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Scaring the Beejezus out of the Player in an FPS
Brent Disbrow & Matt Tieger
Introduction
Who the hell are these guys anyway? What is Darkwatch? Darkwatch video
Lecture Overview
Fear in Theory Powerful Tools Principles to Remember Production Challenges
Fear in Games
Business is good! Some game
franchises continue to scare us, game after game!
The Resident Evil series has sold over 27 million units worldwide
Fear in Media
How do We Interpret Fear in Media? Books Movies
What makes Games so Special? Draw Parallels NOT Direct Examples
Why Create Fear?
Why do you want it? How does it contribute to your
game? Story Character Setting Gameplay Marketing
Unique Genre Challenges
Powerful Player Shoot First Mentality What are they Looking at?!? Pacing Expectations
Powerful Tools
(at least as far as we can tell!) Audio Disempowerment Visuals Lighting POV experience
Audio
1-offs Music Universal signals Player audio Player Mechanics Silence
Disempowerment
Direct vs Indirect How do we set up disempowerment? What is there to take away?
Ammo & weapons Abilities Senses Movement Room to Move Time
Lighting
Unsettling lighting Shadows Tonal Lighting Lighting changes Player lighting
Visuals
Design aesthetic Character Design Character Animations Cognitive Dissonance Visual Trickery
POV Experience HUD Changes Setups keyed to POV Fullscreen FX Gamespeed Changes Warping Reality
Principles to Remember
Timing Cognitive Dissonance Comprehension Limits
Timing & Pacing
What’s the difference? Timing’s keystones are:
Anticipation Release Shock!!
Effective Pacing
Comprehending the Danger The player needs to get it Simple Rules for the player
Cognitive Dissonance
Mess with expectations Identify with normalcy but twisted Inanimate objects doing things they
shouldn’t Things sounding familiar but…not
The Limits
Use Discretion Use All of the Tricks Accept that you can’t scare everybody all
the time
Production Challenges
Unique content Prepare your producers for one-off content The most effective tools will be the ones least
repeated Asking for the right tech
Be clear what you want and when you want it For example, trigger activation based on where
the player is looking at Every facet counts
Audio integration, the unwanted stepchild
Production Challenges
Level layouts These experiences do not exist in a
vacuum – the level needs to build up to the moment & release
Players can break the pace
Production Challenges
Creating a Vision Challenge of creating a vision and then
getting everybody to buy into and contribute to it
Faith in Minimalism Sometimes all you need is audio
Choose your battles Avoid making your favorite sandwich
Tech & Design Exploration
Short video demonstrating several elements of the talk
Summary
Why create Fear Unique FPS challenges Powerful Tools Principles to Remember Production Challenges
