In this part of “A History of Violence” I will briefly investigate some of the types of combat found in horror games, compare them to films and discuss how they impact on the scare-factor.
The tools of the trade
Hi everyone! As my first post in the blog, I feel like I needed to do a little introduction. I’m Luis, I’m not that known compared to the 2 visible heads around here 😛 but I’m the other programmer here at Frictional, maybe some of you might know me from the forum, but I kinda vanished from there a while ago… But I’m here again, and this time I promise to be a little more constant than before, which shouldn’t be that hard 🙂
A History of violence. Part 1
Ever since I started working on horror games (first was a simple 2d game called Fiend) I have been thinking about what kind of combat one wants in a horror game.
The “fun” in horror games?
When discussing gameplay in games, the main focus is mostly on making it “fun”. The meaning of “fun” is usually that it is an enjoyable experience for the player and that boredom and frustration are reduced as much as possible. Normally this is the main priority when working on some part of the game and if it is not “fun” enough, that part will be remade or scrapped. In many horror games things are different though and focus is instead put on invoking emotions other than just “fun”.
Welcome!
Welcome to Frictional Games’ newly created for blog for all of you interested in our work and/or horror games.
Unknown – Status update
After over a year of technology development and prototyping we are finally at the tipping point as ideas comes to life on the screen in front of us. With our very first early version of “Unknown” ready, we are more confident than ever that we are on the right track as to what will become a great horror game. With the previous award winning Penumbra series to live up to we have been working hard on coming up with a concept that improves the already winning formula – horror without violence. With “Unknown” we have started from the very beginning – creating a new game engine, development tools, re-thinking and improving the physics interaction, evaluated every little part of Penumbra as to figure out the best way to create the experience.
Character Postmortem: Amabel Swanson
Tom (writer for Penumbra) has written a little post mortem on Dr Swanson.
Unknown in-game teaser & screens
Today we are releasing a first teaser of our upcoming survival horror game, “Unknown”. The video gives a quick demonstration of the mood and style we are aiming for, as well as demonstrating the maturity of the in-house developed HPL2 game engine.
Coping with Optimizing
We have been pretty bad at updating this work log, mostly because we have had so darn much to do. However we want to mend that and start writing more frequently from now on!
Penumbra: Black Plague Awarded & Steam
Friday the 13th have by tradition been a day of horror and at Frictional we are always keen to keep traditions alive. What better day to announce that at this years “Dataspelsgalan”, the Swedish Games Industry yearly award show, Penumbra: Black Plague was awarded “Best Swedish Independent Game”!
