Yeah, well... This is pretty much the scariest game I've ever seen, and it may be the ONLY scary game I've ever seen. NAILS the "creeping around in the woods at night and something is after you" vibe, which is the scariest vibe there is, right?
http://www.atomicgamer.com/files/99936/ ... -free-game
Scary Games.
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Scary Games.
Am I a hero? I really can't say. But, yes.
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Ben is four times as good as I am at games. I got zero pages. I know that 0x4 does not equal four. Just let me have that, people.
It is very creepy. I don't want to spoil anything, but let me have this: I loved the breathing when you jogged too long. Or when Slenderman showed up. Nice touch.
I do wish that the creator mentioned that Slenderman was created by Victor Surge in the readme.txt file. But that's nerd shit, so let's not bog the thread down with that.
OTHER GAMES I FOUND "SCARY" or "CREEPY":
- Half-Life (only game I stopped playing because it was too frightening, and yes, I am a huge gash and yes, I shouldn't be allowed opinions on games till I go finish that one)
- The Lurking Horror (For real, I am not just saying that. But I played it Back in the Day. Text games were pretty scary in general back then because you had no idea what they would contain, and whatever they put on the screen STAYED there, till you filled things up and got rid of it.)
- The new game by Jason Roher where you shoot black people that are trying to steal your television.
It is very creepy. I don't want to spoil anything, but let me have this: I loved the breathing when you jogged too long. Or when Slenderman showed up. Nice touch.
I do wish that the creator mentioned that Slenderman was created by Victor Surge in the readme.txt file. But that's nerd shit, so let's not bog the thread down with that.
OTHER GAMES I FOUND "SCARY" or "CREEPY":
- Half-Life (only game I stopped playing because it was too frightening, and yes, I am a huge gash and yes, I shouldn't be allowed opinions on games till I go finish that one)
- The Lurking Horror (For real, I am not just saying that. But I played it Back in the Day. Text games were pretty scary in general back then because you had no idea what they would contain, and whatever they put on the screen STAYED there, till you filled things up and got rid of it.)
- The new game by Jason Roher where you shoot black people that are trying to steal your television.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!
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RetroRomper
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Are we posting the scariest games we've played? Okay, I'll add my two cents...
1) Maniac Mansion - the first time I played this game when I was eight or nine, I turned off the NES and went outside. The thought that a character could follow me around and proactively capture me was frightening. Plus the dynamic time events added a sense of urgency that pushed me over into the realm of not wanting to explore every nuance, option, and cause and effect the game had to offer.
Fun fact: this dedication to overly exploring games would cause me to make otherwise 40 hour or so fests into 200+ hour fits of exploration. My first save of the Ocarina of Time clocked in at around 230 hours. Balder's Gate 2 completely shut down my life for three hours a day for over a year (and I refused to play Dragon Age when I discovered that they had dynamic character events based on how NPCs perceived you based on your interactions.)
2) Necrotic Drift - okay, circle jerk here but this game sucked me in completely and then freaked me out the first time I played it (at around 2 AM on a Friday no less). The quick and not so subtle shift from watching Duffy's life fall apart one girlfriend at a time, to being in a mall filled with horrible demons and possible baddies around every corner... ::Shiver:: Half my frights are invented and ND encouraged me to be careful, cautious, and imagine what horrible monstrosity was waiting for me.
If the event system was more similar to Maniac Mansion where monsters roamed and game driven events took place while I, the player, am busy trying to figure out a puzzle... Probably would never have finished it (as it is, I still clocked in about 9 hours for what should have been a 2 hour or less game).
1) Maniac Mansion - the first time I played this game when I was eight or nine, I turned off the NES and went outside. The thought that a character could follow me around and proactively capture me was frightening. Plus the dynamic time events added a sense of urgency that pushed me over into the realm of not wanting to explore every nuance, option, and cause and effect the game had to offer.
Fun fact: this dedication to overly exploring games would cause me to make otherwise 40 hour or so fests into 200+ hour fits of exploration. My first save of the Ocarina of Time clocked in at around 230 hours. Balder's Gate 2 completely shut down my life for three hours a day for over a year (and I refused to play Dragon Age when I discovered that they had dynamic character events based on how NPCs perceived you based on your interactions.)
