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That joking around we were doing about how Silent Hills was going to be turned into a pachinko machine? Yeah. That wasn’t joking around. That’s a real thing that Konami is doing.
I know I make a big fuss over Silent Hill 2 and how developers keep getting it wrong, but the truth is I’m not really a Silent Hill fan as much as a fan of the concepts and tone. I wouldn’t want to play a knock-off Batman game with some generic faux-Batman lead. But Silent Hill? I don’t care about the name. I’m here for the dread, the art style, the psychological games, the twisted monsters, somber quiet moments, the sense of mystery and the focus on exploration over combat.
Amnesia is the closest thing we have now. That’s nice and all, but I really wish someone else would pick up the Silent Hill torch and run with it.
“Spoopy” is apparently a real word now. I learned it from my teenagers. That’s something of a turning point in the life of a parent, when your kids start teaching you new words. Spooy is apparently a twee sort of spooky. Dracula is spooky. Count Chocula is spoopy.
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id Software Coding Style
When the source code for Doom 3 was released, we got a look at some of the style conventions used by the developers. Here I analyze this style and explain what it all means.
My brother and I were legitimately scared watching this video. We sympathize with
Pee PantsChris here.I’m with you there. I actually did jump a couple of times while watching the video. I think that the game does a really good job of combing the cute cutout jump scares with the horrifying monsters that chase you to produce actual fear, like when Chris was running from the ghost girl and the spider cutout appeared.
The game overall does a very good job with slowly building up the horror. It makes everything start out really cute and nice, and then starts slowly adding in more and more disturbing elements via the notes and eventually the monsters.
Yeah it started to get to me too when Alma showed up.
Its interesting how that pun completely stumped the whole crew.
I figured it out:<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1259521/"This game is the cabin in the woods of video game.
Your link got a little bit jumbled there.
Yes.Too lake have I seen that I missed the “>”.If Shamoose would be so kind to edit that one.
I fear it may be far too lake even for that.
We get loched out if overly ponderous with our riversions? I sea.
I’ll brook no more of this – you’re babbling, sir.
Hrmph. Another innocent comment thread rapidsly turned into a stream of puns.
And now you’ve trickled me into doing this too. >:F Dam you guys!
Now that you’ve gotten your feet wet with puns, you’ll sea how deep they go.
While you pool your efforts at channeling your inner Rutskarn, I find myself glad to harbor no such thing. Instead, from a deep reservoir my wisdom springs clear, not a meandering tirade of inanity swamped with puns.
Oh…
Dam.
We need to just wash these comments away. Or let the puns ebb. I tidally won’t join into this current diversion.
I do wonder if part of the reason the rest of the crew is finding this game more spoofy then spooky is because of the way they are experiencing it. Rutskarn even pointed out last episode that nothing is less scary then hearing Chris yelp and five seconds later getting a jump scare. Experiencing a scary game in a group with a stream delay seems like it would dull the horror.
P.S. I’m not saying that that is the only reason, but i suspect it does contribute to it.
As someone who’s beaten all levels I can say that even when playing it gets really boring and tedious. Especially the further you get, aside from one random room type from those that rotate, none of the rooms can kill you so it goes from exploration to move through the closest door to get to the good stuff. And to get past all bosses except one you must simply…run forward. Which is essentially what you’ve been doing the whole time which means that even later filler rooms when bosses show you’re still just running forward. There’s too much filler plain and simple and if by some reason you do die (for example at the puppet cause he’s the only unique mechanic boss) then you have to redo 50-100 rooms whatever it is of filler all over again.
I beat it yesterday, and I was tense the whole way through, through fillers and everything. As I was thinking how stupid it is to jump at things popping out in front of you when the only things that can hurt you can only come from behind, something would pop in front of me and I’d jump again. I guess you get out of it what you bring with you.
