Horror Games On Steam Are Now Over-Overused

[Yndaaa~]

Outlast is overrated. You walk around, see a jumpscare, walk around some more, then get chased around a little bit until you hide in a locker, rinse and repeat.

Lets not forget about the bum touching

Like Ghraeywalse?
(Game I'm developing)

How far along are you?

[Ad Bot]

[Doom Mantis]

Lets not forget about the bum touching
How far along are you?

Map-layout / Enemy designs

[InvisibleName]

If you bug me enough to learn unity, I'll make a horror game of my own.

[Doom Mantis]

If you bug me enough to learn unity, I'll make a horror game of my own.

i shall give you

+motivation

[IkeTheGeneric]

The problem is that people got it in their head that scary games don't sell

which they totally do

Outlast is overrated. You walk around, see a jumpscare, walk around some more, then get chased around a little bit until you hide in a locker, rinse and repeat.

Something tells me you either haven't played it, or you don't like horror in general.

Two things: Outlast isn't bad because it's popular. Same principle with Amnesia: The Dark Descent. It's popular because it works. Too many people write off genuinely good games because they're popular with a certain crowd, and this is a bad thing

Secondly, trivializing an entire game to make it sound boring is stupid.

[Jairo]

Secondly, trivializing an entire game to make it sound boring is stupid.

you are pixels and you jump around until some more pixels tell you that what you were looking for isn't there

[IkeTheGeneric]

you are pixels and you jump around until some more pixels tell you that what you were looking for isn't there

All you do is interact with certain things at certain points until the game can't be played any longer...

[Jairo]

All you do is interact with certain things at certain points until the game can't be played any longer...

all you do is press buttons

[Muzzles56]

Can't we just have one horror game where it doesn't use jump scares as it's primary getting point. Why not uses suspense and psychological tactics?

I tried this

[The Big Bad Jellyfish]

I would love a procedurally generated horror game. Like, everything. From the monsters to the maps and such. It should take place in a future setting and the monster will be procedurally generated with random parts. Like Spore, or that one game where you just watch a creature evolve, Each part should give some sort of stat to the monster, like speed, damage, etc.

There shouldn't be any jump scares either, just ambience and a couple monster that will chase you, and creep around corners and such. You wont be able to fight back at the start, you'll have to hide a lot, but at some point you'll be able to get something like molotovs to scare away the monsters, and potentially killing it. That would give you some time to make progress until something new happens, such as you finding some sort of cloning factory that has been malfunctioned, producing a ton of these weird genetic monsters, so you wont be able to kill them all, but you'll be able to defend yourself.

The game should have some sort of detailed story too.

[Doom Mantis]

I would love a procedurally generated horror game. Like, everything. From the monsters to the maps and such. It should take place in a future setting and the monster will be procedurally generated with random parts. Like Spore, or that one game where you just watch a creature evolve, Each part should give some sort of stat to the monster, like speed, damage, etc.

There shouldn't be any jump scares either, just ambience and a couple monster that will chase you, and creep around corners and such. You wont be able to fight back at the start, you'll have to hide a lot, but at some point you'll be able to get something like molotovs to scare away the monsters, and potentially killing it. That would give you some time to make progress until something new happens, such as you finding some sort of cloning factory that has been malfunctioned, producing a ton of these weird genetic monsters, so you wont be able to kill them all, but you'll be able to defend yourself.

The game should have some sort of detailed story too.

My friend has an abandoned horror-game project similar to that.
I'll ask him if he can work on it some more.

[beachbum111111]

Something tells me you either haven't played it, or you don't like horror in general.

Two things: Outlast isn't bad because it's popular. Same principle with Amnesia: The Dark Descent. It's popular because it works. Too many people write off genuinely good games because they're popular with a certain crowd, and this is a bad thing

Secondly, trivializing an entire game to make it sound boring is stupid.

Because slender: The eight pages is a good game. The problem with outlast is that the scares never happen when your in control and most of the time they are just jumpscares. Occasionally you'll be chased by an enemy but the only time the game ever truly scares you is when something pops out and makes a loud noise and even then you are hardly ever in control.

[McJobless]

The problem is that horror always sounds really good from a design standpoint, and people get really excited when they think about making a scary game. They're pretty fun to work on. You're also "allowed" to get away with many potential problems, since a lot of the player's view will be obscured and the game will have a fairly slow pace. They also are in high demand, so you can make one and expect to see a lot of people playing your game.

Unfortunately, I'd argue that anywhere between 50 - 90% of game designers don't know proper design, and it's painfully obvious with the people making these games. Instead of studying what makes something scary, how to create proper atmosphere or blah blah blah, they just go off what they've already played expecting it to work for them as well, and then they wonder why the thing that worked for X popular game which everybody experienced and is now boring to these people doesn't scare them in their game.

[Donro98]

I think it would be really cool if a horror game had everything be a weapon. Like a normal person you grab everything you can to slow down the monster, like a fire axe or a lamp.

[The Big Bad Jellyfish]

I think it would be really cool if a horror game had everything be a weapon. Like a normal person you grab everything you can to slow down the monster, like a fire axe or a lamp.

this too, like literally in horror games i always see like a loving pipe on the floor why cant i pick that up and beat myself with it the monster with it