Next, I will talk about my thoughts on the "nature of fear" and "horror in video games," answering this question from the perspective of a game developer

After gaining insight into the essence and understanding these design elements, you will surely be able to find, or even design, the creatures in video games that you fear the most

  The essence of fear

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.
  The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear;
  And the oldest and strongest fear is fear of the unknown.

- H.P.Lovecraft

Even in the era before the emergence of intelligence, humans would inherit various traits from their ancestors, including fear

According to the theory of the fetal dream, humans experience a very long dream while still in the fetal stage. This dream encompasses the entire content from the beginning of life on Earth, through the birth of humans, to the present civilization; survival-threatening behaviors are passed down orally, such as the Bible's instructions on which insects/animals are edible and which are not.

Some are even engraved into the DNA, these are referred to as «collective unconscious» or «ancestral spirits,» and the fear within them is «primordial fear.» The following lists some things that can trigger primordial fear (from a human perspective):

  Typical original threat

• 
  Megaphobia: Fear of large objects, including elephants, the moon, and giant celestial bodies (ancient individuals had a negligible chance of survival against enormous creatures)
• 
  Dense phobia: Dense, neatly repeated patterns with high contrast (blue-ringed octopus/poisonous mushrooms and other highly toxic organisms may have such characteristics)
• 
  Hidden: An appearance similar to the background (compared to transparency, subtle anomalies hidden in the picture are more unsettling)
• 
  Uncanny Valley Effect: Interpreting the Uncanny Valley Effect
• 
  Insects: During the process of human evolution, insects have long posed a clear and lethal threat to humans (including various worms and spiders)
•   Sharp objects: Sharp spikes, fangs, etc., give a feeling of being easily injured
•   Blood: The appearance of blood is easily associated with death
•   Pathogenic implication: A dirty and ugly exterior/hull may have more pathogenic factors
•   Body parts: mangled limbs, eyeballs easily evoke thoughts of death

  horrible scene

•   Limited visibility: darkness/fog
•   Original scene: deep forest / deep sea / cave
•   Architecture: Alley/Tunnel/School/Mall/Ruins

  New terrorist methods

With the development of the times and the advancement of urbanization, the rise of the Internet and digital art has led to the emergence of many non-traditional forms of horror. In fact, every art form can evolve in a horror direction, but some arts are particularly suitable for developing into horror techniques

•   fusion
• 
  Contrast: Combining things that are usually not put together, the contrast can bring more fear
• 
  Stylization: Switching or combining the use of various different visual styles (for example, mixing Korakki style with regular style)
•   Weirdcore
•   Dreamcore
•   weird core
•   Injury nucleus
•   Threshold space
•   Observation & Change: Connecting States with Observations
• 
  Quantum object: stationary when observed, and its position cannot be predicted when not observed
•   Perspective: Observing at different times/angles can yield entirely different results
•   artificial object
• 
  Glitch art: mobile phone/computer, mechanical equipment showing irregular mosaics/stripes
•   Robot: Related to the uncanny valley
• 
  Common items: Common items such as cups and stools are often used with contrasting integration
• 
  Cthulhu(There are many ways to understand the mindset related to the Cthulhu Mythos, and there are many controversies, so they will not be fully discussed in this article. The author's understanding of Cthulhu is more about the "fear of the unknown")
•   Time: Extremely ancient things
•   Indescribable: Non-Earth creature/product

  Examples of use

Select some elements from above, and after combining them, some small unique items can already be made

  Fusion + Uncanny Valley: Two-headed Baby from *Silent Hill*

  Giant object terror + density terror + insects: enlarged fly head

Contrast blending + weird core + glitch art: Waking up in your usually warm and cozy home, it suddenly becomes stark white, but there's no one around. At this moment, a thing with large patches of black and glitching stripes with a question mark on its head moves toward you

Daily items + hidden + strange core + body parts: A regular water cup you use for drinking, when you pick it up, a giant eye suddenly opens on the inside of the cup, looks at you, and then immediately closes, becoming exactly like a normal cup again

Uncanny Valley + Body Parts + Fusion: An empty mall, you took a photo of yourself at the photo studio, and just as you were looking forward to a beautiful picture, something strange was printed out

  The horror of video games

Reading up to this point, you might think, "This doesn't seem scary at all," but don't rush! Next, we will discuss the charm of video game interactivity, which can bring a deeper sense of horror through the means of video games

A careful reader should have already noticed that part of the design in the previous text involves environmental and interactive descriptions. In fact, a terrifying creature cannot exist in isolation. If it were a bright, realistic world, and you encountered a broken-down zombie, and happened to have a shotgun in your hand...

