DarkCampainger wrote:

I suggest doing something with a mirror.... Either a ghost that you can only see in the mirror or this really scary effect. You walk into a room. The roof, floor, and walls are all white. One wall is a gaint mirror. You walk up to the mirror.Lights go out. All sound turns off. a few seconds later you start to hear breathing. Soft at first, but it's getting louder, and louder. the lights turn back on. All the walls are covered in blood and two bodies are on the ground. But... The mirror is still perfect. You look into it again and see a ghost covered in blood on the other side. You look at it a little while longer, terrified. Then you notice the two corpses again in the mirror. They start to get up. The light flickers. The rooms back to normal. The walls are white, the ghost is gone. But.. the mirror... It's smashed. you turn to walk out, a large piece of the mirror falls out of the wall and makes a loud shattering noise as you bolt out the door.

Wow.... Now I'm scared..
*Goes off and removes all the mirrors from his house*

Dude thats a scene from 13 Ghosts. There is only one thing that scares me really. That one thing is that I am completely afraid of getting caught in a small room, having the walls implode, and smush me. SOunds stupid but ot me its scary

yes it is and i think were getting a little off topic here. unless someone is scared of the movie thriteen ghosts. But it is a seen from it. The only diffrence is that insted of a mirror its a shin piece of glass/

Arcanedragon_2004 wrote:

I didn't read the last twenty thousand posts, but I think i got a good one (if no one has mentioned it yet) You know how you are in a room, and the room starts to fill up with water, but there is now where to go, so you panic and swim frantically. Unfortunetly, you drown, but this incorperates both closterphobia and hydrophobia into one.

Better yet make it so that theres an exit but its blocked or locked up.

What Lummox said in his edit is definitely true; he used it in his BYOND 4k game, and it creeped me out when the stick monster thing would break through a wall and roar at you, then gobble you up, and you'd see stick remains, and hear crunch noises.

Doom 3 is said to be pretty scary, but what is that if not a cartoon? It's not *real* people dying, it's an animation.

I heard that!

My scariest experience playing BYOND was way back when when I first discovered the system. Someone had made a game called SpaceTug. It was very atmospheric. The hum of the ship was all around you. As you walked into rooms, flourescent lights took their time to flicker on. Every room was empty. And then I heard this banging. Something was banging on the other side of the door. Then it broke through.

That was probably the only time on BYOND that I was scared, but there have been some creepy moments.

One was in my own game, Cerulea... I had just programmed in some mob AI, and planned to go into the game and create some wild boars to practice hunting on. I had forgotten the combat training dummy was also classified as a mob. I logged in and the training dummy walked into the room I was in, freaking me out.

One of the things that can give you a surreal experience in games is when there's lots of random messaging, but there are a handful of messages you hardly ever get. The first time you hear them can be startling. In ACWraith's great game Wrangle and Warp, you have to save as many people as you can and leave the rest to die on each level. I was experimenting with warping out immediately each time, not saving anyone. Now, normally after a level, your ship might make a comment on how things are going, but after several levels of ditching everyone I was surprised to hear it say in a (seemingly) sinister voice, "One of these days, you won't wake up."

It can be equally creepy when you don't know what's causing the messages. There's a single-person adventure game someone put out recently, I can't remember what or who, but on one level I kept getting the message "You're worthless," seemingly randomly. It was pretty disturbing until I realized it happened when I stepped toward a particular place.

Games with tension are usually scarier the first few times you play them. The first few times Lwen tells you "It's time to die" are fun. If you haven't already, check out DDT's Living & Dead. Lwen's message is nicely coupled with a sinister sound, increasing the effect. This is a technique used in movies and funhouses.

Hey, maybe I should do a Z-Tips article on how to make a scary game. This has certainly been a popular subject.

Z

lol ok i'll wait till' it comes out.

It is out, so go out buy it and try it. The thing is though, these are some pretty realistic looking creatures with the graphics being superb and all. I find that the darkness in that game scares me, a lot of the zombies don't make noises until they are right next to you, so you hear them moan then as soon as you turn around they are raising up whatever object/their hand and are beginning to attack you. Another thing is that there are a lot of scripted events where you will be walking up to a window and out of nowhere an imp will come leaping out of what seems like nowhere and banging on the glass until it gives up.

What scares me is Salad Fingers from http://www.fat-pie.com/ that cartoon is just disturbing its about some wierd guy who likes strange things like rusty spoons and nettles i dont know what freaks me out more about it though the cartoon in its self or the fact that somone actually made the cartoon!

Ghosts are a very scary idea for me. I used to be uncertain, but my girlfriend's family confirmed my belief in ghosts. Her mother and sister are very traditional people and don't believe in a lot of things they can't see or feel. When they were living in one of their old houses they talked about how you'd just get a feeling that there was something bad there, it was particularly bad in a few places in the house. My girlfriend and her sister have both told me about one time when they were in the kitchen of the house and heard the front door open and slam shut, then they heard someone run up the stairs...but there was no one else in the house. Her mother also told me about a time that her and her ex-husband were in their bedroom getting ready to go out and they both heard the door lock. They tried opening the door, but sure enough, it had locked itself.

Those stories give me the chills, personally. I know they are genuine and these aren't the type of people who would make something like that up.

Anyway, aside from that some things that would scare me are:

*) Hearing obvious, unexplained noises behind me/in another room/etc.

*) Seeing a face or unexplained image in a window or mirror. Especially seeing someone's image in a mirror, but then turning and finding no one there.

*) Wet footprints forming on the floor, coming towards me

*) A lightswitch being turned off by a ghost

*) Candles mysteriously igniting

*) A whisper in my ear...but no one's there...

Anyway, that's what I can think of right now. I hope that's good :)