The problem is that all the filler stuff is way too long and monsters that spawn behind you only chase you for about 15 rooms and stamina refills every room so you literally just dash for the door. And you very easily learn the layout of each room for example the one where Chris was running into the locked door…the right door is always the one that’s locked. So aside from the puppet master who you always need to be looking at, ie. walk backwards, everyone else you just keep running to the door until the music stops. The only place I figure it could be tense would be the white glow room where you need to get the correct pattern but I never once had a monster follow me in there. Then you reach a new boss and figure the mechanics might be different like the Deer boss and the axe but that’s a lie too. It’s still just run away. And if you do try to attack woops you’re dead and guess what! Gotta replay 75 filler rooms.
I know. It shouldn’t have worked but it did. Guess some people are just susceptible?
Jumpscare horror games in general just heavily depend on the player’s state of mind when they go in. Some are always going to be scared, some are never going to be scared. Even in an overlong title like this, if the player’s in the mood for some spooks, then spooked they shall be!
I still liked each new boss as they popped up, but like Grimwear, I got into more of a ‘okay, so, how do I solve this mechanics puzzle’ mood than a ‘eeeeeeek runrunrunrun’ mood.
I mean I’m coming across as harsh but I actually enjoyed the game and went into it hoping for high tension. The problem for me is that they kept it on way too long that tension became boredom. Once I hit the puppet and died the first time and got thrown back 50ish rooms I then transitioned into, ok how do I not die and get through this because I don’t want to have to replay these (to me) boring rooms. I mean it’s not a long game I have 2 hours on it but I personally feel it would be stronger if they cut down on the filler. The only reason I kept going was because I liked what Spooky was saying and wanted to see more as well as the backstory on the mansion/demons. In fact, for the final demon I purposely killed myself when I discovered I missed a note in the kid’s playground because I wanted to experience it all. I’d argue that toning down the length and as a result the penalty for death would improve the tension and atmosphere. If it works for people then great cause they got the full experience but for me, and I feel the other members of the cast it just started dragging on and they lost interest. For me, going forward became a drag with me just staring at which room number I was on.
I’ve had the same “too boring to be scary” problem with Amnesia. I played it for several hours and I was terrified, really tense the whole time and on the edge of my seat. but I’m terrible at the sort of adventure style game so I barely made any progress in two hours and eventually I got physically tired because the audio and spookiness freaked me out so much and ALSO really bored because nothing was happening.
I think another reason they’re not finding it spooky is yapping over the music and sound.
It’s like watching a soccer match with the radio instead of tv commentary – they’re usually about 4 seconds early because of broadcast systems. meaning you hear “Oh my god, he’s going to….Yes! GOOOAAAAL!” or “oh what a chance, yes is he going…NO! Oh what a shame!” just before the interesting bit starts to happen. Really diminishes the excitement.
I really hope they make it to the deer room. Have fun Chris.
This game does one part of horror well:It establishes the normality well.But it doesnt subvert it nearly as well.For example,that gift room wouldve worked much better if you turned around to see all the cardboard cutouts,and then when you turned back to face the gift,the ghost girl would jump out of her picture to scare you.
I gotta say; those cute cut-out jumpscares are a lot more effective when something is chasing you down.
This whole game is about juxtaposition. Oh look, it’s a cute spider! Oh look, spooky is…going through a mall killing people.
Or shoving a nail through someones body.
and the death scenes are gruesome, not sure if we’ll ever get to see one.
You should do an alien isolation playthrough, with Rutskarn as the player. I’d genuinly like to see a. how he responds under pressure (puns) b. what his commentary would be like whilst playing.
If the whole Spoiler Warning cast treated an Alien Isolation season as a springboard for discussing anything Alien, I would totally be on board with that. If they decided to just stick to discussing the game in question, I imagine that it would end up pretty boring since (A) the game requires that you move kind-of slowly, and (B) lots of small pockets of the story feel unnecessary.
