Programmer DevBlog #3 — Horror Video Games
Hello, I’m Moisés from Cosmicrafts and i wanted to share my POV on Horror Games.
Horror is one of my favorite genres of video games. Although I got familiar with the genre in the midst of the crisis they had between 2006 and 2012, despite being overshadowed by the fashions of multiplayer and shooters, they always caught my attention.
However, in these posts I want to focus more on the developer side, analyzing different success stories to understand the path that its creators took to reach that peak of true horror.
Horror games have quite a long history and as roller coasters, they seek to cause intense emotions in people, specifically fear, terror, tension, uncertainty, etc. Of course, it is not a genre for all people, in fact, I dare to say that it has a very select market, since they do not tend to transmit positive emotions. This is a very important first point, a horror game will hardly have huge sales, even if it is very good, for example Dead Space, which had very poor initial earnings with its second part, this being, personally, an example of a great Horror game. On the other hand, more renowned titles have achieved excellent benefits, for example, Resident evil 7, which is already in the top 3 of the games that gives the most income to Capcom.
At the end of the road, there are many variables that determine whether a horror game is going to succeed, but like any project, it depends on the approach taken since the beginning.
There are currently a large number of short and popular horror games on the internet.
These cases are quite interesting, since they are independent and low-income projects that demonstrate a couple of very important points in the genre: Duration and graphics are not the most important thing in a horror game. Of course, many of these games are free because of this, so they look more like experiments developed by some people. However, many have been successful in giving us a spooky time.
It seems that the strong points in the world of terror are these independent experiences, and it is understandable: large companies are not interested in betting on a project with such a small audience.
Developing a game is complicated and there was a time where the easiest thing seemed to create horror games where the main mechanics were to run and hide. Even the sequels of these games did not change beyond the story and some other mechanics, burying combat and to a great extent: riddles. Being these loften a headache for developers, and finally we have games where all we do is get from point A to point B without being caught, or simply search for objects in order to continue to the next section. Many times this can be enough if you can achieve a terrifying and suspenseful environment, but they can become repetitive and without much else to praise at the end.
Finally another very important element in this genre is undoubtedly the audio, sound effects, sound of the environment and the music. Everyone must work together to disturb the player. This element is so important that I know horror games with not very elaborate mechanics and graphics, but they are excellent because the audio is awesome at all times, and it is important to clarify that I am not referring to very high volume sounds that sound out of nothing. It is very different to be scared by simple human instinct before a sudden sound to generate a melody or a combination of environmental sounds that really bother you at all times, this second is where the real challenge is.
