” stories pretty well: we already know this is fiction, we seldom need a second layer of unreality over the first. it smacks of a lack of confidence on the writers’ part silent hill 2 is one of the few exceptions not just because of its reality or lack thereof, but because of its thoroughness. there isn’t a single image or event in that game that doesn’t reflect back on James in some way, even from the other characters. it’s mercilessly solipsistic the PS5 exclusive mentioned on the last page almost pulled off the same thing and then tripped down the stairs and broke its neck
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Feb 23, 2022 21:44
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CuddleCryptid posted:This is probably trite but I was always under the impression that King wrote so many car based books not because he liked them but because one almost killed him it was the other way around, a car tried to kill him because he kept writing so many anti-car books
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Feb 23, 2022 21:56
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Also, King went full subtext is for cowards after his accident. You know which books he wrote after the accident because every goddamn one for several years had a man get hit by a van.
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Feb 23, 2022 21:59
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Manager Hoyden posted:Everyone I don't think anyone "hopes" for which tough subject a game is about, but you're talking about horror which is an entire genre of art that brings these kinds of topics up and comments on them most of the time. The "you're a monster all along" is played out, but you could almost argue that applies to anything in horror because every work of horror can be summarized as "humanity is a piece of poo poo" so you're always the bad one!  al-azad posted:Stephen King crawled too far up his own metaverse that we lost a great writer who had a diverse portfolio ranging from "crazy fan who loves the artist's work so much she'll threaten to murder the artist" to "haunted car wooooahhh" You mean he sobered up. Inspector Gesicht posted:The only moden horror about mental illness I'd give props to is Devotion. Hellblade and Among the Sleep spring into mind; there's still no way to buy Devotion is there?
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Feb 23, 2022 22:12
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Oxxidation posted:exquisite tea phrased the frustration behind “just a dream” or “all in your head” stories pretty well: we already know this is fiction, we seldom need a second layer of unreality over the first. it smacks of a lack of confidence on the writers’ part Lack of confidence, maybe even some embarrassment about writing genre fiction while still wanting to lend your monster story cheap and easy emotional weight. Silent Hill 2 proved trauma\guilt metaphors aren't a bad place to start, but so many of these games feel like there was a pitch meeting where someone did Pixar hands while talking about scares and aesthetic, then when they were asked what it all means they went "Uh, a tortured... erm, uncle... can't accept that his... Pomeranian... got... cancer?'" It often comes off as perfunctory.
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Feb 23, 2022 22:16
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Read After Burning posted:Going back, you're right and I think I mis-read. At first I read it as "He was good during Misery but bad since Christine", but now I'm re-reading it as "He was good back during Misery and Christine, but recently has been bad". lol yes I was just pointing out his absurd range. My favorite King book is The Talisman (with Peter Straub) which is ostensibly about a 12yo who can shift into a parallel dimension that's all blasted and ruined but the real horror happens in the real world where the kid is practically enslaved at a gross bar or picked up by a religious cult at a school for troubled children and it's just a good fantasy road trip book but also occasionally silent hill as heck.
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Feb 23, 2022 22:22
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sigher posted:Hellblade and Among the Sleep spring into mind; there's still no way to buy Devotion is there? https://shop.redcandlegames.com/app/devotion You can buy it directly from the developers.
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Feb 23, 2022 22:27
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SimonChris posted:https://shop.redcandlegames.com/app/devotion Detention is also really good and also deals with Capital I Issues in an interesting way. Also looking at that website, what is with the Zalgo text thing in their drop down? Some sort of manga ARG called the Shan-Hai Archive?
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Feb 23, 2022 22:45
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I'd like to see a horror game where you're just a complete assholes the entire time and not as a twist. The closest thing I can think of is the first Gabriel Knight where the gameplay mostly consists of being a deuce. Alternatively a M.R. James sort of thing where you just randomly stumble into some horrific supernatural force because you read the wrong book or booked the wrong hotel room or stole a whistle, engraved with esoteric symbols and cryptic Latin phrases, from a Templar grave while on holiday. You know that sort of relatable thing any player can easily imagine happening to them.
