WRITTEN BY IAN DRANSFIELD

I

t’s the spookiest time of year! Unless you’re reading this

feature some time other than October, in which case

you’ll have to do a bit of role-play to get into the mood.

Anyway, it is the spookiest time of year, so we figured

we’d look at some of gaming’s super-spookiest moments,

because for all the arguments of what they are and aren’t good

at, one thing is certain: games can do horror very well indeed.

But rather than just carry on with our own interminable

waffle about the dogs jumping through the windows in

Resident Evil, or whatever, we put the questions to some of

gaming’s great horror designers to find out their favourite scary

moments, and just how it is people can successfully create

moments of their own that could well make players totally

spook out. To the max.

LOOKING AT THE WHATS AND HOWS OF GAMING’S GREATEST HORROR MOMENTS

SERAPHIM ONISHCHENKO

ROLE: Narrative Designer, Frogwares

HORROR CREDENTIALS: The Sinking City

THE MOMENT: To this day, I still remember

meeting the first victims of the sand plague

in Pathologic. By this point in the game, the weird and

cryptic intros had scrambled my brain on what to expect.

The NPCs I’d met in The Town are all extremely odd and

eccentric, so I knew something was properly off about

the world, but I still didn’t know why. Then examining the

house of the Haruspex's missing father, I heard a horrible

moan behind. I turned around and there they were – his

patients, victims of the plague, coming slowly towards me.

THE ADVICE: I often think build-up and suspense, along

with clues that something horrible is coming, are the

‘secret ingredients’ to making a really impactful horror

moment stick. If you get the player in a state where they

expect something terrifying but they’re not sure what it

is, their mind will frantically start trying to put together

the trail of crumbs you’ve left to overcome this. And you

can get devilishly creative with these clues. Some are real.

Others are for misdirection. A bit of level and audio design

tricks here and there, maybe a shadowy creature with a

subtly off animation, a slight change in the music etc.

The worst fear is the fear of the unknown, but making

the player hyper-aware of the fact that they don’t know

what is coming, is all the more terrifying.

SPOOKT ACULARSPOOKT ACULAR

22 / wfmag.cc

Spooktacular

Interface