What is the secret formula for scaring someone [No cheap scares!]

[Adrianis]

(05-02-2012 06:27 PM)beecake Wrote:  A good story also has to be creepy like, you are doing something you dont want to. Kill a man to get past something...

Or you watch something without having the ability to stop it.

And always: Anything unknown.

There is something, or is there?
Is it following me? Did i see it right there?
Am i imagening it?
What was that?

Your last point, totally agree. Nothing you will see in game currently will amount to what fears you can conjure up with your mind, as long as you leave gaps to fill.

Case in point, when your going through the tunnels early on in Penumbra, when you first come across the dogs, when I got warned about how to deal with enemies, it was suggested that an enemy was around. With the utter darkness and the atmospheric music, when I heard the growling and didn't know what it was, I was terrified enough to fear-quit. Half a year later when my balls had dropped again, I went back and saw what it was, and promptly beat it to death with a hammer, and from then on could cope. Sadly it only took a few more hours for me to get stuck on a puzzle an quit again, because of which I still haven't gone back, so I never got another chance to be terrified by a new enemy.

The problem with having the player do something they don't want to, from a moral standpoint, such as kill an innocent human, is that you need to get the player emotionally involved with the world and the character, otherwise its not going to matter to them and it won't have the desired impact.

[Rapture]

(04-30-2012 01:09 PM)Adrianis Wrote:  

(04-29-2012 05:44 PM)JenniferOrange Wrote:  Atmosphere and sounds.
You can put absolutely NO monsters in your custom story, but make it dark as hell and add a few creepy ass sounds and I'll pee my pants. c:

Amen to that

I'd have to agree to that also, stop putting monsters all over your story. Everyone knows how to deal with them, or just flat out dies because they took a wrong turn.

Having the Player live in fear that a monster could pop up anywhere, anytime is more horrifying than having a real one chasing after them.

[Measuring]

I hope that my current project will bring some new light to the world of Amnesia modding.

We got several new enemies and alot of other new content. If you guys want to check it out, here is a link: http://www.moddb.com/mods/tenebris-lake

[Hardarm]

A nice idea could be that monster patrols around without the starting "roar" sound. (Easy to do it)
But without music, and the music will start if the player is nearby the forever patrolling monster (or it will go away if you do a certain thing)... Like in Penumbra Overture with the dogs. Apjjm should create a similar script

[Damascus]

In my current custom story I'm making very frequent use of grunts that don't alert when they appear. Makes it very handy to have them sneak up on the player

[TeamSD]

(05-08-2012 06:25 AM)Damascus Wrote:  In my current custom story I'm making very frequent use of grunts that don't alert when they appear. Makes it very handy to have them sneak up on the player

I must ask, how do you script it?

[Rapture]

(05-10-2012 08:31 AM)TeamSD Wrote:  

(05-08-2012 06:25 AM)Damascus Wrote:  In my current custom story I'm making very frequent use of grunts that don't alert when they appear. Makes it very handy to have them sneak up on the player

I must ask, how do you script it?

You don't script it, its a property of the enemy. Go into the "Model Editor" and open up the enemy you want. In the menu, go to > Settings > User defined Variables. Inside are the properties for the enemy. Scattered around are things like sounds or music to be played on activation and such. Just delete them and save the monster out.

Make sure you make a new copy of the enemy before doing this.

[JenniferOrange]

I know the secret formula.
(scripting knowledge)+(mapping)+(environment)*(lighting)= amazing scares.
lolwhut.

[Damascus]

Actually I'm pretty sure it's

((scripting + mapping) * environment) ^ (lighting+sound)

[Juby]

I believe this is the formula:


With =6.022 141 79(30)×1023 mol−1

+1 To the first one who knows what formula this is actually for.

Or you may have to run checks like so:

if(ScaredByGhosts) SpawnGhosts(2, "Player", 0, 10, 0);
if(ScaredByBees) SpawnHornets(753, "Player", RandInt(1,10), 0, 0);
if(ScaredOfNothing) DevelopFear(RandFear());
etc,