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Feb 24, 2022 00:31
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Neo Rasa posted:Him doing The Regulators and Desperation under his pseudonym and real name respectively and using the same character names and antagonist but in extremely different roles was interesting. I reread those one after another last year, and it was a neat idea (especially presenting one as a posthumously uncovered Bachmann manuscript), but it felt like the paired stories themselves never hit anything deeper than a "huh, that was an interesting concept I guess" level. But yeah, the covers were pretty neat though. 1stGear posted:Also, King went full subtext is for cowards after his accident. You know which books he wrote after the accident because every goddamn one for several years had a man get hit by a van. Up to and including Famous Author Stephen King, who must be saved from his accident to continue his all-important work of being a Storyteller
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Feb 24, 2022 00:33
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I will say, I think Stephen King's best work is his short stories. Far too often he has a really fun idea, spends nearly a thousand pages playing with the idea, then realises he doesn't actually know how to end it and you end up with The Tommyknockers.
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Feb 24, 2022 00:38
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Disposable Scud posted:There needs to be more games revolving around slashers that doesn't just involve hide and seek. Either you are one or being chased by one, doesn't matter. It turns me off a bunch of stuff that looks otherwise interesting- Nun Massacre or other Puppet Combo stuff I guess?- that it just looks like hide and seek.
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Feb 24, 2022 00:39
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Has there ever been a Stephen King game? Aside from Alan Wake where you might as well be playing as Stewart Monarch. Disposable Scud posted:There needs to be more games revolving around slashers that doesn't just involve hide and seek. Either you are one or being chased by one, doesn't matter. I think Puppet Combo's Babysitter Massacre is pretty good. I haven't played it in years but I don't think you can even hide from the killer. You just need to find a way to escape or to kill him. I think. I might be mashing up my memories of Halloween the movie with the game. FreudianSlippers fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Feb 24, 2022 |
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Feb 24, 2022 00:40
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There was a point and click adventure game based on The Dark Half in the 90's, but I never played it so idk if it was any good.
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Feb 24, 2022 00:44
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catlord posted:I will say, I think Stephen King's best work is his short stories. Far too often he has a really fun idea, spends nearly a thousand pages playing with the idea, then realises he doesn't actually know how to end it and you end up with The Tommyknockers. the tommyknockers is one of his few novels that actually ends well, it’s the middle that meanders needful things comes to mind as an ending that’s more of a big shrug
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Feb 24, 2022 00:45
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catlord posted:I will say, I think Stephen King's best work is his short stories. Far too often he has a really fun idea, spends nearly a thousand pages playing with the idea, then realises he doesn't actually know how to end it and you end up with The Tommyknockers. I think The Mist is my favorite thing he's written, and coincidentally would also be a good setup for a game. FreudianSlippers posted:Has there ever been a Stephen King game? And that's where I accidentally set myself up for a Half Life joke
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Feb 24, 2022 00:51
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catlord posted:I will say, I think Stephen King's best work is his short stories. Far too often he has a really fun idea, spends nearly a thousand pages playing with the idea, then realises he doesn't actually know how to end it and you end up with The Tommyknockers. This tends to be horror in general imo. Most of the best horror literature from the past few years has been short story collections, though there are definitely notable exceptions. Which reminds me The Butcher's Table is a great concept for a game. A pirate ship sails to hell to smuggle out damned souls with help from two rival Satanist cults with ulterior motives while being chased by weird body horror angels. Lots of ways to use that setup.
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Feb 24, 2022 00:51
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Oxxidation posted:the tommyknockers is one of his few novels that actually ends well, it’s the middle that meanders Maybe I don't remember it (did I finish it? I know I read at least part of it...), it's the one my dad always points to as having a weird, bad end. I liked Needful Things, I don't remember having an issue with how it ended. But then again, I liked The Dark Half (the novel, not the dire game that had an LP on here ages ago), and Needful Things felt like a companion piece to it to me. Unfortunately, I think Alan Wake is your best bet for a Stephen King videogame (unless you go and find a copy of F13, not that one should).
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Feb 24, 2022 00:56
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alan wake is not stephen king. it's too bland to even even be bad stephen king the best representation of his writing in game form is probably the first arc of The Secret World
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