Horror games for the season (and beyond)

[MessiahMan]

This thread's been stinking to high heaven lately, with spooky season approaching, it's time for some incline!

Scratches!
(if this one was mentioned, nobody gave receipts, so here they are)



No, it's not a twitchy, popamole third person shooter. No those degenerate Japanese didn't make it. No, it doesn't have cheesy jump scares around every corner. What it does have is atmosphere, music, a whole mansion and it's grounds to explore with some of the most natural puzzles ever put into an adventure game. It may be too grown up for you console kiddies, but I recommend it fully.

Downfall



Play the 2009 version and avoid the 2016 remake, the developer wussed out on the true end because he turned into a true believer in fat acceptance or something, and he made it a 2d retard puzzle cellphone game. Get past some awkward writing in the first 10 minutes or so, and you'll be rewarded with a truly twisted horror experience as weird as a Haruki Murakami nightmare (on the topic of degenerate Japanese...). I speak vaguely for this game, because anything else would spoil the experience. Just play it, already.

 

[Arthandas]

I wholly recommend Alisa.

Imagine RE1 with dolls instead of zombies. Some things that differentiate it further:
- Impressive variety of enemies. I've encountered more enemy types up to the first boss, than in entire RE1 playthrough.
- 3 equipment slots: weapon 1, weapon 2 (you can carry only two weapons at a time and can switch between them with a single button) and a dress (each dress has different stats and changes the look of the character). Other items like ammo, medkits and key items don't take any space.
- Defeated enemies drop toothwheels, which act as a currency to buy ammo, weapons, dresses etc. There's no farming, enemies don't respawn (but new one may appear as the game progresses), and shop items are finite.
- Defeating bosses opens up a modification menu, which sells permanent upgrades that slowly "dollify" the character.

 

[AlwaysBrotoMen]

 

[AlwaysBrotoMen]

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Scratches!
(if this one was mentioned, nobody gave receipts, so here they are)



No, it's not a twitchy, popamole third person shooter. No those degenerate Japanese didn't make it. No, it doesn't have cheesy jump scares around every corner. What it does have is atmosphere, music, a whole mansion and it's grounds to explore with some of the most natural puzzles ever put into an adventure game. It may be too grown up for you console kiddies, but I recommend it fully.

Scratches is easily one of the most horrifying gaming experiences of its era.

In both meanings of the term.

It creates an unprecedented atmosphere of tension and suspense, peaking first when the mask is introduced, and again at the end. Scratches sits with the player long after they've finished playing it. The extra chapter included with the Director's Cut sadly doesn't live up to the original game.

And it's a horrifying game to play because of its gameplay mechanics. On the first day you must look around the place for a key, that means clicking on every single drawer/cabinet in the house. The game will not progress until you've done this. How do you remember which drawer/cabinet you've looked into? I hope you took notes, because the game won't tell you. (And that's before people start wondering whether they found them all...)

Then there's the infamous 'push-the-key-out-of-its-lock-onto-a-piece-of-paper-slid-underneath-the-door'-puzzle, where the game gets so finicky and picky that you must use only this One Piece of Paper, the Holiest of Papers, the Divine Paper!... when the house is full of papers that can all do the job just the same. But no, you must find The One Paper to Rule Them All.

Natural puzzles, my ass...

Still, I highly recommend playing it for the season, but with the caveat that the game Contains Bullshit.

 

[duskvile]

When is Asylum coming out ?

 

[MessiahMan]

And it's a horrifying game to play because of its gameplay mechanics. On the first day you must look around the place for a key, that means clicking on every single drawer/cabinet in the house. The game will not progress until you've done this. How do you remember which drawer/cabinet you've looked into? I hope you took notes, because the game won't tell you. (And that's before people start wondering whether they found them all...)

Then there's the infamous 'push-the-key-out-of-its-lock-onto-a-piece-of-paper-slid-underneath-the-door'-puzzle, where the game gets so finicky and picky that you must use only this One Piece of Paper, the Holiest of Papers, the Divine Paper!... when the house is full of papers that can all do the job just the same. But no, you must find The One Paper to Rule Them All.

