WEBVTT - TechStuff Plays Spooky Games 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:15.040 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:18.720 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio, 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:23.080 and I love all things tech and it's time for 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:27.120 a spooky episode. I thought I would devote this week 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:31.600 to some scary stuff, and so we had the rerun 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:37.880 of the Spooktacular Halloween Special. Today, we're going to talk 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:42.280 about spooky and scary games, video games and computer games. 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:44.360 So I thought I would give kind of a rundown 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:47.600 on some games. Some of them are really well known. 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:49.559 In fact, most of them are well known. A few 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:52.080 of them are a little more obscure. And it's all 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:56.560 about bringing out the season of spookiness and interactive ways. 0:00:56.600 --> 0:00:59.319 And we'll be looking back at some classic titles, not 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:02.240 just stuff that's come out recently. It will be a mix. 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:05.720 One thing I want to acknowledge early on is that 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:09.520 there has been an incredible boom in horror games from 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:14.080 the indie developers sphere. Sure we've all heard about, you know, 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:17.680 Silent Hill and Resident Evil games and that sort of thing, 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:22.760 but there's some really great independent titles out there, some 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:25.960 that take a very bare bones approach to game design 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:30.440 and yet are no less effective than Triple A titles 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:33.160 that are in the horror space, and I think it's 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:36.560 a good idea to give that that scene a shout 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:39.280 out to that end. Part of what inspired me to 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:43.119 do this episode is Sean McLaughlin, who's better known as 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:45.919 Jack Septic. I not not that he needs a shout 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:49.080 out from me, because he is way more of a 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:52.440 superstar than I will ever be, but more to the point, 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:56.400 he will often play horror games on his YouTube channel, 0:01:56.560 --> 0:01:59.240 and he tends to have a really positive take on 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:02.360 the titles he lazy. He's really good at picking out 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:05.200 the things and games that he thinks happen to be 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:09.000 really effective or interesting, even for games that might at 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:12.919 first gland seems fairly primitive and simplistic. So shout out 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:16.360 to that guy, because this content is really entertaining and 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:19.960 like I said, largely positive, so I really like his stuff. 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:23.960 The horror genre is, of course enormous, and it covers 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:28.040 a wide range of games and game styles, from action 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:32.840 oriented first person shooters to slower paced mysteries and everything 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:35.359 in between. So one of the things I'm really going 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:38.120 to do is eliminate a bunch of stuff with one 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:42.400 fell swoop. I'm mostly interested in talking about games that 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:46.600 create a sense of unease or dread, you know, stuff 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:51.000 that actually initiates the fear response as you play the game. 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:55.200 So games like Splatter House, which have an enormous amount 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:59.280 of violence and gore, don't really make the cut because 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:02.400 those types of games are more about blood and guts 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:07.320 and more about disgust than creating a sense of dread. 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:12.079 And I'm also not really counting jump scares because while 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:16.560 jump scares can be effective in startling you, afterward you 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:18.600 usually just kind of shake it off and you don't 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:21.840 really think about it ever again. Right, So, if you 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:24.000 see a movie that's guy Ala jump scares in it, 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:27.560 you might, you know, scream as you watch the film 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:29.639 for the first time, but you're not really going to 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:32.000 be thinking about that very much afterward. Whereas if you 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:35.320 see a movie that really disturbs you and stays with you, 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:38.400 that's the sort of stuff you talk about later on, 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:44.680 maybe years later. Really effective horror stays with you long afterwards. 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:48.000 So I'm going to focus on games that I feel 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:52.720 had enough style and presentation to achieve that, which thankfully 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:56.120 makes this list a lot shorter than it would be otherwise. 0:03:56.160 --> 0:03:59.280 But even so, covering every horror game that manages to 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:03.840 make the player feel uneasy would require multiple podcast episodes, 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:06.800 even if we just restricted the discussion to games that 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:11.040 I have personally played, let alone games in the space. 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:14.040 So this is more of a highlights episode of some 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:17.880 important and influential titles. So if your favorite spooky game 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:22.320 doesn't make an appearance, I'm not omitting it on purpose. 