The "Rules" Of "Survival Horror"

[Goldsickle]

that depends on the game. In first Siren being discover lead to almost instant death. In second and remake its milder down except for kid characters.

Some of the obstacles are designed to force you into confronting enemies in a specific manner but you can overcome it with some strategy.

In order to avoid that one noodle-munching, gun-toting police officer, you needed to MacGyver-up some timed noise-maker using a frozen towel and a piggy bank over a sink, so you can sneak past him in order to retrieve a student ID.
But you can actually knock him out by confronting him directly, hide while he uses up his ammo and then beat him up while he's reloading.

I played through the game without knowing that you're supposed to use the frozen towel and piggy bank together.

I think there were also some other "shortcuts" that enables you to bypass certain-death obstacles, without following exactly the way the game wants you to progress.

 

[absolitude]

pick your ideal survival horror/horror games and make a standard and something in common out of those, i think that'll be the ideal survival horror, based on the games i've tried

1. resident evil 1
2. most silent hills
3. sirens

i think silent hills are the best to describe survival horror

 

[berto]

Really.
And the market isn't flooded with ruined SurvivalHorror turned action/shooter simply because developers didn't stick to a list of what works best with SurvivalHorror cause they wanted CallOfDuty's audience.

OH Yea you're right because DeadSpace2, DeadSpac3, ResidentEvil5 & 6 wasn't just another CallOfDuty/splinter cell action shooter clone & they did SurvivalHorror so great.
If there were nothing wrong with SurvivalHorror then there would be these types of discussions throughout the web.
Capcom Intends To Turn Resident Evil Into Call Of Duty

Capcom: ‘Resident Evil 6’ Too Big for the Survival Horror Genre

It's not. That's just the 3A titles and those who wanted to mimic RE4. There are a lot of horror games that aren't action oriented nor trying to get those CoD numbers. That isn't indicative of all horror titles, it's just that the others didn't get much in the way of a spotlight.

I'm not suggesting sticking to that particular list #1
But there's a difference in restricting developers & restricting developers to what works best for a specific genre.
You want horror in SurvivalHorror then why would you go to CallOfDuty for your influence.
You're claiming horror would be the CallOfDuty or assassin's creed like it hasn't been already.

Because they wanted the money they bring in but like I said, that was just the bigger names, Silent Hill didn't go CoD, nor did Fatal Frame or Clock Tower. Granted, Clock Tower isn't as active but the point is the franchises that became action games were not that many, they were just very popular.

Even so, my point is that these restrictions, any of them or a combination of two or more, would prevent developers from exploring other concepts or designs. Whether or not the developers do something questionable, like trying to turn it into action shooters, is irrelevant because they'd do it one way or another. Those things there are not some type of preventive measures that would guarantee that franchises stay scary, they're just semi-arbitrary concepts that worked for many successful games in the past but they were also part of many underwhelming titles and it didn't do them any favors.

There can be many different elements that scare & terrify people, the key thing is finding it & sticking with that notion.
That's the point of that list in post #1 & the point i'm trying to get you to understand.
It's not list 5-10 things & use them in every single SurvivalHorror game forever.
It's to find what's adds fear to horror & stick with what makes it scary to an audience.

No, I get it, but I disagree. Repetition is the enemy of horror because horror eventually looses it's impact with repetition since you become desensitize to these things.

Sticking with something that works is fine for most concepts but with horror it's different. What scared people the first time won't scare them as much the second and will even less the third until eventually it's just over used and it becomes a cliche. It's true that fixed angles, save points and scarce ammo don't become cliches since they're gaming design choices but they are also not what makes horror games scary and therefore not a guarantee of a terrifying experience nor is their absence the unquestionable proof of the opposite.

 

[Lain]

Coincidentally I was watching a Podcast that brought up this subject. And the host made three guidelines to what he believed to made a great horror game.

#1 - An effective atmosphere. "A walk in the park on a sunny day isn't scary, even if you're being chased by zombies."
#2 - A vulnerable protagonist. "Because putting Rambo in a horror game might be funny, but not scary."
#3 - A reason to keep going. "Why does the guy at FNaF keep going back to the pizza joint...for 125 bucks?"

Like I said, just guidelines but I believe they are something to think about when you're making a horror game.

 

[berto]

And YET those triple A titles from triple A development studios decided to ignore what works in SurvivalHorror to instead go after the CallOfDuty/action-shooter audience doing the very thing you said.

Yes, but as I said, that was just two franchises you pointed out, not the entire genre, and as I pointed out, sticking to an old formula wouldn't grantee the games would stay scary.

I gave you articles as proof saying those triple A development studios & triple A titles did just that.

