Yakoob on 15/5/2011 at 21:19
So playing through Doom 3 got me thinking, every single horror game I can think of has always taken place in darkness. SystemShocks, SilentHills, Resident Evils, Doom and Alan Wake, all rely on the night as a key mechanic to creating the spooky atmosphere. And for good reasons - evil lurking in the dark, the occasional moving shadow you catch with the corner of your eye, fear of the unknown, human natural predestination to distrust and be apprehensive in low visibility settings, etc.
But are there any horror games that do not take place in a darker setting? Brightly lit walls, or even, daylight? I can't think of a single game that accomplishes that. Yes, the above mentioned games aren't all dark (RE is fairly well lit for example, and RE4 takes place in some late evening/early morning hours too, but that's not really a horror game tbh), but still, darkness is very central to their mood and the scary factor. I am not quite sure if any of these games could really work if we switched them to daylight. But could it be done?
Also I don't mean psychological thriller or "fuck up with your mind" type games, but straight up horror, sit-on-the-edge-of-your-seat games.
henke on 15/5/2011 at 21:33
Yes, I think so. Making the player feel vulnerable is much more important than light(or the lack of it).
Sulphur on 15/5/2011 at 21:43
The reason why darkness is so effective for horror is because you can't see anything, of course. And when the details are murky, your mind fills in the gaps with things far more frightening than what's really there.
Horror in daylight is perfectly possible, but it's generally going to be less effective unless it's psychological. Gross monstrosities and physical vulnerability can certainly work in broad daylight, but the clarity of your immediate environs and the enemies removes the fear of the unknown a bit (sands the edge right off, really), and the loss of ambiguity in choosing an escape path would route the experience more towards 'thriller' material.
Would you include rain and veils of curling mist as well in the list of things that can't be used? Silent Hill always managed to make everything unsettling all the time because of those, but even then alternate Silent Hill in the dark was just five billion levels more scary.
Briareos H on 15/5/2011 at 22:11
For horror to work, the player must be barely in control of things around him which is pretty fucking difficult to enforce when he can run everwhere in broad daylight. Gotta find another creative way to cripple him.
Harvester on 15/5/2011 at 22:14
Maybe if you make the controls really unwieldy, so that you can see where you want to go but have trouble actually going there, it could be scary. Like in the original 1992 Alone in the Dark (or maybe the Resident Evil games, but I've not played those), which is fairly well lit but you often have trouble maneuvering your character away from danger. But purposefully making shitty controls is not really a path you want to take.
Maybe you could study what Kubrick did right in The Shining. Many people find it very scary even though all the sets are bathed in bright light. Though obviously what works in a movie might not work in a game.
Fafhrd on 15/5/2011 at 22:14
Left 4 Dead 2 has a daytime campaign, doesn't it?
RE5 is also largely in daylight.
Al_B on 15/5/2011 at 22:21
A horror game set in the middle of the desert could work. Although the player could technically run in any direction, doing so would be suicidal in itself. I'm struggling to think of examples, however. The (
http://eclipse.ovine.net/) Total Eclipse remake is the closest and it doesn't really classify as a horror game.
Muzman on 15/5/2011 at 22:22
I've never played it, but Pathologic maybe?
It is more psychological horror though, I guess.
Jason Moyer on 15/5/2011 at 22:54
Certainly there are things in the world that people are scared of besides darkness. Eventually more than a handful of people will be creative enough to do something with them.
catbarf on 16/5/2011 at 00:10
I thought Shock2 did it pretty well, most of the game is pretty well-lit and relies on claustrophobia rather than darkness to heighten the tension.
