I’m convinced horror games are the best medium for horror. I love reading horror fiction and watching horror movies too. I just feel like when playing a good horror game, the player is “in the drivers seat”. I’m open to hearing other opinions though!
You may be right about classic horror and jump scares, but I think psychological horror needs more space and introspection, and that fits better with literature. That’s my opinion, of course.
Idk, something like Dead Space wouldn’t work as a written narrative.
A video game allows a lot more space and doesn’t limit introspection at all.
The only thing that would maybe be better as vague would be eldtritch horror type stuff, that isn’t supposed to be able to be explained or “visualized”.
On the other hand, despite there being countless games based on H. P. Lovecraft’s works, none of them (that I’ve encountered) hold a candle to his written word.
There is just something about cosmic horror that only works when reading. The nature of the horror being about unknown and literally indescribable creatures, visual depictions just never come close to what my brain conjures up while reading it.
That’s what it was, is eldritch along the same lines? Those are definitely better as written. May have not been as clear as I should have been.
I haven’t played Dead Space but from what I read about the plot, a shooter with aliens, I don’t think it fits the type of horror I’m talking about.
That is a very simple summary that does not convey any of the actual horror (body, psychological, and jump scares) that occurs in DS. Reading the plot will spoil the twists, but is not the same as playing the game and reading thru the in-game journals, experiencing the cut scenes, the ultra vigilance the game instills, or the aura of dread from every corner of the ship as you walk thru it.
It’s not. Everyone saying it is hasn’t actually read cosmic horror, and don’t know what it actually is.
Which is something that can’t accurately be conveyed from one person to another, you just have to read it.
The nature of cosmic horror means that no visual representation can ever be accurate.
Though maybe you weren’t referring to Lovecraft when you said psychological horror?
I was thinking of some Stephen King story (It, to be specific, which I think is his most Lovecraftian work) but I agree with you 100%, the charm of Cthulhu is largely the vagueness of its description, any drawing you see out there is ridiculous compared to what the novels do
Oh it is
It’s overarching plot is about a marker that slowly makes people go insane, the shooter is just a VERY small portion of the game.
okay, that’s not very shooter, but it’s still 100% body horror and gore, nothing even remotely close to psychological horror
What is your definition of psychological horror then? Because anything that messes with your mind, and stuff like that does, fits in it. Unless you mean a sub-genre.
According to your idea, everything is psychological since you process everything in your mind.
No, psychological horror is based on psychological damage, not physical harm: domination, psychological trauma, diffuse fears like the unknown or the indefinable, things like doubting reality and one’s own sanity.
There are movies and games that deal with it, but never as well as a first-person narrator who puts a partial vision into writing, that’s why Stephen King hates the adaptation of The Shining; it doesn’t capture this at all.
Which dead space does…… and that’s what “affects the mind” means. Why did you think I meant just using it? Lmfao.
Video lacks the context, but you’re doing the surgery on YOURSELF to figure out if you’re insane or if it’s the marker making you.
That’s textbook psychological horror, there is of course other types, like HP and Stephen king as well.
Sure, you show me a video without context and expect me to, I don’t know, make it up or something, and of course, since I don’t guess, it’s my fault for not realizing what you mean, but you don’t say, okay, see you next time