Summary
Games always need to balance every element perfectly to become a masterpiece. This includes the visuals, audio, plot, and characters, as well as the gameplay. Though not every game needs to check everything off the list to be considered good, there are some that should be prioritized above others depending on what kind of game the developers are looking to create.
In terms of horror, developers need to make sure that their games pack a punch in the scare department, which can be achieved through a variety of methods. Making clever use of sound and visuals can help to createan unsettling atmosphere, though there are games that prioritize other aspects, such as original and innovative gameplay mechanics.
Flicker of Hopeis ashort indie horror gamethat puts players in the waxy shoes of Jean Wick, a sentient candle who is tasked with lighting up the cathedral to mark it as the last bastion of hope for any who have survived the deadly plague that has ravaged the world. As one might expect from playing as a candle, light plays an integral part of the game and makes for an interesting and engaging mechanic that hasn’t been used in the same way before.
Players can extinguish the light on their head to sneak around enemies to reach their goal safely. Sadly, this little indie game is toosimilar to games such asLittle Nightmaresand fails to measure up with these larger and higher-budgeted games. For those looking for a smaller, lighter journey, however,Flicker of Hopemight offer the ideal horror experience for gamers to dive into.
Five Nights at Freddy’shas become a worldwide sensation, inspiring countless YouTube letsplays, game theories surrounding its lore, and now amajor motion picture. The craze can be traced back to its humble beginnings in the first game, where players controlled a nameless protagonist who starts a new job as a night-shift security guard at a local pizzeria that homes multiple animatronics.
The animatronics become active and outright hostile during the night, and players must protect themselves from inside the security office by using the security measures at their disposal. It was totally new to the world of horror to have a ‘defend the castle’ type of gameplay, but the game relies far too heavily on jumpscares to really feature a genuine type of horror. That said, these innovative mechanics went on to inspire many similar horror games and is still a long since lauded element of theFive Nightsseries.
Sanity/fear mechanics are by no means unique to one game, but there are games that tackle them in different ways, with theclassic PS2 horror gameHaunting Grounddoing just that. In this title, protagonist Fiona Belli awakens in a mysterious castle after a car accident involving her and her parents. Her memories of the accident are hazy at best, and, left with no other choice, she sets out to explore the castle and discover the reason she was imprisoned.
Of course, Fiona isn’t the only one in the castle, and its other inhabitants pose a threat to her well-being. When in danger for long enough, Fiona will begin to panic, and should she panic too much, players will lose complete control of her, and she will begin running in randomly determined directions. Though this mechanic sounds annoying in theory, it is still innovative and effectively raises the player’s own panic, as they might go running into the arms of danger themselves.
Sight-Jacking
Siren: Blood Curse
In a remote Japanese mountain viiiage a strange ritual ends in bloodshed, a ghostly siren walis - and for an American flim crew trapped on the mountain, a nightmare Is unleashed. Steel yourself for a terrifying ordeal as you fight to stay alive Yagainst the savage Shibito… CONTROL MULTIPLE CHARACTERS AND “SIGHT JACK” ENEMIES TO SEE THE ACTION THROUGH THEIR EYES
Set in the remote Japanese villageof Hanuda that reportedly vanished off the face of the earth in the 70s,Sirenseems like a game ripe with horror and mystery. And though the premise does sound interesting, with the island suffering a curse that has turned most of its residents into corpse-like homicidal individuals, it misses the mark with its lackluster graphics, repetitive enemies, and failure to deliver a compelling amount of scares.
Hamstrung by clunky combat that makes games likeSilent Hill 2handle like a dream, the game is saved by boasting a unique gameplay mechanic that is still praised to this day: sight-jacking. This feature allows players to see through the eyes of their enemies to allow them to stealthily sneak past them or to creep up and get the jump on them. Players have long since been begging that a mechanic like sight-jacking returns to horror games and can only hopeSirenor a different game series reimplements the mechanic to the same extent.
Games all about hunting ghostsare in need of unique mechanics, as how does one even begin to defend themselves from that which is already dead? TheFatal Frameseries answers this question by giving their players a camera to defend themselves with rather than a conventional weapon, dubbed the Camera Obscura, which players can use to exorcise ghosts, snap pictures of passing spirits, and find clues on how to progress or solve puzzles.
Making use of a camera and shifting the players into a first-person perspective during combat is inspired, even if the rest of the firstFatal Framegame struggles to deliver a truly frightening experience. But still, the terrifying gameplay is enough of a bonus to draw in devout fans of the ghost-snapping series.
Perceptionis a game that is bravely unique, limiting the player’s sight by having them play a blind protagonist. Cassie has been seeing a mansion repeatedly in her dreams and decides to seek it out in person to find out why. But she is not the only one exploring its decrepit halls, and an eerie entity known as the Presence is stalking her every step along the way.
Being blind, players see in an unconventional fashion using echolocation. Cassie can use her cane to produce waves of sound that will aid her and the player in visualizing their surroundings. But each time it is used, the Presence draws nearer, meaning that players need to carefully consider when it is best to give themselves ‘sight’ and prioritize remaining quiet enough to avoid detection. This mechanic is definitelyPerception’sstrongest aspect, which has inspired other games to try similar things. The rest of the game doesn’t hold a candle to how innovative this mechanic is, however.
