Jane over at GameGirl Advance is thinking about games as emotionally disturbing experiences. Her conclusion is that perhaps we need games that do not endeavor to be “fun” in the usual sense of the word. If games are to be taken as art, the next step has to be for some game developers to abandon […]
The Escapist is a pretty awesome online magazine that offers a rather high-brow look at the nature of video games and the gaming industry. This month their issue is all about horror games, and they’ve got a lot of cool stuff to say. Jon Schnaars’s article on the use of genre in Resident Evil 4 […]
I’ve written about Indigo Prophecy before, but I am bringing it up again because of this extremely interesting post-mortem of the game. Director David Cage writes about how Indigo Prophecy was planned and how it actually turned out, as well as about his reasoning behind certain design decisions. Everything he is saying is very relevant […]
Warning: long, sort of pointless rant that has very little to do with horror game follows. If you read this site often you might have noticed a recurring theme in my rants: I’m of the opinion that the video game industry is shooting itself in the foot with its death march towards computational perfection. Every […]
Thanks to Kotaku.com for this cool interview with Makoto Shibata, the brains behind the Fatal Frame series. Apparently there is a longer version of this interview, but I haven’t been able to find it yet. Pretty interesting stuff.
This is totally off-topic for a horror blog, but I’m going to post it anyway. Resident Evil 4 was clearly game of the year for me until last month when I started playing Shadow of the Colossus. Colossus isn’t a horror game; if anything, it’s probably closest to a platformer. Created by the team behind […]
I highly recommend that everybody check out this very interesting article about women in gaming by Chris Crawford. It’s not directly related to horror, but I think Crawford’s line of reasoning may help explain why horror games seem to be more adept than other genres at reaching casual female gamers. His premise is pretty interesting, […]
Thanks much to Insert Credit for pointing out this enlightening interview with Takayoshi Sato. Sato is responsible for all of the CG in Silent Hill and did tons of work on Silent Hill 2 as well. He’s since moved on to EA, and in the interview he discusses what it was like working at Konami […]
I’ve been thinking about the nature of challenge in horror games and games in general lately. It seems to me that there are two basic types of challenges: The player is challenged to figure out what he needs to do next, and The player knows what to do, but is challenged by actually doing it. […]
Sorry for the lack of recent updates, I’ve been balancing some end-of-the-summer travel and a few fast-approaching deadlines at work. In my absence, forums member Sadako has graciously posted her impressions of the recently-released (in Japan) Fatal Frame 3. Check it out. Horror games mostly operate by mixing horrific content with simple game mechanics. Just […]