On the contrary, when you explore caves at night in MineCraft, it can also turn into a scary game...

In traditional media, it is necessary to create an environment that can evoke a sense of horror, and this is even more so in games. However, games have one more powerful weapon: interactivity

  Interaction brings more intense terror

Interaction doesn't necessarily have to fully mimic the real world to achieve a more realistic effect; it can be consistent with the internal logic of the game, but still make people feel "real" and "scared." However, once this logic is fully understood, the fear it induces will diminish, so often interaction can only be used once. Designers need to create a large number of different terrifying interactions, which may work together in subtle ways to deepen the layers of fear. Here are some methods that can be used:

•   Internal drive action: The monster acts according to its internal logic
• 
  Player interaction action: Perform relevant actions according to the player's attributes/actions (movement/view/input)
•   Environmental interaction action: perceive the environment, act according to changes in the environment

  Internal drive

For example, monsters that move according to internal storage paths/patterns are completely unknown before understanding their nature, and using this type of monster in a dungeon works well

  Player interaction

This is the most common type and is also the source of many horror interactions. The monster will know some of the player's attributes/behaviors and can make specific reactions based on these behaviors

  List some player attributes that can be used

•   Player coordinates
•   Player status
•   Carried items

  Some player behaviors

•   Move position
•   Look around
•   Use

A typical example is chasing! After understanding the player's coordinates, the monster will seek a path and continuously move towards the player's position

In Metal Gear Solid, there is a boss called Spirit Mantis, who reads the player's controller input data and responds accordingly. This concept can also be applied to horror games

  Environmental interaction

In The Legend of Zelda, the widely discussed system-driven design is not elaborated here, where environmental attributes can be perceived by monsters, and monsters react to elements in the environment rather than directly to the player

For example, suppose there is a monster that is particularly sensitive to cold light sources. When you turn on the lights in the room, it will fiercely rush into the room

Or there might be a monster that is particularly sensitive to sound, capable of catching you even without sight if you make noise while running quickly Blue Thin Mushroom

  Action

As mentioned above, actions are diverse, ranging from movement and jumping, teleportation, summoning, exerting influence, altering the environment, and even deleting save files can be considered actions. Designing actions also requires an open imagination, and the next update will provide a more detailed explanation

  Horror game monster design

  The following content may contain spoilers, please watch with caution!

Quantization + Humanoid Shape + Player Interaction (Looking Around) + Instant Teleportation: SCP-173: It remains motionless when you look at it, but once there are no observers, it will instantly teleport behind you; referring to SCP-173, I will design a monster made of a single hand. If you stare at it, it will stay in place, but if you look away, it will instantly teleport to a random position in the room. If you touch it, it will firmly grab you. Placing two such monsters + one that chases you in the room will make it extremely eerie

In this situation, the monster can also look less scary and may not directly harm you, but its characteristics can put immense pressure on the player standing against it. Such teleportation ability would make you feel that once it disappears, it could be looking around, and you would think it could appear in any corner at any time

Glitch art + contrast blending + uncanny valley: fake person: When you reach a certain stage, a person with blurry error stripes appears. As you get closer, you realize it is laughing and looks exactly like you. It wants to kill you and completely replace you

Giant creature + sharp objects + hiding + fog + player movement interaction + moving towards the player: (Much larger than your spaceship) giant anglerfish (in 《Outer Wilds》): In the game, you will enter a maze-like planet where there are many places emitting white light. The fog conceals their presence, and these white lights could be exits or the headlamps of anglerfish. Their hearing is extremely sensitive, and once you attempt to move your spaceship, they will emerge from a corner, opening their massive mouths and charging towards you. You can only hold your breath and glide through the air...

Injury core + sharp objects + everyday items + contrast + chase: Huggy Wuggy《Poppy Playtime》: Players will take on the role of a former employee of Playtime Co., returning to the abandoned toy factory owned by the company after receiving a letter from an employee who went missing 10 years ago. The player will discover that the factory is filled with living toys that are hostile towards them and will start looking for ways to escape the factory. Throughout the factory, various videotapes are scattered, each providing deeper insights into the story. The game's style is not very realistic but is instead filled with the plastic texture of the toy factory, which can evoke childhood memories and create a sense of eerie horror.

Of course, there are many interesting combinations of interaction and appearance, such as the rendering of the unknown characteristics of the monster environment in Poor Witch's House, the use of Meta in Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica with the Koroshi style, or the addition of the terror of dream and memory confusion flashbacks. Although this has not been fully explored here, this article concludes here. Please look forward to future updates, and I hope this article can be helpful to you who are imagining the netherworld monsters, wwww

Thank Spider teacher for the discussion

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