Natural puzzles, my ass...

Still, I highly recommend playing it for the season, but with the caveat that the game Contains Bullshit.

Zork. Now THAT game contains Bullshit. Sierra's old text parser nightmares...I could go on.

Now, while it's been years, I DO recall the key hunt, and I liked that puzzle plenty. Definitely felt realistic, an old abandoned mansion, locked doors aplenty. A door you NEED to get into because, well, it's got something you need! A cleverly placed clue, just subtle enough for you to look over it and not realize what you're truly seeing, and the realization that you're just a dummy when you figure it all out and actually FIND that damn thing...that's what adventure gaming is all about. You can brute force it if you're a slowboy, but the breadcrumbs are all there.

The classic paper/pencil/key puzzle I've seen in so many adventure games I've forgotten or confused it with many other similar puzzles, but I don't believe it was an issue for me, so I won't make claims on that one.

However, what I do recall quite clearly (but vaguely stated, so I don't give away anything for the uninitiated) is that the sense of mystery and discovery was baked in to the puzzles in such a way that you felt the character's revelations were your own, something no adventure game I've played has done before or since (fingers crossed for Asylum, but realistically...)

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Zork. Now THAT game contains Bullshit. Sierra's old text parser nightmares...I could go on.

I know. I could go on as well.

But instead I'm just gonna raise a singular question: Considering that Zork, Leather Goddesses of Phobos and Sierra's old text parser nightmares are all creations of the 1980s, and the last truly horrific Bullshit Puzzle prior to Scratches appeared in Gabriel Knight 3 in 1999... why would Scratches include such puzzles?

It has a minimum of 15 years of game design experience to build upon. Why didn't it use them?

 

[MessiahMan]

It has a minimum of 15 years of game design experience to build upon. Why didn't it use them?

But they did. I already thoroughly debunked your complaint about key hunt while giving you an offhand insult. That's the puzzle foremost in my brain when I made the claim of "natural" puzzles. I thought it very inspired, as keyhunt puzzles go...but I didn't miss the clues.

And if I had a penny of today's devalued money for every adventure game that shoehorned in the peanut butter and jelly sandwich under the door with the swizzlestick included in "Hollywood Hijinks" to push the key out, I'd be rich. That's just a throwaway puzzle used in adventure games like "451" is a code or password in every shooter that attempts to be more than "just a shooter." 15 years of game design experience to build upon practically requires such a contrivance thrown in.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

But they did. I already thoroughly debunked your complaint about key hunt while giving you an offhand insult.

I see we both have our separate problems: Mine was that I was confusing the key puzzle with the candle-puzzle.

The candle puzzle is the part of the game where the player is supposed to find some candles, as the house hasn't got any electricity. The problem is the execution, the player has to search ALL the places that are intended to be searched, or the game won't progress. To make matters worse for the player, no candles will be found... but the rummaging through drawers must be done regardless.

The key puzzle you're on about is a different thing altogether, and not that much of a bother except for another problem that afflicts almost every "puzzle" in the game: Most players will realize what the puzzles are on about and what needs to be done, but the game goes out of its way to make those tasks difficult. Pushing the key out of the lock requires a piece of paper, but it must be the One Paper among hundreds. That missing key is in that particular place, but before the player can collect it he must first learn where to find it (a logical step) and then go get it... except it's suddenly too dark to get the job done and light must be shone on the matter... instead of, say, picking up the thing and shaking it to hear a rattle and just turning it over to get the key. Even a task as simple as dropping off the luggage in Michael's room becomes needlessly convoluted for no reason.

That's the point I'm making: In addition to the suspense and tension that this game generates, it also adds frustration. It shouldn't have to do that.

Your problems, on the other hand, are psychological in nature and unfitting for a forum. As I really don't care about your personal issues I won't delve further, save only to ask that we keep the discussion topical.

 

[Baron Tahn]

I enjoyed 'Inscryption' or hoever that is spelled. Not 'scary' per se but got a good vibe for the season.

