The art of horror is not to make the scariest game in the world, full of jump scares and shock value, but to tell a story to terrify. To chill the soul. Whilst I am following certain horror criteria and models, I am trying to create a distinctly unique game. Something near familiar yet definitively alien. Loosing one;s life is only one sense of horror, the other can be loosing your sanity, loosing yourself or worse, identity. It’s one thing to tell the story of a character, it’s another to put the player and audience in the mindset of the character and whilst other games have done it so well, I don’t particualy want to follow the same safe map in creating such emotions.
However atmosphere is important, so the trick is for me to, yes, use the old trope of horror game design but find away of making it fresh and unique. Not just another take n Silent Hill, Five Nights at Freddy’s and other games. I feel comfortable in my strong suit being in storytelling, and find it translates well to the game medium, at least on a level I know works with me and the audience to which I am used to. I only hope my ability to twist and turn the plot translates well in the Watchman.
Of course to tell you what I’m doing would give pretty much the whole game away. So I guess the best way to describe what I am trying to pull off is…. a personal experience.
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