Serious and Immersive Custom Stories Thread

[amnesiapuzzles]

I wouldn't bash jumpscares in general, if I were you. The can be very good, if executed properly.

Serious and immersive... White Night, Deterioration, Other, Alone. These immediately come to my mind. The last two are short and use such simple means to create the environment and atmosphere, yet, to my surprise, they got me immersed better than all these regular, longer stories.

[Lewk]

I wouldn't bash jumpscares in general, if I were you. The can be very good, if executed properly.

What I was expressing was my genuine, honest reaction to seeing jumpscares in a custom story. When I experience one in a game, the first things that come to mind are "This was annoying. This was stupid. This was not relevant to the story (in the case of most custom stories, anyway). This was a lame attempt of the developer's to put some immediate shock into the player, of which the fright only lasts a couple of seconds at most."

It just screams to me (literally, sometimes) that the developer is an imbecile who doesn't know two sh*ts when it comes to making a creepy or frightening game. I know that this is everyone's opinion of what the value of jumpscares are, but in my humble and honest opinion, it's an immersion breaker, and ruins the entire rest of the experience and whatever the story was.

[amnesiapuzzles]

What particular kind of jumpscare are you talking about right now?

[Lewk]

What particular kind of jumpscare are you talking about right now?

The ones that include loud noises. If they don't include loud noises, they have potential for setting some fear inside of the player (although they can still be quite stupid). Like I said, I excuse loud jumpscares if they are relevant to the story (like if there's an actual reason why the loud noise existed in that particular situation. Usually there isn't a reason).

[amnesiapuzzles]

Ah, therein lies the rub.

I assume you've seen a lot of examples that constitute bad jumpscares, and so have I (flying naked guys *cough*) and I understand your attitude. But, only because there are bad jumpscares out there, doesn't mean all jumpscares are bad. IMHO, it's a very good technique of implementing fear, but it has to be done ever so subtly and carefully to achieve its effect, what many CS creators seem to forget.

E.g. the skulls falling out of the desk in Study (yes, this is considered a jumpscare, skip to 14:46)

Spoiler below!

[video=youtube]http://youtu.be/fzREASqslYU?t=14m46s[/video]

It was so finely done, and notice how it made sense in the environment. Moreover, it also served as some kind of a punishment for the player for their curiosity. It also provides a glimpse into what Alexander did to people, the details later explained in the notes.

On the other hand, the encounter in the Morgue is such a brutal and loud scare, yet I didn't mind, when the game decided to remind me of what lurks about in the castle all the time.

Spoiler below!

None of them broke the immersion for me, they added to it. I don't like being startled, when there's no reason for it. Overall, I just always give them a chance.

[Lewk]

Ah, therein lies the rub.

I assume you've seen a lot of examples that constitute bad jumpscares, and so have I (flying naked guys *cough*) and I understand your attitude. But, only because there are bad jumpscares out there, doesn't mean all jumpscares are bad. IMHO, it's a very good technique of implementing fear, but it has to be done ever so subtly and carefully to achieve its effect, what many CS creators seem to forget.

E.g. the skulls falling out of the desk in Study (yes, this is considered a jumpscare, skip to 14:46)

Spoiler below!

[video=youtube]http://youtu.be/fzREASqslYU?t=14m46s[/video]

It was so finely done, and notice how it made sense in the environment. Moreover, it also served as some kind of a punishment for the player for their curiosity. It also provides a glimpse into what Alexander did to people, the details later explained in the notes.

On the other hand, the encounter in the Morgue is such a brutal and loud scare, yet I didn't mind, when the game decided to remind me of what lurks about in the castle all the time.

Spoiler below!

None of them broke the immersion for me, they added to it. I don't like being startled, when there's no reason for it. Overall, I just always give them a chance.

Yes, I believe all the instances they were used in TDD were appropriate and definitely helped the general sense of death or danger. There was always an explanation in how it related to the story, and sometimes (like in the case of the cabinet full of skulls) it can actually tell you more of the story than you already knew.

I don't know if you've watched any of the preview videos for AAMFP (or are perhaps playing it), but if that happens to be the case, I will give a slight warning before mentioning anything that happens in-game... (I won't be revealing much beyond the first 10 minutes of the game)

Unfortunately, I am quite naïve, so I don't know how the spoilers work, but in any case: SPOILERS

There are certain parts of AAMFP that have some fairly loud noises scream in your ears, and I thought it worked quite well, despite my prejudice against them. Of course, they are acceptable because they are intertwined with the story (perhaps I shouldn't even explain how, but it's apparent in the name), so they actually were startling but still helped the atmosphere retain its ability to keep the player immersed. So I think that's a great example of when loud jumpscares work well. The people implementing them just have to know how to do it properly, as you said.

(as of now, I'm not far past the first 30 minutes because I'm honestly extremely frightened by the innards of the game's echo shelled atmosphere and environment, and most importantly, what I am in for as far as the story goes. It's the first time I've been scared of a game for years, probably since TDD.)

[amnesiapuzzles]

If you wanna do this:

Spoiler below!

whatever hidden in spoiler

you type [spoiler ] and then end it with [/spoiler ] remove spaces of course

By far, the atmosphere in AAMFP is killing me!