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:25.320 It's just that I'm not allowed to release a twelve 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:28.520 hour long episode. And I invite everybody who has a 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:32.560 favorite scary game to let me know about it, send 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:36.360 me a message on Twitter, text stuff, hsw All right, 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:41.559 let's get into it, shall we. To start off, let's 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:45.320 chat about some of the very, very very early games 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.120 in the horror genre that I don't think anyone would 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:50.599 ever find scary. I don't think anyone thought it was 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:53.320 scary when they came out, but they do help create 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:56.599 some of the common features that would be found in 0:04:56.680 --> 0:05:00.160 future horror games. One of the earliest came out back 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:04.440 in two for the Sinclair z X eighty one home 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:07.560 computer system, one that's not widely known here in the 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:12.120 United States. This game was called three D Monster Maze. 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:16.200 It was designed by J. K. Gray and Malcolm Evans, 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:19.200 and the game puts the player in a simple, low 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:22.839 resolution three D maze. It's from a first person perspective 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:26.040 as you navigate a maze. There is only one exit 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:28.880 in the maze and the mazes layout is random from 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:32.120 play through to play through. And to complicate matters, the 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:36.279 maze is also home to a Tarrannosaurus rex, which is 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:40.000 intent upon making you it's lunch, so your job is 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:43.279 to navigate the maze and avoid the t rex. As 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:46.599 you moved through the maze, you will see one of 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:49.520 several messages that indicate what the t rex is doing 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:53.560 at that moment. So, for example, the message rex lies 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:56.719 in wait is the best message you could see. It 0:05:56.800 --> 0:05:59.320 just means that the tarnostaurce rex is dormant. It's not 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:02.479 actively hunting you. If you see a message that says 0:06:02.480 --> 0:06:05.480 footsteps approaching, that's not so great. It means the t 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:08.239 rex is not too far away. It is possibly coming 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:11.160 at you, but it is way worse if you happen 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:14.000 to see a message that starts with run, as it 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:16.919 means the t rex is actively pursuing you. Now you 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:19.680 can outrun the t Rex. You actually move faster than 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:22.400 it does. However, if you hit a dead end in 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:26.480 the maze, it's curtains for you. The graphics are really simple, 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:29.800 but you could argue that the urgency of the messages 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:34.080 makes all the difference, creating the stress needed to push 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:38.160 the game into you know, that's slightly creepy territory. It's 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:43.320 not scary outright, but it creates that sense of urgency 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:48.080 and it reinforces that, which in turn gets a response 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:51.440 from the player. The Atari twenty six hundred console had 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:54.360 a few horror titles, though I think using the word 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:58.160 horror is a stretch. One of these was Haunted House, 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:00.719 a game in which you play as are of eyeballs 0:07:00.760 --> 0:07:04.599 floating around an extremely simple series of rooms, trying to 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:08.880 find and then escape with and earn while avoiding a ghost. 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:11.880 It's not at all scary. The ghost is just a 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:13.720 little cartoon ghost that comes after you. There are a 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:16.720 couple of other cartoon monsters you can encounter, but it 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:20.880 does stress that your only recourse when encountering the ghost 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:24.600 was to run. You couldn't fight the ghost really, uh. 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:27.240 You could pick up items that would let you survive 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:30.280 for a second before the ghost could get you. But 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:34.280 really it was about avoiding and escaping the ghost, and 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:36.520 that would become a staple of horror games and years 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:40.280 to come, the idea that you can't necessarily confront the 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:44.040 enemy's head on. And I actually owned this game. I 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:46.680 didn't remember that I had owned it. When I was 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:49.640 looking at titles, I was like, I should look into this, 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:51.880 and as I looked into it, I thought, oh, wait 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:54.880 a minute, that's what that was. I had that game. 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:58.360 Also on the Atari twenty sire were several games that 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:03.000 would be tie ins with existing horror movie franchises or 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:07.000 just horror movies in general, and that marks the beginning 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:10.480 of a long history of video games and film and 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:15.280 sometimes TV that I would call it checkered. There are 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:17.680 a lot of games out there that tie into these 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:21.640 franchises that just are not very good. So this was 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:24.520 really an effort to tap into horror movie junkies and 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:27.640 get them to buy these games. The primitive graphics and 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:31.240 sound of a twent games weren't likely to give anyone 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:35.840 a hint of the Heebie GPS, however, so your mileage 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:38.880 may very A company called Wizard Video Games actually made 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:41.080 a couple of these. One was a tie in with 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:45.880 the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, sometimes referred to as the the 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:50.959 precursor to the modern slasher film, and another one cashed 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:55.400 in on Halloween, the John Carpenter horror movie. Both games 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:58.960 were a bit more violent and graphic than standard at 