Creepy games.

sedrosken

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I've seen games like Amnesia or Slender. Minecraft can even be scary. I mean, think about it. You're one human in a world where nearly everything is out to get you. Ambient sounds make you wonder whether you're really alone, even in peaceful mode.

I got ahold of a PSX emulator the other day. One of the first games I got working for it was LSD - Dream Emulator. If you don't know what that is, I feel confident in your Google-fu.

To quote XxMulletMiKExX from the Sticky Paddle (a somewhat obscure gaming channel on YouTube), " . . . this game will leave you with the burning question of, "What the f***?""

So yeah, anyway. What are your opinions on creepy games like Silent Hill? What about creepypasta? For those who don't know, they're the internet equivalent of campfire stories. Some are terrible. Some are very well-written.
 

ddrueding

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The first game that freaked me out was Half Life. I'd just started a job that got me to my apartment at 10PM and would play in a blacked out room until 2AM.

And Doom3 earns an honorable mention.

I just started with the new Thief, and if you want to win bad enough that can put you on edge as well.
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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I'm a huge, huge fan of the stuff on the SCP Foundation wiki.
The basis for the site is the idea that the contributors are part of an organization devoted to keeping the paranormal segregated from the world that the rest of humanity knows. Each file is a different paranormal phenomenon or entity. Files are categorized as Safe ("Put it in a box and it's fine"), Euclid (this could cause problems if we don't actively contain it) or Keter (this thing can end the world). Many of the procedures make use of "D-class" condemned prisoners as human cannon fodder.

The style of each article starts with containment instructions rather than a description of the issue. The fun game to play is "What the hell could require them to do THAT?" as you read that first section.

Also, the implications of a [DATA EXPUNGED] or [REDACTED] are that something happened and everything is better if even people who deal with these things do not know what that is. Those show up a lot in some articles. You'll also want to look through any experiment logs or supplements in each article.

SCP-087: An Unlit Platform Staircase
SCP-089: A Golden Idol
SCP-140: Chronicle of the Daevas
SCP-239: Procedure 110-Montauk. Not remotely safe for lunch.
SCP-342: A Ticket
SCP-455: Derelict Cargo Ship
SCP-597: The Mother Loves You
SCP-610: The Flesh that Hates
SCP-710: The Hanged King's Tragedy
SCP-823: An Abandoned Amusement Park
SCP-835: Fibrous Mass
SCP-1555: A Facility of Unknown Origin.
SCP-1733: DVR Recording of a Basketball Game

OK that's enough of that.

Creepy games? I've never played Silent Hill.
You're too young to have seen Doom when it was new. Doom was scary as hell, especially in how it just got more and more awful the farther you got into the demo version. Yes, by the time Doom 2 rolled out, we all knew that it'd be non-stop inverted crucified troopers and mutilated goat heads, but the first time any new enemy or even texture showed up, it was a new level of mind-screw.

System Shock is also before your time and was also super-tense. Everything in that game was built around timers and the seeming futility of trying to do as much as you could.

Those two games are probably the foundation for what we'd think of as a scary first-person game and in both cases I'd attribute a large part of their success to the soundtrack or audio design.
 

Howell

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Half-life for me. Combination of ambiance and surprise. Either you are alone or you wish you were.
 

sedrosken

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You're right, I wasn't even a twinkle in my dad's eye when DOOM was new, nor DOOM II, but I do remember the first time I played it, on my older brother's computer. Same for Diablo 1 and II.

Scarred for life.
 

sedrosken

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And for DOOM and DOOM II, take away the soundtrack and you get an even eerier game. The Jaguar port and Playstation port of DOOM didn't have music, but were by far the truest to the original in terms of graphics for a console port. In the words of the Angry Video Game Nerd during his Jaguar review, "I call this one 'Silent DOOM.' Just put on some Slayer and you're good."
 

mubs

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I'm a huge, huge fan of the stuff on the SCP Foundation wiki.

That was really interesting, Merc! An outlet for the stuff in the dark recesses of some people's minds. Some were very good - the platform staircase, 110-Montouk, Golden Idol.
 

Mercutio

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Thanks for looking, mubs. It entered my mind as a "game" in the sense that the people writing those articles are somewhat competitive about it. I really like the idea that it's a kind of new media for fiction and storytelling, just by the nature of being a wiki, and the article length tends to work well for less intense reading needs like lunch breaks.
 

Clocker

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Doom 3 was pretty creepy but in my opionion, F.E.A.R. was definitely the creepiest! I never finished it.
 
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