Monsters, and Why They Aren't Scary.

[Karnith]

I have to say that dreadi has a point about monster variety. It gets tiresome very quickly in horror games when you fight the same monster again and again - which is why I never found Resident Evil games particularly scary, though they were great amounts of fun. While it would probably require much more effort to have a bunch of unique monsters than the same one several times, it would be much more unnerving for the player.

Even without different monsters, though, different types of AI among the same monster would also greatly benefit the game. Even though I love Overture, the dogs get old fast because all they do is run in circles and occasionally leap at you - something that you can always dodge in the same way (namely, running or getting on top of a box). That's why the first Tuurngait in Black Plague was so scary - after getting used to dogs and spiders, seeing a humanoid creature who actually bothers to search you out means that you need to radically alter your play style. But, again, once you hang around watching them long enough, it gets really boring and tedious to have to deal with them. So even just programming different behavior for the same monster could be a good way to ramp up the scare factor.

For an example, imagine two monsters, A and B, identical but for their behaviors. Monster A is all about brute strength and force. He'll burst down doors, smash things up, and run around the room looking for you, but he isn't very thorough and one can always tell when he's coming, so there's ample time to find a good hiding place or simply book it before he can get to you. Monster B, on the other hand, is very slow and methodical, carefully combing over every place he enters to make sure that he hasn't missed anything. No hiding place remains safe forever when he's looking, and he casts glances across the rooms he's in while searching for you. But this lends him to be predictable, and you can sneak out while he isn't looking. The downside (for the player) is that the monsters appear identical, so if you randomly find one before he finds you, you won't know what he'll do if he knows you're there. Which would, hopefully, make the encounter scarier. Or at least harder.

Not to mention that, since Amnesia has definite Lovecraftian influences to it, it would be strange for an elder god to spawn a bunch of identical monsters who all think in exactly the same way.

And, oh, I guess this is my first post. Woo-hoo.