2) Necrotic Drift - okay, circle jerk here but this game sucked me in completely and then freaked me out the first time I played it (at around 2 AM on a Friday no less). The quick and not so subtle shift from watching Duffy's life fall apart one girlfriend at a time, to being in a mall filled with horrible demons and possible baddies around every corner... ::Shiver:: Half my frights are invented and ND encouraged me to be careful, cautious, and imagine what horrible monstrosity was waiting for me.
If the event system was more similar to Maniac Mansion where monsters roamed and game driven events took place while I, the player, am busy trying to figure out a puzzle... Probably would never have finished it (as it is, I still clocked in about 9 hours for what should have been a 2 hour or less game).
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Flack
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I thought the first Alone in the Dark game was scary. I realize the graphics are dated now, but back then it was pretty creepy.
[youtube][/youtube]
Friday the 13th for the Commodore 64 was also scary back in the day. It had these random screen shots of skulls and people getting killed that would pop up along with a digitized scream. For 8 bit days, it was creepy.
[youtube][/youtube]
I also seem to recall this level from Dark Forces being somewhat creepy.
[youtube][/youtube]
[youtube][/youtube]
Friday the 13th for the Commodore 64 was also scary back in the day. It had these random screen shots of skulls and people getting killed that would pop up along with a digitized scream. For 8 bit days, it was creepy.
[youtube][/youtube]
I also seem to recall this level from Dark Forces being somewhat creepy.
[youtube][/youtube]
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Hey, thanks Retro. :)
One game that had tiny, tiny moments was Clock Tower. I mean, it had jump scares. Which I guess is different than what Slender gives you. There's all this build up of the maniac with the blades, and then when you DO see him, he moves unlike any other character.
Why did I never finish this game? I am a terrible PS player.
One game that had tiny, tiny moments was Clock Tower. I mean, it had jump scares. Which I guess is different than what Slender gives you. There's all this build up of the maniac with the blades, and then when you DO see him, he moves unlike any other character.
Why did I never finish this game? I am a terrible PS player.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!
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RetroRomper
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I have fond memories of loading up an emulator, playing the first Clocktower game for the SNES and learning to save at random points after I finished about 5% of the game and quickly hit alt+f4 when it freaked me out.
Are the later Clocktower games as shock worthy? Really though, something with 2D graphics was giving me nightmares.
Once again its a time based game where events occur either on a clock or because you've activated a trigger by entering a room or exploring a certain area. When your on the other side of the mansion and they cut to a vague shot of Scissorhands or whatever his name is, walking down a familiar corridor while your in the middle of solving a puzzle... Maybe its the psychological horror that gets to me, the potential for what my kind conjures as opposed to the reality.
Regardless, the game was nearly unplayable and when I did force myself to sit down through it, the stopping point was a "bring this item to another room / gate / random future point in the game" type puzzle as opposed to being frightened and put off.
Are the later Clocktower games as shock worthy? Really though, something with 2D graphics was giving me nightmares.
Once again its a time based game where events occur either on a clock or because you've activated a trigger by entering a room or exploring a certain area. When your on the other side of the mansion and they cut to a vague shot of Scissorhands or whatever his name is, walking down a familiar corridor while your in the middle of solving a puzzle... Maybe its the psychological horror that gets to me, the potential for what my kind conjures as opposed to the reality.
Regardless, the game was nearly unplayable and when I did force myself to sit down through it, the stopping point was a "bring this item to another room / gate / random future point in the game" type puzzle as opposed to being frightened and put off.
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Roody_Yogurt
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If Jonsey hadn't mentioned it already, I would have said Clock Tower, also. For me, there was a fantastic time spent dying repeatedly in the game (with only some success escaping by my own evasive maneuverings). Then I actually looked at the manual and saw that there was a button on the controller for escape moves, which made me die much less and, therefore, made the game much less scary.
