Human Form Monsters

[TwiK999]

Interesting question.

At first blush I would said that by monsters being humanoid in form, players they're easier to identify as human and as thus some players wouldn't be too afraid of them but...then I remembered the mangled masses of bodies that Silent Hill monsters are. They're humanoid and nightmarish in all the right ways. They also affect players in very specific manners and represent the characters' psyche.

Thing is that using the same criteria, the same could be said of more animal looking animals; players would identify them as a specific animal and would not be as scared of it.

I think it just depends on execution.

That's exactly the idea that I had. The fact that we, humans, can identify a humanoid monster makes it seem scarier. The main reason animal monsters aren't scary, may be because there are so many animals in the world, that even a deformed pig isn't necessarily scary and the fact that humans are the only life forms that, well, act like humans (walk on two feet etc) makes it seem generally scarier.

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Remember to say that the thread contains spoilers

Spoiler below!

Well... Most of the pigs were able to stand on two legs in AAMFP
I found it scary enough that it was men transformed into pigs. You can see this also, if you open them in the editor. The details are pretty scary just to look at.

Well, anything big scares me. If it's smaller than me, I won't get scared and run. I'd rather get creeped out.
If there's a little girl with blood running from her eyes and a whisper saying "Please, come back", I'd be scared as hell of course!

But hey, a bear could be scary too! It's just how you do it! Music, ambience, animation and sounds. Everything combined can create a pretty scary bear.

Off-topic: Please someone create a horror-game about wubwub

I haven't included any spoilers. Unless talking about pig monsters is a spoiler? Even people who are new to the game would have guessed that A Machine For Pigs may include pigs, so it's not really a spoiler...