I don’t recall that many puns in the livestreams? I think playing a game, especially a real time one, sort of pushes the one playing to express his immediate reactions rather than think of wordgames. Though maybe Rutskarn simply doesn’t enjoy inflicting those on his live audience as much as on the SW cast.
Spoopy? Doot doot! Thank Mr. Skeltal.
That… that was an experience.
I hope Shamus is trolling and hasn’t missed out on the awsomeness that is The SCP Foundation. It’s what Warehouse 13 tried (and failed) to imitate.
Also, we should encourage Chris to do a Spoiler Warning for another free horror game, SCP Containment Breach. Rutskarn can pick out some mods for it, if desired…
I missed it. What is it? How do I use that wiki?
It’s the “real” database for the SCP Foundation, whose mission is to Secure, Contain, and Protect the world from threats to reality. Their mission is summarized here.
The objects they capture and contain fall into three categories:
Safe: Objects that are reliably understood and contained whose anomalous effects aren’t triggered unless done so on purpose.
Euclid: These aren’t understood and could escape containment/be a threat, yet they haven’t shown enough of a threat to be classified as Keter.
Keter: These are the most dangerous SCP’s, posing a threat to humanity, life on this planet, etc. and require difficult containment procedures, assuming they can be contained at all.
The site is a kind of Creepy-Pasta collaboration site with the theme of being a worldwide organization trying to study anomalous things that could be the subject of sci-fi or horror movies. “Cabin in the Woods” could be considered a kind of SCP operation (albeit one that isn’t terribly well thought out and prone to failure). There’s also a kind of morbid humor to the site, as testing the objects (for SCIENCE!) often involves D-Class personnel (usually death row inmates) being ordered to manipulate the items, go into anomalous spaces, and basically risk their lives (often not knowing they’re doing so).
The classifications page gives a more detailed list of the SCP categories I summarized above along with the top 25 (by site user votes) SCP objects in each class. If it appeals to you, you can try joining the site and contributing to it, or you can be like me and occasionally hit the “most recently created” page, after reading every other object in the SCP series, naturally. :) To start reading, just click the links at the top of the page in the menu bar marked “Series I,” “Series II” and “Series III.” Once you’ve gotten a feel for the site, there’s even a fiction section, where users have written stories about the Foundation and its objects, Mobile Task Forces, and the people who work in the various sites.
I’d love to see an HBO TV series based on the site, actually. If they could get Frank Darabont to direct it, that’d be even better.
One of the themes of the site is that virtually all the articles are written like scientific reports and maintain an even, clinical tone no matter what the subject matter is. The first one ever written is 173, which is a statue that moves incredibly fast when no one is looking (the timeline is precisely wrong for the Weeping Angels to have inspired it or vice-versa) and causes any container it is in to fill up with feces and blood from no apparent source. The description is two paragraphs long.
It’s also great for providing technobabble for speculative fiction. I want Cognitohazard* and Infohazard** to become standard terminology.
*information that, when percieved, causes some sort of mental effect like suicide or joining a hive mind
**Information that is somehow physically dangerous to possess, such as a giant aquatic predator that will eat anyone who comes into contact with water after seeing it or hearing it described.
Indeed. And they’re a great model to study writing in general. The comments/criticism are blunt, but constructive. The senior members are also willing to help, especially in adding scientific notation and references that sound real (as opposed to Star Trek’s technobabble).
The redactions and [DATA EXPUNGED] are used not only to generate an atmosphere, they can be equally disturbing as well as comedic.
Infohazards are real. Roko’s Basilisk has caused actual mental pain to people despite being only theoretical.
I’d give a warning here, but if you are the kind of person who searches for something after being told only that it is an information hazard you deserve what you get.
Roko’s Basalisk would be a theoretical infohazard that operates as a cognitohazard for anyone who believes it is an infohazard.
Charles Stross’ Eshaton novels (of which there are only two, which is kind of sad, as I liked the concept) has something similar going on.
