Anna has a mind....and she notices what makes you scared.

Casually Hardcore

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF30qruMNyE

I'll be the first to admit, I have no idea what's going on with the game outside of the trailer. But, I'm a huge fan of survival horror and its been a good long time sense I played a game I actually enjoyed and gave me the shivers.

I mean, what's up with survival horror? Why is it so hard? I'm sad to admit that the last fun survival horror game I played was this little known title:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4Q6uKchCjs

and it is a surprisingly fun party game.

But enough tangents. Anna is a survival horror from Dreampainters that, as far as I can tell, features an ever changing experience as the game learns new ways to make you never want to sleep with the lights off. With any luck, we have a game like Amnesia and we should all throw our monies at Dreampainter so we can get more awesome survival horror games like that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D8xXP2ZYyM

Coming out in May!

SkutSkut

That is an interesting concept, surprised there's no post in the thread yet that looks pretty cool.

Also, has not haves. :P

APODionysus

And 'notices' not 'notice'

But yeah, I'll be watching for this.

Look at me! Able to consider playing modern games again! Huzzah!

subedii

Casually Hardcore wrote:

But, I'm a huge fan of survival horror and its been a good long time sense I played a game I actually enjoyed and gave me the shivers.

I mean, what's up with survival horror? Why is it so hard? I'm sad to admit that the last fun survival horror game I played was this little known title:

The Grudge

Have you tried Amnesia: The Dark Descent?

Because seriously, you may want to try Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

Casually Hardcore

Yeah, I played Amnesia but then I played the Grudge afterwards....and after that there's nothing

rayofash

>I mean, what's up with survival horror? Why is it so hard?

Because most people don't know what it actually means to be afraid. For a lot of people horror means gore and screams for whatever reason. Horror is a science, and very few game developers/film makers understand it.

There was a Cthulhu mythos game for the GameCube I can't remember what it's called, it was good. I wouldn't say it's scary but it's very entertaining and has a great story.

Casually Hardcore

That would be Eternal Darkness.

Gigazombie Cybermage

Have you played Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth? Really excellent game.

"I like the way you smile at me baaaaabyyyy~..."

Dark Raven X

Survival horror is hard to pull off because it is a damn fine balance between making the player feel helpless while also not making the gameplay frustrating or deliberately obstructive. Resident Evil worked because the clunky controls made monsters bearing down on you all the more terrifying - but those controls in a modern game? Naw.

Amnesia was terrifying, but still the gameplay suffered for the atmosphere; getting lost or straight up not knowing where to go was scary for the first 10 minutes, then it got tedious. :P

This could be good! At the very least, it looks lovely. And more horror should be set in broad daylight in idyllic locations. ;D

Casual Eddy

my first guess would be it's so tough because it's hard to do scary things that hurt you

in FEAR the scary bits would almost never actually hurt you and so weren't very scary at all, whereas in deadspace you were constantly about to be ripped to pieces.

Casually Hardcore

Gigazombie Cybermage wrote: »

Have you played Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth? Really excellent game.

"I like the way you smile at me baaaaabyyyy~..."

Sadly, (I'm not sure if it's this game or another Cthulhu game) this game is an excellent example of both how to and how not to do a survival horror. The moment you pick up your first pistol, it quickly became a FPS with no real sense of fear.

SkutSkut

Cryostasis does a damn good job at survival horror, even in some parts after you get a gun.

The first hour or so is probably the best in regards to horror, having to get in melee range of monsters and punch them to death.

Raiden333

I love the shit out of horror games so this has just been put on my watch list.

kfrooster

What system is this coming out for? It looks like Amnesia so I'll assume the PC?

RainbowDespair

Casually Hardcore wrote: »

Gigazombie Cybermage wrote: »

Have you played Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth? Really excellent game.

"I like the way you smile at me baaaaabyyyy~..."

Sadly, (I'm not sure if it's this game or another Cthulhu game) this game is an excellent example of both how to and how not to do a survival horror. The moment you pick up your first pistol, it quickly became a FPS with no real sense of fear.

Yeah, Dark Corners of the Earth goes back and forth between being an incredible horror game and being a really mediocre FPS. Still worth playing for the good parts though.

Hexmage-PA

Casually Hardcore wrote: »

Sadly, (I'm not sure if it's this game or another Cthulhu game) this game is an excellent example of both how to and how not to do a survival horror. The moment you pick up your first pistol, it quickly became a FPS with no real sense of fear.

The trick to this would be to have monsters that are either really tough or (and this might be even more unnerving) monsters that weapons refuse to work on. Just imagine if you had been running from monsters, finally got a weapon that could kill them, and eventually encountered a creature that caused any gun pointed at it to consistently misfire.