 

[Puukko]

Second playthrough of Fatal Frame 3. When I first played this a couple years ago, it cemented itself as my favorite horror game. That's modestly sized company, but it really is a masterclass in treating you like Pavlov's dog, and building its deck of cards without showing its hand. There's a good enough degree of randomness to where I am not certain whether subsequent playthroughs get new events, or I missed them originally, or they're reshuffled in when they appear. Going through an area you previously went through recently is almost certainly going to be safe, but you can never be quite sure.

One of my original complaints was that the game gave you way too many items, film in particular, which made provisioning a non-issue, even if the fights themselves could be challenging. On Hard this seems to have been largely fixed as you get way less film, and enemies are significantly buffed. It becomes a genuine concern running out of useable film and having to quit the night early. Slow shot, my beloved.

Other than that, the game still does make too heavy reuse of areas and boss enemies, as some are fought three or four times. I think a solid 20% of the game's length could have been trimmed. That said, some of said fights are actually neat even if they appear as lame padding on paper, if they take you by surprise and in an unexpected area. I came across a whole bit of new side content featuring the mother and daughter ghosts, where they would ambush me in a new area that's just a connector between two ghost hotspot areas, after which they made non-hostile appearances, and I fought the daughter alone which I don't remember having done the first time around. Also, the hair brushing woman who normally appears way later as a boss, ambushed me in the kitchen area after a bell toll, way outside her normal area. Combine these new encounters with a memory that's just hazy enough and it's keeping me on my toes.

 

[Rean]

Downfall



Play the 2009 version and avoid the 2016 remake, the developer wussed out on the true end because he turned into a true believer in fat acceptance or something, and he made it a 2d retard puzzle cellphone game. Get past some awkward writing in the first 10 minutes or so, and you'll be rewarded with a truly twisted horror experience as weird as a Haruki Murakami nightmare (on the topic of degenerate Japanese...). I speak vaguely for this game, because anything else would spoil the experience. Just play it, already.

Damn, I have some good memories of that one. I'm gonna replay it for sure.
Looking at who the dev is now, can confirm he definitely turned into a pussy. Same dev who made Lorelai.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

I'll probably finally play The Mortuary Assistant this Halloween on Switch. Short horror games that primarily exist for jumpscares can fuck off but this one has a creative enough premise. It looks more interesting than other modern horror slop. I also still have Visage to play through. Came highly recommended from somebody here I think.

 

[Skinwalker]

Fuck the season. Fuck pedoween, and fuck midwits who buy into this "muh spooky season" crap. Literally no different than walking around with a rainbow dildo in your ass for all of June coz its muh pride month or something.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

You're right Skinwalker, life is bad. You should hide in the back of a garbage truck.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

I forgot about the new Alone in the Dark. That shit looks guuuud. IGN criticized it for not being more like Dead Space LMAO.

 

[Skinwalker]

You're not a midwit, SDG.

 

[Inec0rn]

I forgot about the new Alone in the Dark. That shit looks guuuud. IGN criticized it for not being more like Dead Space LMAO.

Yeah i didn't like it as a big fan of the original games. It's a B level production, poor performance for how it looks, the combat is quite bad and not enough of a throwback to the original games for me personally. I'd only pick it up at a heavy discount 50%+ if interested.

 

[Skinwalker]

You're not a midwit, SDG.

He's too dumb to qualify as a midwit.

 

[Modron]

You're not a midwit, SDG.

He's too dumb to qualify as a midwit.

You're arguing with yourself.

 

[Skinwalker]

You're not a midwit, SDG.

He's too dumb to qualify as a midwit.

You're arguing with yourself.

Someone was supposed to ask "You really think SDG is too smart to be counted as a midwit?" and then I would say "No, he's too dumb to qualify as a midwit."

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

Skinwalker has no frends leave him alone.

 

[AlwaysBrotoMen]

Silent hill 2 remake

 

[Arthandas]

Alpha Beta Gamer covers mostly indie horror and horror adjacent games
https://www.youtube.com/@AlphaBetaGamer/videos