Emotion and Horror

Lately, something's been happening that can only be described as "a change in the winds." And it has to do with horror games. There's been a lot of discussion about the best horror games and their decline in recent years... and it seems as though the momentum's shifting the other way. It feels as though horror games are about to make a comeback.

This has gotten me thinking. The common knowledge about horror games is that they employ very tricky psychology; they let the player scare themselves. The gruesome, nightmarish mutilation we imagine in our minds is infinitely worse than whatever the game might actually do. But when we don't know what the game has planned - only that there's something - we remain wary of those possibilities. So wary, in fact, that we do all the leg work and ripen the fear in our hearts, which then peaks when danger finally jumps out as us. Then we run away before we find out what the gruesome reality is.

The strength of games in generating fear is well-known. But as for other emotional responses like joy, sadness, or righteous anger, we're not quite sure what to do with those. We'd love to create a wide spectrum of emotions in players, but it's not clear how.

But maybe there's something we can learn from horror games.

Usually, the most memorable moments in games come from the buildup and release of tension. The boss fights of Shadow of the Colossus are a great example of that (especially if you play on Hard Mode - yikes). Fear in horror games is somewhat along those lines, building up tension higher and higher with no promise of release and the threat of gruesome death over your head, but the response is another creature entirely. Fear implies the player has a personal stake in the situation and cares about it. It's not about frustration or satisfaction, it's emotion.

Maybe other emotions can be achieved in similar ways. One of the key elements in play is withheld information - not knowing the range of possibilities. If many things seem possible, but only a few of those actually exist, the player is personally compelled to find out what the truth is. They place a personal stake in the mystery.

Conversely, if the player gets everything explained, they have less of a reason to get emotionally involved.

So instead of making the mystery about what fearsome monster is out to kill you, maybe it could be about the fate of a sympathetic character (a sad or happy ordeal) or the actions of your enemy (which could inspire rage or vengeance). By opening the possibilities and leaving things momentarily unexplained - like horror games do - we might be able to access a wider range of emotions.

And this is where the "Gap" from Robert McKee's Story seminar becomes a tool. By creating an event that blows open a gap between expectation and reality, a new realm of possibilities opens up and creates a dramatic mystery for the player. In these important moments, we can access emotion through story and really affect our players.

It all seems to be coming together. Too bad I don't have Story anymore; now's a good time to do some more studying.