RainbowDespair

Hexmage-PA wrote: »

Casually Hardcore wrote: »

Sadly, (I'm not sure if it's this game or another Cthulhu game) this game is an excellent example of both how to and how not to do a survival horror. The moment you pick up your first pistol, it quickly became a FPS with no real sense of fear.

The trick to this would be to have monsters that are either really tough or (and this might be even more unnerving) monsters that weapons refuse to work on. Just imagine if you had been running from monsters, finally got a weapon that could kill them, and eventually encountered a creature that caused any gun pointed at it to consistently misfire.

That's an awesome idea. Mind if I borrow it sometime?

Kadoken

Hexmage-PA wrote: »

Casually Hardcore wrote: »

Sadly, (I'm not sure if it's this game or another Cthulhu game) this game is an excellent example of both how to and how not to do a survival horror. The moment you pick up your first pistol, it quickly became a FPS with no real sense of fear.

The trick to this would be to have monsters that are either really tough or (and this might be even more unnerving) monsters that weapons refuse to work on. Just imagine if you had been running from monsters, finally got a weapon that could kill them, and eventually encountered a creature that caused any gun pointed at it to consistently misfire.

I actually thought something like this would be cool for Amnesia. Daniel isn't a total idiot, he brings a revolver with him. However, the only ammo you have is 6 shots. People waste them on the first monster, it acts dead, then gets back up. Now you have no protection, you stupid stupid man. You know these things can't be killed by human weaponry.

Igort

Looks good. Love Survival Horror, but I don't feelt like I've played a really good one for a long time. I just hope the whole "learning" things plays off well, and isn't just an ambitious idea that doesn't end up that great.

Cantido

An Amnesia 2 is coming. Called Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs.

The focus of the story will be Oswald Mandus, a wealthy industrialist. Set in 1899 (60 years after the time setting of The Dark Descent), Mandus returns from a "disastrous" expedition to Mexico, wherein a tragedy struck. Hit by fever, Mandus has frequent dreams about a dark machine until he regains consciousness. Little does he know that months have passed, and upon awakening, he hears the roar of an engine and a mysterious machine starts up.

Clearly the machine is used for the mass production of WTF.

CheesecakeRecipe

I am drooling right now, drooling. I think rather frequently about the lack of horror games around, and have had to look to music and the occasional movie for new frights. This sounds like an amazing idea, and if they can pull it off it could be another good step for the genre coming back to its roots of actually being scary instead of gung ho action movie with a zombie.

May Awaits.

RainbowDespair

Actually, if you need an immediate horror fix, there was a really cool indie horror game that just came out a few days ago.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/03/27/wot-i-think-lone-survivor/

Turkey

I love this thread so much!

I love pussying through playing horror games, but it seems like there's never enough new ones. So far I have 3 titles I need to check out just from previous posts.

Kadoken

CheesecakeRecipe wrote: »

I am drooling right now, drooling. I think rather frequently about the lack of horror games around, and have had to look to music and the occasional movie for new frights. This sounds like an amazing idea, and if they can pull it off it could be another good step for the genre coming back to its roots of actually being scary instead of gung ho action movie with a zombie.

May Awaits.

Dammit man, I have an over active imagination and as such are a bit of a puss when it comes to horror things. Could you define the pictures of shadowy blood creatures you post? (I'm not trying to be hostile.)

TychoCelchuuu

God forbid someone posts a scary picture from a horror game in a thread about scary horror games.

I'm pretty bad when it comes to scary stuff. I got to the part in Doom 3 where the first guy turns into a zombie, shot him before he turned into a zombie, and quit. I watched that video at the end of the OP up until the scary stuff started happening, and which point I immediately closed my eyes and took off my headphones, then I just sort of waited it out. Oddly enough some stuff doesn't creep me out at all, though: Ravenholm I find completely manageable and Dead Space made me jump once or twice.

In non-game media, The Ring had me about like this:



And I haven't even bothered taking a look at Amnesia.

Kadoken

Dead space doesn't seem that scary. I watched some LP's and all it is is Scream, dead guy on window, dead guy from ceiling, guy getting abducted from ceiling, meh.

amnesiasoft

Casual Eddy wrote: »

whereas in deadspace you were constantly about to be ripped to pieces.

Are you really holding Dead Space up as some kind of great example of scary-horror? Dead Space wasn't a survival horror game, it was an Isaac Motherfucking Clarke simulator.

Well, I hope this manages to be scarier than the Penumbra games were. Maybe I should finally get around to actually playing Amnesia and see if it was any better on that front. Then again, I was always more a fan of silly, laughable horror than "ooh I'm scary" horror. That kind of horror just always seemed so... dull. Either way, I'll still be watching this game, if for nothing else than it would be really cool to see someone try pulling of scary-horror in a bright environment.

I needed anime to post.