Basically, an A.I. achieves a singularity-like state, it sends itself data from the future, making its intelligence also span time, and suddenly 90% of the Earth’s population vanishes. On every computer on Earth and inscribed on several monuments in the solar system is the following message:
I am the Eschaton; I am not your God.
I am descended from you, and exist in your future.
Thou shalt not violate causality within my historic light cone. Or else.
At about the same time, the galaxy is suddenly filled with human communication traffic as the people taken away (and into the past) by the Eschaton start making contact with Earth after centuries of development on the worlds they were zapped to by the A.I. Humans invent a kind of FTL based on Quantum Tunneling, but are forbidden (by the Eschaton, or else) from using it to violate the past in the hopes of un-doing its creation and subsequent actions.
Against this backdrop, you’ve got space opera of repressive planets that try to refuse the sharing of information/technology for fear their people will revolt, post-Singularity intelligences (one is called “The Festival”) traveling around dumping magical nano-tech on worlds that are barely more advanced than the 19th century, and agents from Earth trying to stop the resulting chaos. There’s also a sub-plot about a group trying to defeat the Eschaton, but in only 2 novels not much gets done in that regard.
The SCP was a very cool creepy-pasta/spooky story repository once upon a time, but over time the various obsessions of its editors have turned it into a kind of crappy roleplay forum. Some of the good stuff is still there but a lot of the later material is lacking.
Per ruts’ question of what poster was on the wall, that section being a pastiche of Japan, it was this cheerful little fella (with a bit of blood smeared on the eyes, of course): http://i.imgur.com/sYfEhPW.jpg . I’m sure it’s totally safe to give him aaanything he wants…
There was also actually a spoopy face scratched over the cutesy one on one of the jump scare cutouts, during the not silent hill chase. You got what you wanted, but Campster was too busy fleeing in terror to see! http://i.imgur.com/hgUxieu.jpg
I’d actually really like to hear Chris’ final takeaway from this game. If it really is just cheap gimmicks used to draw in a livestream crowd, or if it’s an effective homage to the variety (or lack thereof) found in bargain-bin horror experiences.
I know watching the first video made me interested to play (and beat) the game… I agree with Grimwear that the game does get tedious and overlong. The rooms start to follow a pattern of twenty safe, fifteen old boss, five safe, save. Ten of either safe or old boss, big singular puzzle room, twenty new boss. Rinse, repeat, move on to a new generic game or enemy.
But in some ways, because the game dragged and dragged past 500, because the horrors wear out their welcome, and each new boss becomes a new simple mechanics puzzle. It felt you really start to recognize every cheap tactic any jumpscare game would ever pull. Chases where the enemy is always ‘RIGHT BEHIND YOU!’ Visual effects. Spooky noises. Flashing creepy art. Limiting vision with darkness mechanic. Sudden musical crescendos and silence. Dark wall textures and banging footsteps. I feel like any “SPOOKY SCARY” game I’d play now, I’ve already ran through a hundred times in SHoJS, and their effectiveness in any other game will be immensely dulled.
I kind’ve appreciate the game because of that? Just wonder if the desensitization was an intentional result, or an awkward happenstance caused by the developers promising “1000 rooms” of content.
The Spooky Game of Spooky sounds like a great name for a sequel.
Jumpy’s house of Spookscares
This game does have some disturbing and scary moments and does them competently(though not masterfully). In either case, I don’t think that’s really the point.
I’ve seen the entire game, and I’d say it’s a loving parody(or satire, I can’t tell the difference) of video game horror tropes, and more or less acts as a showcase for them. You’ve got the pursuing monsters(used multiple times, I guess to break up the monotony of the rooms), the monster that only comes at you when you can’t see them, the monster that stalks you unseen, the monster who you hide from Amnesia-style, a couple of areas that force you to crawl through vents, feeling not only claustrophobia but the dreadful idea of being attacked while helplessly crawling in an enclosed space. There’s even a room that references Five Nights at Freddy’s by having Spooky talk to you via an answering machine next to a desk fan. Ironically, the only jumpscares in the entire game are the cutesy(mostly) cardboard figures.
