I will certainly have to try that game...

- Not being able to hide behind my weapons. Example: a really powerful and quickly regenerating creature that takes its time coming after you as you perform time sensitive tasks, like getting through a series of locked doors, gathering loot that you want, or figuring out a puzzle.

- Enemies making themselves present without being directly in front of you. Example: Howls of a group of enemies echoes through a dungeon every once in a while and gets louder as you get closer.

- Noises of things that aren't there when you look.

- Things noticeably looking at you out of your reach, such as red eyes in the darkness on the ceiling, but don't necessarily attack you.

And the most important thing with all of the above: Ambiance, ambiance, ambiance. Either the right horror music or no music at all + echoing and indeterminate sounds followed up with limited visibility.

In this game the haggards (bird witch things) scare me in the dark. Dark areas

Easy way to scare yourself stupid on a game: play either forbidden siren or project zero...

forbidden siren was [censored] uppp !

for the user creating mods, the thing that scares me the most is having too much gold

Voices in my head is pretty effective for me. And powerful enemies that pop up in my face randomly.

Yeah I just fought haggards for the first times and they are pretty weird...

This.
And large dark halls with huge amount of tombs.

"I don't like where this is going"
-Unknown dead companion

And enemies lurking behind you silently: The horror of suprise butse... attack from behind then quick turn and rushing attack what hits air because its only a trap or enemy has backed away from reach of an hit.

Edit: Sudden LOUD noises or extremely powerful enemies.

What do you guys think if about this: You are being chased by a slow moving enemy, you cannot fight it (cant raise your fists or anything), and the only way to kill it is to lure it into the killszone of a trap, then activate it yourself. Or something like that? Maybe the enemy can't even die and the trap only knocks it out for 10 seconds or something.

Just copy Dead Space...you should freak some people out

Gore and horror are two different things.

How are you supposed to be afraid of something you kill by the dozen and can literally snap every limb off of just by stomping on them?

People aren't scared of things when they're having fun desecrating their already desecrated bodies.

I get scared when the wind blows sometimes. Mostly when it's dark and things come to life without me noticing.

You know, the only thing in a game that has caused near panic to me was in Half-Life 2: Episode 2, when you run away from that giant antlion thing. Narrow corridors, giant monster much faster than you. Really scary part.

Also the part in Episode 1 where the lights are out and zombies are coming from everywhere :cold:



Yeah, Dead Space is a fun third person shooter, but not what i call horror.

Agreed, dead space isn't scary. Slightly disturbing in some areas, but not real horror.

Amnesia, Penumbra, Silent Hill, Fatal Frame, etc. Those are scary games.

not knowing whats around the corner, this is the most underrated thing in horror settings.

its not the actual being or local that makes for the true fear, but the fear of not knowing what to expect, couple that with ambiance like in the stalker games, then you have a true treat.

But one thing to remember about this is that in fact, everything has to be unique, if its just another extremely powerful enemy its not scary.

My 1st example of a scary situation in skyrim was my 1st random dragon encounter at night wandering in the middle of a snow covered forest, i could hear the distant scream of it and had no clue what kind of fearsome opponent circled over me. After that however its not even remotely scary, its in fact become an annoyance to some degree.....Fast travel to sell some gear of at my favorite smith and low and behold a dragon comes by and kills him off....yippie?

i suggest having a dungeon without a single enemy in it, but throughout the entire time inside you can hear the bloody curdling cry of some creature you never heard before. In stalker (pripyat one) theres one lab that has only 1...just 1 [censored] mutant in it but its by far the scariest place because you never new what it was and where it was. The entire time moving through the lab it was in a near panic anticipating it to just jump out at you at any moment.

Yeah I agree completely, as I have already states many times in this thread. (Though I suppose I can't expect you all to read the 9 pages before this. ) Dead Space wasn't even remotely scary. It was forced, and honestly hilarious. (You drop kick babies for The Nines sake...)

It would have been far better had you not seen as many enemies, and had each one been much more of a challange.

Surprise me
No pun intended.

Giants. though i'm a giant hunter, and always kill them, my blood rushes when they get close, so i'd say for a mod, giant sized minotaurs!!

Ambiance usually has the greatest effect on me. It gets the adrenaline while the tension wears on your nerves. Creepy, unidentifiable sounds can do so much, I think. Confusion also makes me susceptible to panic -- if I don't know precisely what's going on or where I am I start feeling uncomfortable, and that's where my mind starts to prey on itself. And an old military saying -- the best way to scare a man is to kill the man next to him. If you had multiple companions with you and some of them just started getting picked off in mysterious/macabre ways . . . well, that might take its toll on the mind too.

yes the misc quest for a lighthouse.. damm bug things...

In Skyrim? I haven't done that yet, I'll have to give it a try.

Also this thread has slowed down and is slowly becoming more repetetive. So I think I have all the answers I need! Thank you SO much to everyone who commented and gave their input! The mod is a long way away, but when the time comes, I think you will all be very pleased with what I have planned.

AJV

One time I was in the swamps of Morthal at night when I heard a sound and was killed in one hit. I didn't get a chance to look at whatever it was that killed me because the death animation went by too fast. It could've been some sort of random encounter because the only thing I can think of that kills me in one hit is a giant but there are no giants near Morthal. One day I will return to hunt whatever beast it was

A suggestion would to mod an existing enemy of some sort so that it can kill you in one hit without you even noticing what just hit you.

lots of good suggestions here.

My 2 cents are gona be switch it up, every time you let the player get familiar with something it will loose its impact. creepy disembodied noises are great but eventualy the player will ignore it for instance unless the body shows up now and then (and that is just the tip of the iceberg)

Very true. I shall try to create a symbol that is not to be feared and makes you feel safe and warm, only to betray you and have something horrible happen around this symbol.

Can I get 2 more posts with some input before this thread hits post limit and we call it good?

You should link that story somehow to http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Vaermina since she is daedric prince of nightmares or atleast appear in the mod.
And part of some dungeon could go like this: you are in a quite wide hall with light coming from below, water up to the waist (because lot of people seem to be afraid of the water), and some mist in the air. all the time you have some companion with you and then suddenly you hear a scream or something similar and your companion is gone. then you must dive underwater because hall goes downwards and just little before you can't breath anymore you surface to big hall water dripping from roof and there's those draugr tombs what slowly one by one start opening. I hate that "bang bang bang CRASH sound when tombs open.