User:WhiskyWanKenobi/sandbox

SURVIVAL HORROR
Survival Horror is a genre of video game based on and inspired by Horror fiction. The game mechanics often focus on survival over thriving or combat action. Survival Horror games began with the release of Alone in the dark 1992 (Infogrames). The first Alone in the Dark game followed several rules, which would come to form the rubric defining survival horror. The term was first Survival Horror was first used to describe Capcom's Resident Evil/Bio Hazard (1996). These types of games use established horror elements from movies and literature transferred into game mechanics, visuals and audio.

Survival Mechanics and Themes.
Protagonists are often vulnerable to or weaker than the forces they face and or the environment they are in. The ease of which the character could be overwhelmed and defeated, or instantly killed by an incorrect decision is used to create a sense of trepidation and anxiety about progressing at pace.

The survival elements are created by limiting resources such as health, ammunition or power (batteries etc). The protagonists movement is often slow or cumbersome when compared to the enemies and in game vision is often limited. This can be achieved by tight and claustrophobic camera angles, limited light sources forcing players to look for torches etc, or by a fog of war effect as famously used by Konami in Silent Hill (1999).

Some or all these elements combine to encourage stealth, evasion and exploration over conflict and combat.

Horror Themes and Mechanics.
The horror element of survival horror can take many forms. Generally employed to create a sense of fear and trepidation, highlighting and emphasising the need to survive.

Horror is concerned with the fear of death and the loss of identity in modern society. Many tactics used in horror movies are used to enhance the sense of horror in games.

Jump Scare – Element of surprise.
Sudden, close and loud motion or image design to trigger flight or fight response. The element of surprise where enemies jump out at the player as he or she traverses through the game, or environment changes in a sudden and unexpected way.

Anticipatory panic.
Fear that the game will end prematurely. Often in the form of character death. Low health, low ammo a seemingly overwhelming enemy or a time limit can be employed to promote a sense of anticipatory panic.

Body Horror.
Disgust - An aversion to things we are conditioned not to like. Like looking for a key inside a corpse in Bethesda’s Evil Within (2014). Graphic or phycological disturbing violations of the human body with roots in gothic literature. Mutations, unnatural movements, mutilations, excessive gore, aberrant sexual imagery.

Atmospheric Horror.
Similar to anticipatory panic but caused by the in-game environment, auditory elements, conflict foreshadowing. Creating an environment where the player is scared to stay in one place and scared to progress. Through a combination of lighting, visuals, sound and audio survival horror games can instil fear into the most mundane of objects or situations. From a flickering light bulb, the sound of foot steps or a shadow in in the distance. The players own anticipation of what could be in the environment becomes as important as the horror its self in the experience.

Fear of the unknown
The less that is known about something the more it is feared, this is why most horror narratives start with a mystery. Perhaps the earliest direct written reference to Fear of the unknow as a fundamental fear came from Lovecraft in 1927 "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown"

Fear of self.
The main point of horror in the art world is to create fear in the viewer, thereby requiring the participation of the viewer with the medium, this provided an interesting niche in entertainment for video games, a relatively new art form, to adapt to. Video games have a unique aspect in which player and viewers participation is an integral element in how it gets its message through; the story in video games cannot progress unless the players themselves progress through it. Therefore, the fear elicited is very much the fear of players themselves as they react to the game, rather than the fear of the characters reacting to their situations in literature or film. It can also be about questioning one’s self. Questioning moral values and the purpose of existence. Do the choice made match up to your view of reality. Questioning the morals of the protagonists actions, are they really the villain. Are they justified in killing the NPC with the virus? This could also contain elements of existential fear, anxiety or distress cause by feeling the weight of personal responsibility or that there is no controlling the forces in effect.

The monstrous Feminine.
Female monsters, many of which seem to have evolved from images that haunted the dreams, myths and artistic practices of our forebears many centuries ago. The female monster, or monstrous-feminine, wears many faces: the amoral primeval mother, vampire, witch; woman as monstrous womb; woman as bleeding wound; woman as possessed body; the castrating mother; woman as beautiful but deadly killer); aged; the monstrous girl-boy; woman as non-human; woman as life-in-death. All human societies have a conception of the monstrous-feminine. This may explain why this is such a common Survival Horror theme.

The Uncanny and the Uncanny Valley.
The uncanny is the psychological experience that something is strangely familiar. It tends to describe the familiarity of an event, thing or location being unsettling or eerie. The theory was first described by Sigmund Freud in his 1919 essay which explores the eeriness of dolls and waxworks. The uncanny valley is the theory that as something starts to look more human in causes more anxiety or fear.