Why survival horror can’t afford to be scary any more (excerpt)

Growing up I was always fascinated by horror. I read teen fiction horror books like Goosebumps or the god-awful (but always entertaining) Point Horror series. I watched Horror movies which were most certainly not suitable for my age bracket (Not a fault of my parents but the employees of the local video rental shop — who had no moral objection allowing an 8 year old to rent “Nightmare on Elm Street”). I hung out in haunted houses, wrote short stories about all kinds of beasties. Hell, I even messed around with Ouija boards and performed séances, just to see what would happen. Why bother telling you all this?

Context.

I want to convey to you, that I love horror. I always have and always will. In all its mediums, horror plays on my (mostly) unconscious desire to continuously be unnerved. Some people play video-games to relax, soak in a story or maybe to just blissfully slaughter hordes of oncoming mutants/zombies/space-nazi’s or underprivileged Middle Eastern youths. I am happiest playing games when crouching three or four feet from the TV, in the pitch dark… my eyes wide in anticipation and the controller slippery in my hand from sweat. I want to be terrified…  No. It’s more than that.

I crave the feeling of being scared.

So, you would think I’ve been absolutely disgusted by the recent destruction of mainstream Survival Horror. Silent Hill ain’t living up to its legacy and Resident Evil has become the most bombastic, balls to the wall action series this side of Con-Air.

Well, I do find it sad that the franchises listed above have moved substantially away from their roots, but when I recently went back and played Resident Evil 3 and the original Silent Hill on my Vita it all suddenly started to make sense.

Survival Horror wouldn’t work anymore. Well… not in a mainstream sense, anyhow.

Behind the Mind of Man

Wow – I can’t believe it’s been nearly two months since I posted to this blog. Time flies when you are working on something you truly care about. In the past two months I have been obsessed with “Mind of Man“, the app I’m working on at 2PaperDolls. It strikes me that Mind of Man is an essential evolution of the social game – inherently tying together the actual social network itself and the roots of what makes a strong gaming experience.

I’ve been lucky enough to be involved in this incredible project and I’ve seen some of the things MOM is capable of behind closed doors and to say its blown me away, would be an understatement.

Here is some info for those of you who may not yet understand the Mind of Man:

2PaperDolls have brought me on board :D

In stupendously exciting news, the folks over at 2PaperDolls have brought me onto their development team as a community manager/game designer. This makes me wonder how much I’m going to get done on my own personal developments, but the project we’re working on could change the very nature of how games interact with players; so for now, I’m happy to put some stuff on the back burner and focus on doing everything I can at 2PaperDolls. The release is below:

Lone Survivor Review

To say that I am a fan of survival horror would be the understatement of the century. I love it. I love the shoddy controls. I love the sense of uselessness and complete sense of disempowerment. I love the quick debate in your head as you try to decide to fight or flee, as something bloodied and nasty edges ever closer to your wimpy, underpowered character. This is the stuff of my dreams … well nightmares… nightmarish dreams??

Lone Survivor is an indie survival horror title by Jasper Byrne, available for both Windows and Mac. I have no fears about stating that this game is the most polished, genuinely scary and atmospheric horror game I’ve played in a decade.

The art of survival horror, like the characters within, is seemingly being killed by the increasingly popular opinion that it’s an unresponsive, archaic genre better left in the late 90’s and only remembered nostaligcally. In recent years traditional Survival horror, in the vein of Clock Tower or Silent Hill has been dropped more and more in favour of Panic or Action horror titles like Resident Evil 4 or Left 4 Dead. Jasper Byrne is clearly a developer who understands the best elements of traditional survival horror and is more than capable of using that knowledge to deliver an amazingly chilling title, that makes horror video-games relevant again.