Scaring the Beejezus out of the
Player in an FPS
Brent Disbrow & Matt Tieger
Introduction
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Who the hell are these guys anyway?
What is Darkwatch?
Darkwatch video
Lecture Overview
Fear in Theory
 Powerful Tools
 Principles to Remember
 Production Challenges
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Fear in Games
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Business is good!
Some game franchises
continue to scare us,
game after game!
 The Resident Evil series
has sold over 27 million
units worldwide
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Fear in Media
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How do We Interpret Fear in Media?
Books
 Movies
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What makes Games so Special?
 Draw Parallels NOT Direct Examples
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Why Create Fear?
Why do you want it?
 How does it contribute to your game?
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Story
 Character
 Setting
 Gameplay
 Marketing
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Unique Genre Challenges
Powerful Player
 Shoot First Mentality
 What are they Looking at?!?
 Pacing Expectations
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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
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Disempowerment
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Direct vs Indirect
How do we set up disempowerment?
What is there to take away?
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Ammo & weapons
Abilities
Senses
Movement
Room to Move
Time
Lighting
Unsettling lighting
 Shadows
 Tonal Lighting
 Lighting changes
 Player lighting
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Visuals
Design aesthetic
 Character Design
 Character Animations
 Cognitive Dissonance
 Visual Trickery
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POV Experience
HUD Changes
 Setups keyed to POV
 Fullscreen FX
 Gamespeed Changes
 Warping Reality
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Principles to Remember
Timing
 Cognitive Dissonance
 Comprehension
 Limits
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Timing & Pacing
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What’s the difference?
Timing’s keystones are:
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Anticipation
Release
Shock!!
Effective Pacing
Comprehending the Danger
The player needs to get it
 Simple Rules for the player
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Cognitive Dissonance
Mess with expectations
 Identify with normalcy but twisted
 Inanimate objects doing things they
shouldn’t
 Things sounding familiar but…not
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The Limits
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Use Discretion
Use All of the Tricks
Accept that you can’t scare everybody all the
time
Production Challenges
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Unique content
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Asking for the right tech
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Prepare your producers for one-off content
The most effective tools will be the ones least
repeated
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
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Audio integration, the unwanted stepchild
Production Challenges
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Level layouts
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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
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Creating a Vision
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Faith in Minimalism
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Challenge of creating a vision and then
getting everybody to buy into and contribute
to it
Sometimes all you need is audio
Choose your battles
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Avoid making your favorite sandwich
Tech & Design Exploration
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Short video demonstrating several
elements of the talk
Summary
Why create Fear
 Unique FPS challenges
 Powerful Tools
 Principles to Remember
 Production Challenges
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Questions?
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Contact Information:
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Brent Disbrow –
[email protected]
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Matt Tieger –
[email protected]