I was wandering through a narrow stretch of path on the outskirts of the suburb where I live, wondering what constituted my human experience. Not long ago, a good friend of mine raised the question of how we think, and how we could possibly perceive our own passage of thought, and this, as I had hoped got me thinking. I aspire to make games that place the player within an emotional position; a position in which they are free to divine from the experience whatever they find meaningful. When a player enters this domain, they are free to express themself in any way in which they see fit, free from the restraints of the game’s obligations; bound only by the formula that stimulates a particular vein of thought and emotion within the individual. In this brief moment of introspection, I realised that everything I had been working towards felt somewhat wrong.
Little Horror Game was supposed to be about the freedom of the player’s expression within the particular environment of the game, exterior to the demands that the narrative would place upon them. It was simply a walk through an environment that was laced with theme, but never with an explicit story. Then came a time in which I desperately wanted to bring my vision to life, but lacked the programming knowledge to get it past the stage of being a stack of concept art, and some rough animations, so I looked upon the glowing beacon of the Source Engine. What was most important was that the very core concept survived the transition from Flash to the Source engine, and this is exactly what I failed to preserve. My need to introduce the concept to the third dimension, as stated in my previous rant, not only blew the concept out of proportion, but cranked the physical scale of the project up the eleven. I knew that the idea was flawed from the beginning, so after a frustrating deal of time and effort invested within the project, I stopped and put it on a long nature-walk-filled hiatus.
If there is one thing that I have learned about the way I think, it’s the way I involve myself in a particular environment . Whilst out walking, I don’t simply enjoy the environments, I embrace them; I scrutinise over how they work, and what makes them so interesting. Perhaps it is such an approach that a photographer, or a painter may take when approaching a scene, for capturing the emotion of the physical requires so much more of an investment than simply trying to reproduce it in another medium. When creating an experience that the player is going to emotionally invest in, I feel that the creator themself must also share this engagement; this attachment to their subject that they have found such an important connection within. For me, my long walks at night bore inspiration for this idea, and have brought it all back together. Perhaps I really just like walking.
If the subjective design of the game bears the emotional investment of the designer, does that ultimately reflect upon the player? In its current state, the game has at its advantage a briefness that could pique the interest of the player, without outlasting its welcome; without extending its themes any further than this encounter. But perhaps an enduring impact is a desirable thing, and a brief encounter only demonstrates the game on a very surface level. I am still of the firm belief that a completely subjective emotional experience with the game’s environment is not enough to sustain something as basic as interest, let alone allow the player to form their own narrative. Although it is true that I believe in the player’s right as the governor of their own interpretation, I feel that the game structure needs a source in which to stimulate a particular pattern of thought, rather than the experience being a completely blank slate.
The element and psychology of horror is something I find truly interesting on a personal level as an apprehension toward the unknown stemmed into a fascination through a series of paranormal childhood experiences, and thus maybe why I’ve create this such an experience. I believe that the power the player wields in the creation of a personal emotion response, the same power that brought about this game’s inception is of enormous importance in understanding the way in which players deal with emotional responses. Once the player is made vulnerable to their own influence, the complexities of the player’s own emotional investment bubble to the surface, rather than being dragged out from the depths.
Allowing the player to explore their fears by means of of any media seems very difficult. Even if a person feeds you information that builds up to their fears, can you get at the core of what it is that really gets at them deep down?
For example, someone might be terrified of spiders, but not for their movement or form as it is traditionally, but the threatening patterns of color on their bodies. Most media, understandably, don’t focus on this aspect of spiders when using them as agents of fear.
Then again, I don’t know enough about how Little Horror Game works so I could be miles off the mark.
It’s true, creating an experience that allows the player to develop a personal response is tremendously difficult as it is impossible for the developer to create something that is so general in its themes, yet evocative enough to reach out to everyone. I suppose this is why a lot of horror games stick to the absolute basics – monsters, darkness, scary noises behind the locked door instead of having the player glean their own fears from the game. What can be created around these devices is atmosphere; the tension that is set within the anticipation of the unknown.
I think creating atmosphere without scares is more universal since it lets the imagination play without any interruptions from what the developer thinks you’re afraid of. It’s only generally accepted since they stick to those elements you mentioned that are guaranteed to scare the majority of people (myself included, at least at night).
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories plays with the idea of basing atmosphere on personality traits, without using it for actual scares. It just didn’t take it far enough, from what I gather.
I hear that Shattered Memories also blatantly stated the results of its psychological evaluation to the player, but I haven’t actually played it.
I think I have arrived at a medium of expression, something I may or may not write about in the near future, depending on how sick people are of hearing me wax lyrical about this game. Basically, narrative will work on two levels. I have concluded that I’m really not sure if structuring a game with a purely interprative story is a good thing, so I have left that element for the player to interpret as subtle exposition. On top of this there is the story of the characer that is told through the gameplay that allows the player to question how the backstory affects the character.
I’d certainly like to hear more about this; game design’s still at a place where we can hardly say enough, right?
Hence why I crawl out of my mountainside cave every few centuries and wipe the dust off the old typewriter. It’s philosophy and psychology interacting on an astonishing number of levels and well worth more attention than most would grant it.
I’ve made some decent progress on the mod, working title: All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone (lovingly plagarised from an Explosions in the Sky album). I’m a little hesistant to post screenshots because I feel that a lot of the exerience is part of the visual exposition, but I’ll see what I can do.
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