In some games, the main character is personally invested in what is happening, such as in the Silent Hill or Alan Wake series. We either care about these characters because we want to see them survive, or we hate them and are waiting for them to be done in by whatever is the threat of the situation. What I mean by that last point is many horror games in the past have the main character as part of the story progression - they are talking to other characters, they are describing what they need to do, and most importantly, they are reacting to the world around them.Ī major aspect of horror in all mediums is being able to connect to the person in the situation. By putting the main character as the player, you don’t need to worry about modeling a character or getting voice lines recorded, and the story itself does not need to take into account the character. There are several developmental reasons why this has become popular. Sometimes you are literally playing as yourself, or you’re playing as a named character, but that character has no agency, personality, and maybe no voice lines outside of a few cutscenes. I see indie horror consistently removing the protagonist in favor of “you” as the main character. I want to talk about where indie devs are trying to take shortcuts into scares, and why this doesn’t work when we compare it to some of the greats that are now over 20 years old. While there are some clear winners from the indie space that I’ll be reviewing the second they are released, there are quite a lot that aren’t working for me, no matter how many of them have Youtuber “shocked” face compilations. For Halloween month, I’ve been looking forward to playing more horror games that I haven’t had a chance to look at it, especially after writing my book on horror design.
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