Triple A isn't the only horror venue and the 4 games listed are not indicative of the entire genre. Restrictions wouldn't prevent any title from becoming an action game if the developer wanted to make their once horror game in to one, just look at DMC1.

2. And my point is i see that list as more of a suggestion of what works as SurvivalHorror for that individual who made the list.

I think that list is a compolation of any people's ideas of what qualifies or must be in a SurvHorr. I said it a few times, if these were suggestions I'd say there needs to be even more, since a lot of my favorite SurvHorr games fall within the bounds of these criteria, but these, I'm pretty sure are demands from people who want a certain degree of purity from the horror genre.

Even so ignoring that particular list doesn't mean development studios should ignore or focus on what works for the genre of SurvivalHorror in general.
It is not a restriction of wanting an expert in the field of SurvivalHorror to work on SurvivalHorror, & what restricts SurvivalHorror is when they decided to mimic another genre.

But they're not. A handful of AAA's who do it doesn't equate to the whole spectrum of horror games. Most horror games, even those made around the times of RE5-6/DS2-3 were very much horror and not shooters. These weren't exactly the only horror games around.

Why are you continuing to believe that using various horror elements & finding new horror elements for the field of SurvivalHorror only leads to repetition.

I don't and I didn't say that, I said that putting on restrictions on a genre and limiting what a developer may or may not do in their game restricts their ability to explore venues and that repeating a concept in horror will make desensitize people to that concept and render it useless. That does not mean I want those games to become shooters or action games or shooters.

How would say using racing simulation elements in ResidentEvil benefit SurvivalHorror when it doesn't bring fear or horror.

it doesn't. I don't advocate that, but like I said, no amount of suggested restrictions would keep a title from becoming an action game if the developer has their mind set on it. It's punishing the many for what the few are doing wrong. Following any number of restrictions, boundaries, or suggestions of gameplay, game design or camera work don't make the games horror, they only compliment, the horror is what makes it so.

Coincidentally I was watching a Podcast that brought up this subject. And the host made three guidelines to what he believed to made a great horror game.

#1 - An effective atmosphere. "A walk in the park on a sunny day isn't scary, even if you're being chased by zombies."
#2 - A vulnerable protagonist. "Because putting Rambo in a horror game might be funny, but not scary."
#3 - A reason to keep going. "Why does the guy at FNaF keep going back to the pizza joint...for 125 bucks?"

Like I said, just guidelines but I believe they are something to think about when you're making a horror game.

Yeah. See, I find these to be more reasonable suggestions for the actual horror than the previous one. Still, if you break from even these and you make it work I say go for it.

@Blackquill Got a link to this podcast by any chance?

 

[Lain]

@berto
I should be able to find a link to their youtube page where they post the highlights to their podcasts.

Ah here it is.

The first half is more of a discussion on the original Fight Nights at Freddy's game before it segues into what they consider to be effective horror.

 

[Demi-fiend]

I know I'm gonna regret asking...

What do you guys think of twin perfect?

 

[berto]

Wall of Text

Edit:
Ok. I just saw how huge this wall of text got. I'm erasing the all of that response and pretty much leave the cliff notes.

Bottom line, I have nothing against the old formula, which is that list at the start, and I even paid money recently for games that fit their criteria, however, I don't like having games that could be great be forced to a set of rules when it could do great things if it either bends or breaks that mold. Going outside the box isn't walking away from it, walking away from it is, which is what happened with RE and DS and The 3rd Birthday; they are not examples of what happens when a game starts experimenting outside of the formula, it's what happened when you leave the genre all together.

I know I'm gonna regret asking...

What do you guys think of twin perfect?

... What's that? A game?

 

[Demi-fiend]

... What's that? A game?

It's that youtube channel I posted; that's what they call themselves.

As a huge fan of Downpour, I stopped watching their review of it after ten minutes or so.

 

[berto]

It's that youtube channel I posted; that's what they call themselves.

As a huge fan of Downpour, I stopped watching their review of it after ten minutes or so.

I see. I'll give you an opinion after watching a few videos.

 

[Demi-fiend]

...Good luck.

 

[Goldsickle]

Repeatedly using an old SurvivalHorror formula does not guarantee SurvivalHorror will always remain scary. HOWEVER using elements from non-SurvivalHorror genre does not guarantee SurvivalHorror will always remain scary either as the games i pointed out are prime examples.

There have been examples of horror games which I consider "successful" at implementing the so-called "non-horror elements", such as how Siren implemented regenerating health, with checkpoint restart and Alien: Isolation implemented item pickups from enemies, with chapter select.

It's a little too late to say that "there's no guarantee that it will work".

Would you hire someone that's worked in the sports genre their entire career & say they're 100% qualified to develop a Friday the 13th title.

I'd give such person a chance.

