A developer's challenge: Could this really be possible?

[Ady]

The Sentinel could be scary, in a panic-inducing sort of way.

As for Treble's comments about game setting, I'd like to see a horror game of some description set in England around the time of smallpox. The locales would be very grimy and horrible and you could 'scare' the player by making them think they might've caught the 'pox...

Another interesting scare tactic I'd like to see employed was inspired by the film Ring. Quite a few people I know said that film made them look at their own TVs in a different way. Imagine a game that worked on a similar level, but with the player being scared to even switch on their console...

[MonkeyWrench]

Sure games when we were kids scared us, they were the best you could get on current systems at that time. However, the GBA isn't the best current systems have to offer tech wise, sure it's a nifty little system, but with games like SH and PZ I think we expect a little more from a scarey game than some blocky sprites and a few beeps. You could certainly make a clever little game on a horror/suspense backdrop, but I doubt anyone of us here would be physically scared like we were at the pad of the aformentioned titles. Or would we? I know that I wouldn't, horror games for me are about immersion and the GBA just doesn't offer the game kind of immersion that a large TV, surround sound and dark room can. That being said I would love some developers to give it a go.

[Ady]

Your problem, dear boy is that you have been spoilt by the technological opulence of this age!

Seriously though, understand your point, but if a book can be scary, I can't see why a non-polygonal game can't be. And the games I cited overpage scared me because they were geniunely tense games - my age had nothing to do with it.

Where we differ is this; you believe technology is the key to an immersive experience, I believe it is the imagination. I point to one of the oldest storytelling mediums known to man as proof of my point, too.

Long before there were PS2s, there were books, campfire ghost stories, and old tales. Don't let technology prevent you from seeing the forest for the trees...

[Treble]

I love this "Books can be scary, you know" theme running-through this thread =]

Books piss on any other media from a great height when it comes to fightening you, as you draw upon your own conscious and subconscious fears to populate the storyline with horrors. Nothing else comes close, with only about 3 films in the history of cinema matching the most frightening horror and ghost stories in the literary world.

With this in mind, creating a scary game on a handheld console, ought to be simple. Of course, to do this, the writing of the plotlines and scripts in video games must improve dramatically, but that's another thread entirely.

[Lebowski]

that light sensitive vampire game mr konami is makeing could be quite tense rushing to beat a boss before the sun goes down could be quite scary in its own right

graphicly superb or not and this sort of game would only work on this type of system as it needs to be portable.

[MonkeyWrench]

Yes I do think I've been spoilt by technology, but then I also was when I was playing Aliens on my Speccy +2. I understand that books can be scary, and like Treble said, no other medium comes close in that department, but that doesn't mean to say I'm going to get shivers down my spine by some text driven game on a GBA. I don't think you can really compare books to games anyway, both deliver the story in different ways - a book relies on description and imagination, a game relies on visuals and audio. I'm not saying there won't ever be any scary handheld games, I just don't think we'll see any soon on current handheld technology (well none that will scare the pants off me anyway, dunno about anyone else).

[paddyo]

imagine a weird game where the gba was almost 'alive' , i mean really advanced ai , like replying to your input etc , anyway , imagine the concept is you have like developed an intelligent computer , and at first it is just a really cool game , you play mini games with it , have conversations etc , and it is just like a normal commercial game , and it is even marketed that way , then imagine after like a week if it starts to go weird , saying funny things , bit like 'red rum from the shining etc , then imagine if they could make it so the gba would just turn on a nite or something , kinda like it was coming alive and becoming malevolent , the gba version of demon seed if you will (witohout the impregnation !)

what do you think ? i know it is kinda jumbled up way of putting it , maybe you cna click with what i'm saying ?

[Treble]

Yeah, that's a really good idea. I see where you are going with it. Having a game that operated with you on a personal level, then suddenly 'turned' on you could work really well. You would only need a few basic options to make this work effectively.

Question is, what would comprise the actual 'game' element? Perhaps if the NPC/character you 'spoke' to wrote a diary, and you were communicating with the person's spirit, that might work.

You could have a scenario where you were a person who discovered a diary of someone who had been murdered, and it is your job to find their killer, with the help of the person's ghost. Your progress with the clues could determine how the spirit reacts, so on day 1, the spirit is guiding and helping you, but if you have failed to progress the detective work by, say, day 6, the spirit starts to be taken over by the murderer, and becomes influenced by his/her malevolence.

You could tie-in reading the diary in the day and night into this, with the tone of the game changing. Perhaps you cold even have the game suggest to you where you play as you play, which could be done at the player's discretion. So, the game might say 'I wrote this passage when sitting at the bottom of my garden', you could copy that action, and read the next passage. Earlier answers you provided could guide how your garden looks, or your workplace, or whatever scenario would work. Even lying in bed could be made to feel scary if the NPC makes good guesses based on your earlier answers, and any place you were 'sent' to would gain significance because of the game.

Imagine if you told the NPC your room was
A) Small
B) Light
C) Overlooking a road.
It could then relate a tale based on this, with the killer perhaps being glimpsed standing on the pavement briefly by the victim before he/she struck later that day or night.

There's quite a lot of potential in that, I think.
=]

[Lebowski]

imagine a weird game where the gba was almost 'alive' , i mean really advanced ai , like replying to your input etc , anyway , imagine the concept is you have like developed an intelligent computer , and at first it is just a really cool game , you play mini games with it , have conversations etc , and it is just like a normal commercial game , and it is even marketed that way , then imagine after like a week if it starts to go weird , saying funny things , bit like 'red rum from the shining etc , then imagine if they could make it so the gba would just turn on a nite or something , kinda like it was coming alive and becoming malevolent , the gba version of demon seed if you will (witohout the impregnation !)

what do you think ? i know it is kinda jumbled up way of putting it , maybe you cna click with what i'm saying ?

for this to work they would have to hide it in a sort of cutsey platformer like a disney game or something youd have to get the magazines to hype it up like say it was the best platform game

imagine it thosands of gameboys up and down the country being exercised by priests or thrown out of windows

[paddyo]

cool , i like your ideas treble , we should form a development studio togehter

cyemonkeys comment was funny too !! it reminded me of that story in the paper this week where those two little kids got harry potter bought for them and the disk was really the exorcist and they watched like half of it before they realised and they were scared stiff !!

[NINTY]

I found while playing through Meroid fusion that when encountering the more powerfull vesion of samus was qiete a spooky moment, probally just me though
it would be a shame if Silent hill didnt at least get an american release on the GBA, although i probally wouldent import it unless it was somthing particuly special.

[acidforblood]

Scary portable gaming? Surely the only way to go would be to utilize tilt technology. Imagine having to constantly keep on the move to keep your onscreen character alive and say for example the game was set in a Blair Witch style enviroment....literally running away from the bad guys, be a bit difficult to play it on the Bus though.

Why has the clock in game systems not been used to heighten suspense? Imagine only being able to play a game after midnight, the game is locked to all until after the bewitching hour. Marketing men would have a field day, the national press would be in uproar, Teachers would be complaining that kids are turning up to school bleary eyed and scared ****less. But if the game was scary i bet it would sell....