Overall, I’d say the game is a way of demonstrating to the player that jumpscares just aren’t scary in a real sense. Being startled by a sudden image and loud noise doesn’t really compare to the fear and dread of the various monsters you see in this game. The maker of the game, I believe, is saying “Look, game creators, ANYTHING can be startling if it appears suddenly. Here are some alternatives to consider.”
“You know what else is really romantic? Pits. Really deep pits.”
I think that’s more of a fetish, Ruts.
Regarding the note on Spoopy, you told us this story already, Grandpa Shamus, back during TLOU.
Obviously it’s for people who didn’t tune in then or forgot.I actually find this sort of thing more scary with Campster freaking out than I would normally. I dunno if I’m just keying off of his reactions or it’s a big brother reaction, little Pee Pants is ascared, I’ve got to do something and since it’s a video, I’m essentially restrained.
From a gameplay perspective, there are some bits of this game which would be actually scary if you were playing. Being chased while jumpscares suddenly stop you in your path or the door is locked would be terrifying, even if the jumpscares were cute and cuddly. Death is coming for you, and you only get passwords at each new floor, so you’ve got a lot of rooms you have to repeat.
Of course, none of that means anything for a video.
Oh man, Chris entered the room for Specimen 9 and didn’t fall for the trap. I really wanted to see that happen.
I think I recognized it from the Loading Ready Run livestream (or whatever they call their livestream, someone linked it in Spooky’s part 1). I had no idea what happened at the time and I would have loved to see Chris’s reaction to it. Game seems to need more trap rooms like that though.
Shamus, have you tried Lone Survivor? If you can get passed the fact that it’s a 2d horror game you might enjoy it.
“We’re at 25 minutes; I think we’ve seen all the ideas this game has to offer.”
One minute later, the game proceeds to go all Legend of Zelda on the crew.
And then Campster was a zombie.
If “spoopy” is the sort of derpy cousin to “spooky,” can it be applied to a similar word? Agents of U.S. intelligence agencies are (were?) known as “spooks.” If they do something (else) dumb or hamfisted, can we call the agents involved “spoops?”
Like that infamous spoop, Sterling Archer?
I thought we were calling them “sporks”?
I thought that was if you had pointy ears and failed at being logical?
I thought those were ‘Arwens’?
So can anyone identify what all the sections are parodying? The only ones I could say for sure were Silent Hill and Majora’s Mask.
(Does the game have a parody of Mother? Specimen 9 made me think of Giygas.)
Well Specimen 4 was a parody of japanese ghost. Specimen 10 (the real one) is based on the thing from John Carpenter. And specimen 13 is a siren kind of creature that looks alluring to lure and drown its victims.
7.55
so THATS where carmen sandiego went.
Next up, Campster plays Outlast =)
It’s actually pretty funny how mechanically similar this game is to Outlast.
Only Outlast takes itself dead seriously.
GOTY 2015
The thing I find interesting about the Silent Hill franchise and it’s problems is not that they failed to replicate Silent Hill 2, its that they seem very reluctant to even try to do so. The subsequent several entries in the series were all about the stupid cult and it wasn’t until Downpour that any of the developers seemed to really be trying to do a game about the protagonist being tormented by their past actions – and that game unfortunately has really terrible art direction (at least comparatively) and is seriously lacking in subtlety.
I was sad no one in the crew could identify the Shadow Temple from Ocarina of Time in that last section, but I guess none of them are big fans of console gaming. I also wish Chris had interacted with the arcade machines more, the way that third one appeared makes me think you could have made another one appeared if you’d played more.
The game seems kinda neat but also way too tedious to play through. The endless repetition of “run through the empty room” looked really boring.
I slept with the lights on after watching this.