Scaring the Beejezus out of the Player in an FPS Brent Disbrow & Matt Tieger

Introduction  Who the hell are these guys anyway?  What is Darkwatch?  Darkwatch video

Lecture Overview  Fear in Theory  Powerful Tools  Principles to Remember  Production Challenges

Fear in Games  Business is good!  Some game franchises continue to scare us, game after game!  The Resident Evil series has sold over 27 million units worldwide

Fear in Media  How do We Interpret Fear in Media?  Books  Movies  What makes Games so Special?  Draw Parallels NOT Direct Examples

Why Create Fear?  Why do you want it?  How does it contribute to your game?  Story  Character  Setting  Gameplay  Marketing

Unique Genre Challenges  Powerful Player  Shoot First Mentality  What are they Looking at?!?  Pacing Expectations

Powerful Tools (at least as far as we can tell!)  Audio  Disempowerment  Visuals  Lighting  POV experience

Audio  1-offs  Music  Universal signals  Player audio  Player Mechanics  Silence

Disempowerment  Direct vs Indirect  How do we set up disempowerment?  What is there to take away?  Ammo & weapons  Abilities  Senses  Movement  Room to Move  Time

Lighting  Unsettling lighting  Shadows  Tonal Lighting  Lighting changes  Player lighting

Visuals  Design aesthetic  Character Design  Character Animations  Cognitive Dissonance  Visual Trickery

POV Experience  HUD Changes  Setups keyed to POV  Fullscreen FX  Gamespeed Changes  Warping Reality

Principles to Remember  Timing  Cognitive Dissonance  Comprehension  Limits

Timing & Pacing  What’s the difference?  Timing’s keystones are:  Anticipation  Release  Shock!!  Effective Pacing

Comprehending the Danger  The player needs to get it  Simple Rules for the player

Cognitive Dissonance  Mess with expectations  Identify with normalcy but twisted  Inanimate objects doing things they shouldn’t  Things sounding familiar but…not

The Limits  Use Discretion  Use All of the Tricks  Accept that you can’t scare everybody all the time

Production Challenges  Unique content  Prepare your producers for one-off content  The most effective tools will be the ones least repeated  Asking for the right tech  Be clear what you want and when you want it  For example, trigger activation based on where the player is looking at  Every facet counts  Audio integration, the unwanted stepchild

Production Challenges  Level layouts  These experiences do not exist in a vacuum – the level needs to build up to the moment & release  Players can break the pace

Production Challenges  Creating a Vision  Challenge of creating a vision and then getting everybody to buy into and contribute to it  Faith in Minimalism  Sometimes all you need is audio  Choose your battles  Avoid making your favorite sandwich

Tech & Design Exploration  Short video demonstrating several elements of the talk

Summary  Why create Fear  Unique FPS challenges  Powerful Tools  Principles to Remember  Production Challenges

Questions?  Contact Information:  Brent Disbrow –  Matt Tieger –