I think scariness is somewhat related to a game's ability to disturb. In that category, I think the crappy 90s FMV game Harvester is a contender. The game's central conceit is that you are mysteriously in this ultra-creepy town, and it does much to push your ok-this-is-f'd-up buttons. In the end, it becomes one of those pieces where you don't know if the minds behind it are brilliantly self-aware or if it's just lowest-common-denominator shock value. Given the town's firehouse where the bigger shocker is that the firemen are all flamingly gay, it's almost definitely the second thing, but there's still enough genuine-wtf stuff in there that part of me wants to think it's the first thing.
I don't think of the entirety of Half-Life as horrific, but I think everybody remembers that early scene with the headcrabbed-guy sitting on the chair in the strobe-lighted room. Along those lines, Ravenhurst in part 2 was greatly scary the first time through. Plus, um, the underground sections of Episode I. The scariness is kind of a one-time thing, though.
I agree, in a way, that this Slender game is about as good as it gets. Even Amnesia: the Dark Descent, which day[9] keeps comparing Slender to, is very boring. Maybe I just haven't gotten far enough into it yet, but the candle management is killing me.
The IF game Babel is probablly the closest thing we have to a good videogame recreation of The Thing (which is sad because of the existance of The Thing videogame), but a good horror story like that doesn't really make you fear for your own safety.
I think scariness is somewhat related to a game's ability to disturb. In that category, I think the crappy 90s FMV game Harvester is a contender. The game's central conceit is that you are mysteriously in this ultra-creepy town, and it does much to push your ok-this-is-f'd-up buttons. In the end, it becomes one of those pieces where you don't know if the minds behind it are brilliantly self-aware or if it's just lowest-common-denominator shock value. Given the town's firehouse where the bigger shocker is that the firemen are all flamingly gay, it's almost definitely the second thing, but there's still enough genuine-wtf stuff in there that part of me wants to think it's the first thing.
I don't think of the entirety of Half-Life as horrific, but I think everybody remembers that early scene with the headcrabbed-guy sitting on the chair in the strobe-lighted room. Along those lines, Ravenhurst in part 2 was greatly scary the first time through. Plus, um, the underground sections of Episode I. The scariness is kind of a one-time thing, though.
I agree, in a way, that this Slender game is about as good as it gets. Even Amnesia: the Dark Descent, which day[9] keeps comparing Slender to, is very boring. Maybe I just haven't gotten far enough into it yet, but the candle management is killing me.
The IF game Babel is probablly the closest thing we have to a good videogame recreation of The Thing (which is sad because of the existance of The Thing videogame), but a good horror story like that doesn't really make you fear for your own safety.
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RetroRomper
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I distinctly remember playing Silent Hill 2 alone at my grandparents around 11 PM... While sitting in their arm chair I heard a crash from the backyard and didn't move for four, five minutes. Then I immediately ran to the sliding glass doors that opened to the back patio and double checked that they were locked then scurried to my room, locked the door and prayed that something wasn't coming after me.
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Jizaboz
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I recently played Dark Seed and it had some slightly disturbing elements.. though the game itself is pretty frustrating. Maybe that added to the fear. In Alone in the Dark 2 for Saturn it certainly did.. everything control-wise felt pretty awkward to me so when the scary dudes came around and I needed to get out of the way, I felt restrained somehow.
Doom 3 had a few moments. Though in general I don't get as frightened as I did playing older games. Maybe it's because I'm older.
What I remember being the scariest game to me was Taboo for NES. A big part of it was the music though.. normally the bad tarot cards had weird and creepy music while they were drawn.. and basically telling you your life was going to be shit.
Jason made me jump a few times in Friday the 13th for NES! I'll have to try that C64 version. Somehow missed that.
Doom 3 had a few moments. Though in general I don't get as frightened as I did playing older games. Maybe it's because I'm older.
What I remember being the scariest game to me was Taboo for NES. A big part of it was the music though.. normally the bad tarot cards had weird and creepy music while they were drawn.. and basically telling you your life was going to be shit.
Jason made me jump a few times in Friday the 13th for NES! I'll have to try that C64 version. Somehow missed that.