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:03.080 games at the time. In some cases, you could argue 0:09:03.080 --> 0:09:06.800 all more than a bit graphic, but the low resolution 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:11.880 graphics on screen didn't exactly translate to real chills. Like that, 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:15.000 you were seeing the depiction of violence on screen, but 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:17.840 it wasn't at all realistic. It was very blocky and 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:21.200 low rez. You might even look at games like these 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:23.160 as part of the trend that contributed to the video 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:27.360 game market crashing right around that time. Even so, while 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:31.719 the technology wasn't really sophisticated enough to elicit scares, it 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:36.720 was obvious the game developers saw opportunity in the horror space. Now, 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:40.000 from the early nineteen eighties, we can skip over a lot. 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:44.760 We had the big video game crash of Night three Slash, 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:47.160 which was so big that it spilled over a bit 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:51.280 into the computer game world, though really it was primarily 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:55.080 the console market that was devastated the most Nintendo would 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:57.920 bring that back with the introduction of the Famicom A 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:01.440 gave the Nintendo Entertainment System UH. That system was famous 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:04.319 for bringing back console gaming, introducing the world to stuff 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:07.160 like Super Mario Brothers and more, but it also introduced 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:10.880 some horror games. One game you could find on the 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:15.199 NES as well as PC systems was Maniac Mansion from 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:20.520 Lucas Arts. It published in nine now. This was a 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:23.559 point and click adventure style game in which the player 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:26.600 could control a couple of different characters as they tried 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:29.240 to rescue a woman who had been captured by a 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:32.280 mad scientist. The game had a lot of zany humor 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:34.840 in it, which was a hallmark of Lucas Arts games. 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:38.200 They also made stuff like the Monkey Island series. But 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:42.480 the game also had some tense moments that featured perma death. 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:45.920 So you would play as a protagonist who could bring 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:49.559 two friends along. You had a selection of six potential friends. 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:52.240 You could take two of them with you. However, if 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:55.920 those friends should croak they stayed dead. They there would 0:10:55.920 --> 0:10:59.560 actually be a little tombstone with the character's name out front, 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:02.280 so the choice of characters would determine how the game 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:05.560 would play out. And you couldn't just win the game 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:08.080 with one set of friends then play through it the 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:11.040 exact same way using different sets of friends. It actually 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:14.680 would change the game. The game also featured multiple endings, 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:18.600 so there were several interesting ideas here that would find 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:21.680 their way into future horror games. Though I would argue 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:24.840 that Maniac Mentioned itself is not really a scary game. 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:29.840 It's just that it helped cement certain game features that 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:32.959 would be later used to great effect in horror games 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:37.080 of the future, like the Atari twidd The NES also 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:40.240 had several horror movie tie in titles. You know. They 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:43.640 had Bram Stoker's Dracula. There was a Nightmare in Elm 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:46.840 Street game. There was a Friday the Thirteenth game which 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:51.520 gave us Purple Jason Jason Vorhees the antagonist in the 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:53.760 Friday of the Thirteenth movies, at least after the first one. 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:59.200 First first film was his mother, Mama Vorhees. But again, 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:02.559 the low resolution graphics of the NES and the eight 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:05.719 bit era never really struck me as particularly effective when 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:08.880 it came to creating scares. There was a Japanese game 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:13.040 called Sweet Home that managed to be pretty darn creepy 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:16.000 and allegedly. I mean it would actually serve as inspiration 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:19.720 for a future game franchise that I'll chat about a 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:23.080 little later. But I never really got to play Sweet 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:25.840 Home myself. I've seen video of it, but I've never 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:29.240 played it. It was never officially released outside of Japan. 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:32.839 You could track down an import of it and with 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:35.920 an adapter play it, but you know, you had to 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:37.480 go through a lot of effort in order to get 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:40.480 your hands on a copy outside of Japan. The ne 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:44.320 Nes also saw the first entry of the Castlevania series 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:48.480 of games. Now, while Castlevania was more of a horror 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:53.120 themed platformer and would become one half of the games 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:58.640 that would create the Metro metroid Vania genre of platformers, 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:01.960 Metroid being the other one, and the Castlevania series would 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:07.760 eventually spawn some titles the gamers said, we're legitimately unsettling. Now. 0:13:07.800 --> 0:13:10.560 I've only played a little bit of Castlevania games, so 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:13.199 I can't really comment on this from a personal perspective. 