Spacedad posted:

I think the biggest problem with a lot of horror games (the ones that are very seriously attempting to be scary) is that too many of them are rational, when the biggest strength horror games have is when they drag you deep into a feeling of being in a totally irrational fever dream. I think a lot of them cling far too much to the structure of a linear game where you are meant to do things that make sense, such as solving puzzles or defeating enemies. Or even where you can just plain 'die' and then respawn from your save.

Real nightmares don't have that linearity to them - they might have the illusion of structure, but that structure breaks down and warps. Rather than merely get killed by an enemy encounter or something, you instead feel you are faced with the terrible prospect of having your soul scraped across by the claws of the nightmare experience. Even getting 'killed' shouldn't be a way out - you instead just tumble into another nasty point of the nightmare.