I think Dead Space is definitely a horror game, but it's not a survival horror game. It's more of a thriller.


This just reminds me that I still have never beat Fatal Frame 3 though. I should get back into that some time, now that I'm not 16.

TychoCelchuuu

Kadoken wrote: »

Dead space doesn't seem that scary. I watched some LP's and all it is is Scream, dead guy on window, dead guy from ceiling, guy getting abducted from ceiling, meh.

Well I've seen an Amnesia Let's Play and all it is is some monster every once in a while, but don't try to tell me that Amnesia isn't scary.

amnesiasoft

I needed a name to post. wrote: »

I think Dead Space is definitely a horror game, but it's not a survival horror game. It's more of a thriller.

Dead Space is an action game with horror flavored sprinkles.

EDIT: It also probably would have been scarier if they didn't give you the best weapon in the game right at the start.

durandal4532

I wrote about this a bit ago, I think dead space is a great example of part of what makes horror in games tough. It's shocking at points, but the thing is I am surrounded by monsters, I have a weapon.... Yeah this is some pretty fucking comfortably familiar shit. The threat of death doesn't really work. I respawn! I died several hundred times a level in Mario. I never once shat my pants in fear. So yeah Amnesia was scary. Until you died. Then it deflated. I'm hoping this does something intriguing with atmospheric horror. And I'm wicked excited for Machine for Pigs!

SkutSkut

broken link? weird-

I wonder if this game has critters, though I'd like to find out first hand I think.

Turkey

The picture redirects me to funnyjunk...

L Ron Howard

Reminds me of my coworkers. Watched a LP of Amnesia, and declared it the most fucking retarded thing ever, and totally not scary.

But will he go and play the game, in the dark, with headphones? Hell no. But that doesn't mean it's scary....


The game looks interesting, and I also hope that it does what it says it does, instead of being some kind of lame mechanic that doesn't really work in the end.

enc0re

I want to like survival horror games. Too bad I'm a pussy.

Henroid

So is this game using the Emotion Engine?

President Rex

Well, if you're looking for games that can apparently be scary even though you can be heavily armed, Aliens versus Predator (...the old one) and Aliens versus Predator 2 work decently (hive level in AVP2 works well). System Shock 2 is supposed to be the other one. Dead Space is sort of a one-hat trick in terms of scary, sort of like Doom 3.

I'm sorry, but OSHA violations do not scare me. Get your light bulb fixed and find something actually horrific.

Turkey

I loved Dead Space. I found it tense and scary enough to keep me on my toes, but not leave me unable to play. I had to watch a Let's Play of Amnesia because the demo made me a gibbering mess of a man.

Dark Raven X

I found the first 5 minutes or so of Dead Space absolutely terrifying - approaching the Ishimaru I had Event Horizon flashbacks, and then getting airlocked away from the team and something with far too many limbs is in the dark strobe lit room with you and you better run but you don't know where the fuck you're going and aaaaaaaaaaaaa

Yeah, that got me. Once you play for a while, it does just become action with jumps and violin shrieks, but that whole setup, man. And even then it stays tense for a good deal of the game, exploring new areas when low on ammo? The regenerating thing in particular was a pretty scary experience. But then the rest of the bosses were just "eh chill out for a while" breaks from the tension.

Arivia

Dark Raven X wrote: »

I found the first 5 minutes or so of Dead Space absolutely terrifying - approaching the Ishimaru I had Event Horizon flashbacks, and then getting airlocked away from the team and something with far too many limbs is in the dark strobe lit room with you and you better run but you don't know where the fuck you're going and aaaaaaaaaaaaa

Yeah, that got me. Once you play for a while, it does just become action with jumps and violin shrieks, but that whole setup, man. And even then it stays tense for a good deal of the game, exploring new areas when low on ammo? The regenerating thing in particular was a pretty scary experience. But then the rest of the bosses were just "eh chill out for a while" breaks from the tension.

Yeah, it's kind of funny how Dead Space's bosses were the least scary because you were in a limited, manageable space and could account only for what was needed to complete the task. That said, Dead Space 2 threw that out the window by making bosses require movement (the 2nd and last, especially.)

That said, I give Dead Space credit for remaining scary all the way through, but maybe that's just me.

Magic Pink

TychoCelchuuu wrote: »

Kadoken wrote: »

Dead space doesn't seem that scary. I watched some LP's and all it is is Scream, dead guy on window, dead guy from ceiling, guy getting abducted from ceiling, meh.

Well I've seen an Amnesia Let's Play and all it is is some monster every once in a while, but don't try to tell me that Amnesia isn't scary.

Amnesia isn't scary. I'm a huge non-gore horror buff and that thing was a crushing bore. It always amazes me the ridiculous amount of praise such a terribly mediocre title gets.

I did love Dead Space tho. The atmosphere was superb.