What makes Horror games good?

boo

Vulnerability, if the player feels in control then the game simply won't be scary. This is why difficulty is so important in horror games, if it's too easy the player won't feel vulnerable and if it's too hard the player will be frustrated, both of which severely break immersion.

Resident Evil achieved vulnerability through the strange camera angles, Silent Hill achieved it through the fog and radio static, in Amnesia whole horror comes from the player being completely defenceless.

Spoiler that you shitcunt

I remember playing that when I was 13.
It was scary for the first 10 minutes, until you realize that rushing forward and slaughtering the NPCs like in any generic FPS is actually the most effective combat style.

First person VR is fantastic for jump scares.

I agree completely.
I wouldn't say RE or SH are scary, simply because once you understand the mechanics, the game and enemies are extremely predictable and allow the player to maintain a very high degree of control..
Amnesia is definitely scary at first and is wonderfully atmospheric, but most of it comes from not knowing whether or not the scare-cues are scripted, or actually enemies; and on your second playthrough all pretenses of fear are dropped as you know there are only a handful of actual enemies and you can just breeze through everything else. Outlast doesn't even manage that, since you're so fucking fast and can just constantly sprint everywhere, no sneaking required except for maybe the doctor sequence since you need to unblock and block doors.

Now that raises an interesting question, are there any scary games that are still scary on your second playthrough?

I miss good Horror games and I really wish for a game like Dead space to come out again.

Fucking seriously user?

You don't remember it very well, then

Primarily the unknown. Part of the reason why modern horror games have lost so much of their appeal is that you typically know the game's entire plot from the shitty trailers that give away far too much of the game's story.

Same reason why those horror games that come out as surprise hits (in terms of sales, so Amnesia or Outlast) typically come from relatively minor studios that can not and do not advertise their horror game on national television.

Also a reason behind the fact that "true" indie horror games that do not rely on the classical AAA gameplay mechanics often can be infinitely scarier than the larger fish.

Another thing which is really important is the proper use of music. Imagine you have to go down some dark flight of basement stairs and as soon as you open the door leading down, embed related starts playing.

Dead Space was okay-ish, at least when compared to the shitty sequels. One thing I liked about it was the game frequently fucking you via musical cues - once the violins start screaming, you expect a skeleton to pop out of the closet, but while this does happen often enough, there's also many moments where nothing at all happens. Leaves you right on the brink of uncertainty.

I also like how you actually try to repair the ship rather than just shooting your way through the xenomorphs for Generic_PlotItem_1. System Shock 2 does something similar, and I think having to repair/salvage a heavily damaged space ship is an interesting idea even for non-horror games.

>Buy Dead space on steam sale

When starting from steam it simply won't open (says running 2 seconds and then switches back to nothing) and when trying to directly open it from the folder it mentions some crash.

Ran it in compatibility mode for XP and Vista all service packs as admin

Added .dll's that several 'fix this error..' guides to program files

one solution mentioned changing settings.txt in appdata/local/electronic arts/dead space which is a filepath that does not exist

I just wanted to play games

Refund and pirate instead, why the fuck are you giving EA money anyway.

I remember there were problems with vsync and mouse input, but not with just running the game. I don't know, man, try something here
pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Dead_Space

Driving mechanics.

yeah i'm not proud of it

Thanks mate i'll have a look.

Source on that one?

Also, a horror game which starts out in a car but then goes full INNAWOODS might be pretty spooky.

Scares might be subjective but tension/suspense is a pretty universal element of horror.
Beyond that, it could be about shocking/surprising the player with unexpected shit. This manifests itself most commonly in the form of jumpscares but then you get shit like Eternal Darkness and its insanity effects.

Last game that make me shit my pants was Condemned, the scene whit the half dying guy that you have to take a pic of it

And the moving mannequins was pretty well set up, also the guys you fight are apparently just junkies and hobbos but the more you play the more you feel like you are fighting completely freaks.

not sure what this is but the atmosphere is great. It reminds me of what a totally immersive version of that game Yahtzee made, The Consuming Shadow, would look like. It'd be really fucking cool to drive around English countryside and small cities looking for clues and going through derelict buildings, offices, hospitals and whatever fighting/avoiding monsters all with a countdown to an unspeakable horror that's being summoned while balancing resources and your physical/mental health.

Not exactly the English countryside, but Miasmata kinda goes n that direction.

Jewgled "horror game driving being chased" and it was the first result. but I'll still spoon feed you. It's called Driving Survival (probably WIP name), and it's being made by an amateur dev.

Here's his shitty forum blog: forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=43705.0
And here's his jewtube channel: youtube.com/channel/UCmeGm1pBMgwLbSS06tLY3XA/feed