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Games Entertainment

Subtracting Horror With Project Zero 56

Posted by Zonk from the horror-minus-minus dept.
The Guardian Gamesblog posted an interview yesterday talking with Makoto Shibata, the director of the Japanese Horror series Project Zero. In addition to a lot of talk about the latest title in the series, there's some interesting stuff about evoking horror in games, and the ways Japanese culture influences the genre. From the article: "We designed this intentionally so the player would be drawn into the Project Zero world, and would thus imagine various horrid fantasies. This design and approach is different from the previous games in the series. However, I believe that the design fits into the game concept of, 'invoke the fear in the player's own imagination'. I personally believe that even the greatest computer graphics cannot create greater fear than that which is created by the player's mind. This is an idea we maximized in PZ 3."
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Subtracting Horror With Project Zero More

Subtracting Horror With Project Zero

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  • Terror is in the mind (Score:5, Funny)

    by TopShelf ( 92521 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @04:31PM (#14672414) Homepage Journal
    So true - nothing scarrier than that purple 'h' coming at you in Nethack, and your character without a helmet!!!
    • DAMN YOU! I was just over the nightmares! /me returns to his huddled fetal position saying "Can't sleep, purple h will get me. Can't sleep..."
      • Use ; to query it -- 9 times out of 10 it's just a dwarf...

        ... but for those times that it's not... hooboy. /me's knees slowly rise to chest and thumb moves towards mouth

      • 1.8026175 × 10^12 furlongs per fortnight

        As a nerd, I wondered what your sig meant, so I figured I'd convert it to meters per second, or miles per hour. I still have no idea. What does it mean?
    • no worries, just 'z'ap him with a /oD and watch that scary h be relaced with a lovey neutral '.'
      • no worries, just 'z'ap him with a /oD and watch that scary h be relaced with a lovey neutral '.'


        Mind Flayers can wear Amulets of Reflection. While the chances of being slain by your own death ray is about 1 in a million... a 1 in a million chance will occurr 9 times out of 10 with Nethack's Sadistic RNG (tm).

  • Lovecraft knew something about fear and horror. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cryptomancer ( 158526 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @04:58PM (#14672623)
    "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." -H. P. Lovecraft
  • I've been a fan of it since the very first one (Known as Fatal Frame in the United States), and it has an atmosphere that relies more on the creepy "this is messing w/ my head and creeping me out" factor then the "What's gonna jump out at me next" type of Horror that Resident Evil an almost all other survival horror games have. Third game was released I think this past November. Good game to play alone, turn out the lights, and really get into if you want a good scare (Some say it's stupid, but every hor
    • I could not agree more about the quality of Project Zero (aka Fatal Frame). The first one is still one of my favourite games on my PS2 although I have long since stopped playing it because I became too scared to continue. I didn't even bother to get the second one, but I might get it over Summer, when I can be reasonably sure I can play in daylight!
    • Absolutely love this series. Made a card game based on the second one [fourhman.com]. And the best website covering the FF/PZ series is Beyond the Camera's Lens [cameraslens.com].
      • Great game. Fucking Kinkos told me "we cant print this out on card stock because it's copyrighted".

        Had to waste nearly $40 on color laser print outs and then backing inside holders.

        I tried to point out that all things become copyrighted the moment they are created and as such I cant see how they do any business at all.

        Makes me want to create some work of art, go in, get told that again, and sue the bastards.
        • Yeesh, that's a crazy argument. So if I make a PDF of the front page of CNN.com, I can't get Kinkos to print that out on cardstock because it, too, is copyrighted?

          I realize my Fatal Frame Card Game is in a gray area... and if Tecmo came after me with a cease-and-desist, my pointing towards fanfics and forum avatars probably isn't going to help... but for bloody Kinkos to get up in arms about it?

          Anyway, glad you dig the game!

  • Hardly a new idea ... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dougmc ( 70836 ) <dougmc+slashdot@frenzied.us> on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @05:21PM (#14672810) Homepage
    I personally believe that even the greatest computer graphics cannot create greater fear than that which is created by the player's mind.
    Remember this, from the early 1980s?
    You'll never see Infocom's graphics on any computer screen. Because there's never been any computer built by man that could handle the images we produce. And there never will be. We draw our graphics from the limitless imagery of your imagination - a technology so powerful, it makes any picture that's ever come out of a screen look like graffiti by comparison.
    (Of course, they did later change their mind ... later Infocom games did incorporate graphics. But still ...)
    • And it's a wonder why they did incorporate graphics. More money to develop the art when they had a good thing going. Granted it's tough to charge $50 for a text-adventure game, because that's like charging $50 for scrambled eggs...they might be great scrambled eggs, sure. But they just don't require that much time and manpower to create.
      • They did it because graphical games like King's Quest were outselling their text-only offerings. Even though the story and gameplay were simpler, the market showed that People Like Looking At Shiny Things.

        Inforcom tried to keep up by putting graphics in some of their games, but found that they just didn't translate well to the mixed format. The era of the text-only adventure ended, and the industry moved on to new romances with more graphic-intensive games like Doom and Myst.

        The Public may not always

        • The era of the text-only adventure ended
          It's still very much alive in the freeware scene.

          The IF Archive [ifarchive.org]. For some really good stuff check out the winners for the '95-'05 competitions.
          • I am quite aware of the thriving underground interactive fiction scene, but none of those games have ever had the kind of commercial success that Infocom had when they were at their peak.

