A friendly open letter to FG, from a Psychologist

[Paddy™]

Your last point rang especially true for me. The act of picking up an important item or solving a puzzle would trigger a monster spawn so often that it got to the point where barricading the door to the room before performing the triggering action became the norm. If you watch the YouTube play-throughs you'll hear the player talk about this by saying things like "oh man I know as soon as I do this a monster will come!" and 9 times out of 10 they'd be right. On the one hand it's a good thing in that the anticipation that something will happen can be just as scary as the event itself even if it doesn't happen - the dread I began to feel when I came across an item which was obviously important-looking never seemed to wane - but on the other hand it alters the way the player approaches the game once they begin to see the pattern; they start to see the game as a game, to be conquered and exploited, which obviously pulls you out of the immersive aspect of it.

I'm somewhat in agreement with regards to your point about the atmospheric and ambient sounds and how they become easily distinguishable from actual threatening sounds later in the game. The point I'd make, though, is that around about the time in the game when you can tell the difference between ambience and real threat you have a much higher encounter rate with the monsters themselves, so there's a sense that the initial ambient sounds are there to "soften you up" for the point in the game when genuine threats become more common.

I've played the game several times now and even on the times when I use cheats (infinite oil/tinderboxes/health) it still stresses me out in a massive way. I know all of the triggers and all of the places where I know I'm safe despite what the soundtrack would have me believe, but I still experience stress. This has never happened to me in films or other games, which is what proves to me how groundbreaking the game really is.