New Game Design/Gameplay needed for dealing with Enemies in future games

[PathOS]

This article I thought articulated well what I think Frictional did great with SOMA and why, for me at least, the games like Alien Isolation that are touted as "more scary", are not so much.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-frict...sign-douse

The thing about horror games is that the art of sustaining suspense is paramount to the fear experience. In Alien Isolation, the Alien itself was a tool designed to do just that. So were the androids. In Amnesia, Penumbra, A Machine for Pigs, and SOMA, their relative 'enemies' are tools designed to do just that. The problem with these tools is that they generate fatigue. Sustaining a state of being is naturally impossible since we adapt to our environment, not to mention we are enduring fiction. Sustained happiness is insanity. For myself, once killed a few times by the Alien, the fear effect was lost. It became a man in an Alien suit with a job. It didn't crawl along the walls. I knew its tricks. It ambled along the corridors, and an algorithm decided if a vent above you killed you. I adapted and therefore my immersion was broken. In my opinion, Alien needed more tools.

That's the problem with horror game design in 2015, and at this stage I've already written off action games posing as horror. There is a delicious temptation to show too much, and to trigger a jump scare - but with each scare the player grows tougher, more aware, and more fatigued. It loses its effect and the tool is reduced to a short-lived commodity. You can only die so many times before you start playing recklessly, and at that point you've lost the player. A jump scare is useless if you want to sustain an emotional state in your players. It is often damaging to your objective.

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Nobody really gives a shit if their character dies, but if you -- the player himself -- doesn't get to figure out what went on here, you'll go nuts. There's a ratio that has to be considered: unpleasant sense of fear:frustration of not knowing. This is where Penumbra differs to, say, Alien Isolation. In the latter, you already know what happened, an Alien happened. Therefore, the player is propelled (or not) by collectables and survival instinct.