            Let me expand on my original statement. The era of the text-only adventure _as a prime, commercially viable product_ has ended.

    • You'll never see Infocom's graphics on any computer screen. Because there's never been any computer built by man that could handle the images we produce. And there never will be. We draw our graphics from the limitless imagery of your imagination - a technology so powerful, it makes any picture that's ever come out of a screen look like graffiti by comparison.

      Dead right there.

      See, over the years, I've been all over the place. I've been all through Black Mesa. I've seen Amn and Neverwinter and Baldur's G

  • Awwww, nuts. I was hoping they had invented some technology to remove horror from games.

    THEN maybe I could finally play the Shalebridge Cradle level in Thief: Deadly Shadows. Or System Shock 2, for that matter. :-(

    • Or System Shock 2, for that matter. :-(

      System Shock 2... egad.

      I was working in some warehouse that summer, refilling my student beer budget as is the usual way of things while not actively at university. I'm hauling a cart around the place and picking up stock to meet orders. Dull. Easy. And we usually hyperextended the lunch breaks.

      So. I'm heading down a long narrow passage between rows of shelves. Turns out the item I want is down in the dark, where the lights have failed. OK. In I go. Then, out of

      • That's nothing I started strafing into hallways when I was in college around the time Doom came out.
        • If I'm out driving somewhere, and I see a truck with a ramp at its rear, I have to stop myself from thinking "Ooh, I should drive up that for a stunt bonus!" Dangerous.
    • Seconded. System Shock 2 is one of my all-time favorite games.

      And the first time I played it I actually shrieked like a little girl, much to the amusement of my LAN-gaming buddies.

      That being said, cooperative singleplayer REALLY helps take the horror out of it. :D
    • Shalebridge Cradle really isn't that bad, once you realize that it is all sounds and no substance. The atmosphere of the first half is DEFINITLY very creepy. But the second half is so much worse...

      Heh, System Shock 2 is the only game that actually scared me enough to save and go to sleep. I'm not quite sure where this took place, but I think it was in the Cargo Bays.
  • From the article:

    In Japanese horror, fear is not simply generated through surprise; the silence and suspense in-between the action is important too. This silence makes the player's fear build in his or her mind. Japanese horror is always designed this way.

    News flash, all the best horror is generated that way. Why do Japanese game developers (and anime producers for that matter) always seem convinced there's something just incredibly unique how they approach these art forms? Horror has always been ba
    • Thief 3? Horror? I played through the first level or so, and didn't seem to creepy to me (the atmosphere doesn't really seem to scream scary, and it may get scarier as it goes on for all I know). I'm biased about this series (I love it), and your probably biased towards Thief 3 so I'm not gonna do any comparisons. But the thing is, hardly any games (including those of Japanese origin) even attempt to implement this kind of fear. Maybe Thief 3 does it well. That's good. Not many other games do though,

      • Re:alright (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        You didn't make it to the Shalebridge Cradle. It's late in the game. That level is why I'll never replay Thief III. It was like Return to Cathedral in Thief 1, only far creepier.

          Early in the game, though, is the haunted ship, which is a pretty good bit of nightmare fuel too. It's still not as bad as the Cradle, though. The residents.... *shivers*
      • Do you remember Shalebridge Cradle? Beware! The Cradle *doesn't* forget....

        That level alone was worth the price of Thief 3, although the Kurshok (sp?) underworld and the haunting melody of the seaside mansion were also excellent levels, too.

      • Thief 3? Horror? I played through the first level or so, and didn't seem to creepy to me (the atmosphere doesn't really seem to scream scary, and it may get scarier as it goes on for all I know)

        Midway in the game is the Shalebridge Cradle level. Wikipedia Link [wikipedia.org]. That level made the game change from the normal "First Person Sneaker" to a "Silent Hill" atmosphere. I think it was so unexpected in that game that it spooked alot of people. When you reach the Cradle, you don't find any monsters for a long

    • any chance of some links to why it's freaky?
    • Why do Japanese game developers (and anime producers for that matter) always seem convinced there's something just incredibly unique how they approach these art forms?
      Probably because Hollywood seems to think that Horror is about the shock you get when things jump at you... Directors out there have been playing too much Doom.
    • Well, that's kind of a harsh judgement considering that both the creators of Resident Evil and Silent Hill stated that they were consciously trying to imitate American forms of horror. (In the case of Resident Evil it was Dawn of the Dead in the case of Silent Hill it was modern American horror literature, which is why you find things like Matheson St. and Bachman St. [everything2.com] in the original Silent Hill.)
  • Might want to point out this series is called Fatal Frame in the US. This is nowhere in the summary or article.
    • Given that it's an article from the UK (where it's called Project Zero) about a game from Japan (where it's called Project Zero) that's not a big surprise. Next you'll be complaining about the Sega Megadrive and Jet Set Radio.
    • Also nowhere is the concept of subtracting horror addressed. In fact, it appears to be about adding horror - maybe subtracting some graphics, but it's all about doing things to increase the horror. Perhaps the submitting person found horror to be a negative experience, and determined that adding a negative is the same as subtracting? Hmph.

  • I personally believe that even the greatest computer graphics cannot create greater fear than that which is created by the player's mind.

    All fear is created by the human mind. There are no exceptions.

    - IP
  • I think one of the reasons X-Files was an excellent series was because of this approach. Clever camera shots would avoid the alien or murdered body etc... and so viewers were left to create something more terrifying and detailed than the writers could have ever dreamed of.

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