I have been intrigued by several of the very innovative horror games released recently. Some of these are designed for the Oculus Platform (Slender: The Arrival, Alien Isolation) and some are not (Five Nights at Freddy’s, Emily Wants to Play). These games are very often developed by independent or small-scale studios or individuals, and often feature very unique gameplay.<\/p>\n
Despite their success, they can also tend to be quite simple. Alien:Isolation is an obvious exception to this, since it isn’t an indie game, but even it relies on somewhat non-standard gameplay, ie, instead of fighting enemies, the player must generally hide, or outsmart them.<\/p>\n
Games like Five Nights at Freddy’s and Emily wants to play involve no combat at all. I think this greatly amplifies the sense of fear and helplessness. I remember playing F.E.A.R and I found the sections without combat more frightening. Removing firearms from the game basically removes the players ability to defend themselves, and I think this has a strong psychological effect on a player, and changes how they see the game. If a player is armed, they feel like they are in control, if they are unarmed, they are helpless.<\/p>\n
Most big-budget games, horror games included, follow a fairly similar pattern, they are essentially either shooters or “survival horror” games. FEAR, Doom, Resident Evil, Dead Space, etc all follow this pattern.<\/p>\n
However, independent game developers are not forced to follow the same pattern simple because it sells well, they are free to come up with new and innovative ideas.<\/p>\n
This is why I feel the Oculus Rift, and VR headsets in general, can be a great boon to gaming, since in many ways it levels the playing field. Computer gaming, with the possible exception of mobile gaming, is dominated by a small number of big companies, which tend not to take huge risks with regards to gameplay or innovation.<\/p>\n
The rise of VR gaming could create a new avenue for gaming, which, for a time at least, should allow all developers to have a blank slate with which to rewrite the rules of how games are created and played. This could be very good for the industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have been intrigued by several of the very innovative horror games released recently. Some of these are designed for the Oculus Platform (Slender: The Arrival, Alien Isolation) and some are not (Five Nights at Freddy’s, Emily Wants to Play). These games are very often developed by independent or small-scale studios or individuals, and often […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings","category-on-game-development","category-software-and-games","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"aioseo_notices":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/phoenixgamedevelopment.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2390"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/phoenixgamedevelopment.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/phoenixgamedevelopment.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phoenixgamedevelopment.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phoenixgamedevelopment.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2390"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/phoenixgamedevelopment.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2391,"href":"https:\/\/phoenixgamedevelopment.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2390\/revisions\/2391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/phoenixgamedevelopment.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phoenixgamedevelopment.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phoenixgamedevelopment.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}