The Four Types of Scares

I haven't abandoned this blog, nor my ambitions to make a video game.

Currently I am sidetracked on a different side project (again), but considering the depth of the games I want to create, and the depth of this current side project, I think it would be better to devote my precious resources to this side project instead.

So here we go:

I've been reading up a bit on the different types of scares, and in my expert opinion with no professional experience on the psychology of fear, I theorize that there are four different types of "Fears", or "Scares".

This article at Gamasutra.com is much of my basis, for these opinions, though I am presenting them in a different format.

Firstly there is the Paranoia scare, which is the fear of the unknown, or rather the anxiety over the unexpected.  They come from the player's experience over the Hostile scare and the Startle scare.  Both the Startle scare and the Hostile scare feed into the Paranoia scare, and the tension comes from the player unable to find the sources of their anxiety, and thus will look into every nook and cranny in order to prepare for either of the Startle or the Hostile scares.  The purpose of this scare is to make the player find many false negatives in their search for these respective scares, much like gambling; give the player a series of rewards set to vend out at regular intervals, with varying degrees of success, and then mix it up with randomly inserted scares so that they are on the lookout for these "rewards".

Next up is the Startle scare, also known as the "jump" or "cat" scare.  This is the scare when something just so happens to jump out at you and startle you, like a cat jumping into your lap while you are reading your book outside in the afternoon sun.  Most people view the Startle scare with disdain (mostly players I think, but I think a handful of game designers also think that the Startle scare is a bit cheap).  I once thought that the Startle scare was a bit cheap too, until I watched the popular youtuber Markiplier play Ju-on (2:00) and Outlast (13:21). There are certain instances when the player looks behind a corner, checks under a desk, or peaks behind a curtain, and at the very first moment of that action, BOOM! The creepy-ugly-thing-stalking-you pops out.  Now at every moment that the player checks behind the corner, under the desk, or behind the curtain, the memory of that initial scare reoccurs.  As a matter of fact, the first time Markiplier gets that jump scare performing that certain action, the nasty critter calls the player a "little piggy", and every time Markiplier performs that action again, he repeats the mantra "oh little piggy no no, oh little piggy no no", reliving that initial memory of being scared, despite the fact that he never gets scared in that way again.

The Startle scare is good because it brings the player's adrenaline up, and due to the Two Factor Theory of Emotion, gets the player scared from the outset, making the player more afraid and hyper-sensitive to potential scares.  This hyper-vigilance makes the player test for more "false-positives" in their search for potential threats, feeding into the Paranoia scares.  Like an endless cycle of doom :)

The next scare is what I call the Hostile scare.  It is the fear of something that can potentially harm you.  These are the types of critters (or afflictions/status effects) that the player wants to avoid at all costs.  Imagine the nasty critter that is three times your size chasing you and crashing through walls and furniture in its pursuit to turn you into a nice, bloody, abstract art piece on the walls.  It could also be a trap, pitfall, or some other mechanical/non-sentient force that has the potential to harm you.  These scares are easily identifiable, and it is the fact that the player wants to avoid them that makes them so scary.  In fear, there is only fight or flight, so if the player is only given the option to "run", then it becomes a frantic scramble to avoid the thing that may kill you at all costs.

The problem with this is fear is that you have to use it sparingly, otherwise it may frustrate players trying to avoid something so unavoidable, and then you are forced to design the Hostile scare into something that is more manageable, thereby removing the threat in the scare.  By also using the Hostile scare sparingly, you also feed into the Paranoia scare; the player doesn't know when the Hostile scare will appear, and will devise ways to avoid the scare if possible.

Finally, there is the Unnatural scare.  This is the scare "which should not be".  For example:

You have been walking around the abandoned hospital/insane asylum/mine, dodging all the nasty things that go bump in the night, and as you are entering a room and looking at the puzzle on the wall, you hear the sound of a little girl playing.  You turn around, and there she is, back facing towards you, wearing a dress that belongs in the 1920's, when suddenly, her head spins 180 degrees to face you, and then she says in her sweet little voice: "wanna play?"

The Unnatural scare is meant to be disturbing, unnerving, or otherwise bizarre.  In the above example, little girls are not supposed to be playing in a dangerous environment, they are not supposed to be wearing a dress from 90 years ago, and their heads are most definitely not supposed to turn around 180 degrees.  Unnatural scares help create the atmosphere of unease, they are the things "which should not be". 

The problem with this scare is that too much of it and then you desensitize the player.  Too much blood, gore, or things that are disturbing and then you have to escalate the Unnatural scare so that the player can feel unnerved again.  Use it sparingly, and feed into the Paranoia scare to help create that sense of atmosphere.

I'm pretty beat right now.  I might be able to say more on this later.