Jack Nicholson once wrote, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." A million times, on a million sheets of paper. His wife hit him with a baseball bat, then he chopped his way through a bathroom door with an axe - where his wife and child were hiding - but only enough to poke his magnificent face through and state, "Here's Johnny!"
Much to the chagrin of his terrified wife (his child escaped through the small window) and to the terror of myself, the audience member, he was close enough to see her, and she, knowing that only a few more chops from his axe would allow him to enter the bathroom, used the knife she grabbed from the kitchen to safeguard herself.
She stayed his attack, then he ventured off, only to die in an endless maze in the middle of a blizzard.
Watching The Shining, I was genuinely terror-stricken.
I've played my share of horror games, my favorites being the Silent Hill series. I only played a demo of Fatal Frame, but I hear that one is truly terrifying. I haven't tried out the newest Silent Hill, which I hear is actually decent, but I'm in the need of a scary game.
Crafting a scary game must be a difficult process. On the one hand you can easily scare your audience with a JUMP OUT AT YOU moment, but the scare-factor quickly passes, the audience goes on and you haven't really left an impression on anyone. On the other hand you don't want to go into the just plain weird side of things, either.
Kids for some reason are always creepy, but they have become cliche.
What I need is something that really builds up, makes me feel like I'm not really in control at all, but am just trying to survive.