Just like how that one guy whose past experience was planning and designing licensed Disney games, such as Roger Rabbit for the Game Boy, Aladdin and Goof Troop for the SNES went on to create the Resident Evil franchise (you know, Shinji Mikami).

If you considered RE2 a "legit" "Survival Horror" game, it should be pointed out that the director Hideki Kamiya hates horror and was made to watch several horror movies until he got depressed, in preparation to direct RE2 .
He still hates horror to this day and is one of the reason why he won't remake RE2.

It's rather shallow to think that only a "horror-minded" person from the start is "100% qualified" to create or direct horror games.

 

[Demi-fiend]

With all due respect, I don't think that's a fair comparison.

 

[Sparda's Rebellion]

It can't be Gears of War meets Silent Hill, it has to just be Silent Hill. The original Silent Hill games 1 2 and 3, not the new garbage ones. Or the original Resident Evil games though I do love Resident Evil 4 but I don't consider that a survival horror, that's an action horror game.

 

[berto]

I'd give such person a chance.

Before I erased that wall of text I posted I said something similar but I'd go a slightly different way.

Games are more expensive to develop for so for someone that's trying to make a game outside the genre they're known for, were I in charge to do this, I'd ask for a pitch. If that went well then I'd give him/her the chance to produce a test stage. If that went well I wouldn't let him go at it, though. I'd partner him with an experienced developer to oversee the work and add his knowhow to keep the newcomer from going overboard and shooting himself in the foot.

 

[Foxtrot94]

@Goldsickle
Now that I think about it, you do have a point. Creative Assembly is a notorious strategy game developer, and guess what they made 2 years ago: Alien Isolation.

 

[Goldsickle]

1. As long as it's more SurvivalHorror then action shooter then features like health regeneration, enemy item drop isn't going to break a SurvivalHorror game.

The problem is that the things you speak of are up to personal interpretation.

You think that it's all black and white: "horror features" and "non-horror features".
To some people, they don't see any problems with there being things like auto-save, chapter select or item drops in a horror game.

There are no universal laws for "Survival Horror" that everyone is obligated to follow.
To make things more random, game developers have their own interpretation of "Survival Horror".
Shinji Mikami has a broad personal definition of it, so while some may disagree, Mikami sees RE4 & The Evil Within as "Survival Horror" games.

I mean did you actually that from one source of gamers giving their opinions. Or used a search engine & got 25 or more results from different sites with the same list ?

These are the recurring opinions of various gamers I've gathered over the years, from various communities, like deviantART, YouTube, GameFAQs, /v/ and Capcom Unity.

There's no guarantee that'll be the best thing for a genre hiring someone that's unqualified unfamiliar with any genre.

I'd rather have someone who worked on nothing but child-oriented games to direct a horror game, rather than one of those boasters I keep finding in forums who act like they know games more than its creators but have never made any games in their lives (not referring to you, by the way).

 

[berto]

The problem is that the things you speak of are up to personal interpretation.

Oh? That's a good point that didn't occur to me ask.

So, to all those involved in the discussion, what is your ideal survival horror? Has it been made? Out of all of the horror games you've played which embody your personal tastes the most? Did they fit these criterias?

I'm curious. Let's see what people what out the genre or what they like in it.

 

[Goldsickle]

So, to all those involved in the discussion, what is your ideal survival horror? Has it been made? Out of all of the horror games you've played which embody your personal tastes the most? Did they fit these criterias?

I don't believe in "Survival Horror" to begin.

Japanese developers always tend to make random descriptions for their games, like how Kokumeikan calls itself "Trap Simulation Game", Metal Gear Solid calls itself "Tactical Espionage Action" and Resident Evil calls itself "Survival Horror".
Sometimes, it's either some catchy text with the game's title logo or just following typical PlayStation packaging template standards.

While a lot random fancy titles are forgotten, "Survival Horror" is one that sticks with the crowd and suddenly is its own "genre".

As someone who has played RE from the very start, back in 96, I have always remembered "Survival Horror" as some random marketing term from Capcom's marketing division.

I didn't let this buzz word delude me.
I know there's more to horror than some fancy title and anal dress codes.

 

[Lain]

Oh? That's a good point that didn't occur to me ask.

So, to all those involved in the discussion, what is your ideal survival horror? Has it been made? Out of all of the horror games you've played which embody your personal tastes the most? Did they fit these criterias?

I'm curious. Let's see what people what out the genre or what they like in it.

Hmm, I dislike games that rely too heavily on jump scares as I feel it cheapens the tension. I also fall asleep when all you can do is run from enemies. Lastly I hate it when it's not clear what you're supposed to do to advance, it's one thing to have to explore to find your way ahead, but if you have to do something really obtuse to trigger an event then that infuriates me.

Other than those three pet peeves, I'm pretty solid on most survival horror games.