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:15.680 To me, it was just sort of a horror themed 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:20.560 platform or not something that I found particularly scary, But 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:26.040 I've had limited experience with it. This era around the 0:13:26.120 --> 0:13:30.600 Nintendo Entertainment System nineteen eighties era would see game developers 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:33.240 come up with ideas that would be incorporated into more 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:36.960 sophisticated games a few years later down the road. And 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:38.760 while there were a few titles that might have had 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:41.679 some interesting moments in them, for the most part they 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:45.120 were still pretty tame. But those gameplay elements would really 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:50.160 become important later on. While graphics and sound design would 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:52.280 do a lot to set the atmosphere for a game, 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:54.959 it would be those gameplay elements that can turn something 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:58.200 that's just you know, gruesome or shocking into an experience 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:01.920 that is more powerful than that. So let's jump ahead 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:07.319 a couple more years in a company called info Grames 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:11.600 would help launch a new genre. The game that did 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:14.920 this was called Alone in the Dark, which would spawn 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:17.600 a series of games. Now. The Guinness Book of World 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:21.120 Records names Alone in the Dark as the first three 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:25.160 D survival horror game. So in the game, you explore 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:28.680 a mansion this would become a common theme in horror games, 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:32.480 and you try to solve puzzles while you avoid or 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:37.040 defeat supernatural enemies like ghosts and monsters. And I think 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:38.600 it might be a good idea to talk about some 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:42.800 of the hallmarks of the survival horror genre or sub genre, 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:47.280 and what makes those games tike So As the name suggests, 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:51.560 the survival horror genre largely leans on the player trying 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:54.600 to keep their character alive for the duration of the 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:58.840 game despite numerous threats, and the horror part plays in 0:14:58.840 --> 0:15:01.640 this too obvious lee and that the threats tend to 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:06.760 be scary and unsettling and often supernatural in nature. And 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:09.480 a lot of games the player controls the character or 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:12.880 entity that gets more powerful as the game progresses. You know, 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:16.600 other other subgenres, this is very typical. Right you play 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:20.280 the game, your character gets more capable, more powerful, gets 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:24.440 more equipment or more abilities. They might level up, they 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:28.520 might receive upgrades, and fighting enemies is a common game 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:32.240 feature for lots of other subgenres, but this is not 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:37.560 the case with survival horror games in general. Typically, in 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:41.120 survival horror games, it is far more common to stress 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:46.240 the need for stealth and agility rather than combat. Many 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:49.960 survival horror games have no combat systems at all, which 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:54.040 require the player to try and out maneuver or avoid enemies. 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:57.120 You might spend more time hiding in a locker or 0:15:57.160 --> 0:16:00.360 a closet or sweet squeezing through like a tight spot, 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:03.560 and music and sound effects can really help to create 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:06.680 tense moments, increasing the sense of urgency as you try 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:10.160 to evade the beings that wish to do you harm. 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:14.720 By removing the ability to fight back against your opponents, 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:20.360 these games also remove the player's sense of comfort and complacency. 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:23.920 You can't count on your lead gaming skills to pull 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:27.120 off a quick headshot or get you out of a 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:30.360 tight spot like that. Danger may lurk around any corner, 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:33.680 and so you're on high alert whenever the game is 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:37.440 in motion, as a different type of emotional experience than 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:40.920 playing something like Doom, which you know falls into the 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:45.560 horror game genre but clearly does not qualify as a 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:49.880 survival horror game. Some survival horror games do allow you 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:52.640 to fight back at least a little bit, but these 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:55.600 games may have other mechanics built in so that fighting 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:59.880 back isn't necessarily the best option. Survival horror games might 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:04.280 be incredibly stingy with stuff like ammunition and health kits, 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:08.160 for example, so every shot counts and it's much better 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:11.320 to not get hit rather than have to figure out 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:13.680 how do you deal with the fact that you've been injured. 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:18.639 And these same games may make enemies particularly difficult to 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:23.120 take down, so you have both limited ammunition and if 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:25.280 you do choose to engage with an enemy, you may 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:27.200 have to shoot it multiple times just to make sure 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:30.600 it's not gonna keep coming after you. Another frequent game 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:37.240 mechanic is giving items durability ratings, so using items decreases 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:41.159 their durability, and eventually they need to be repaired or 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:43.040 they just playing break and you've got to get a 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:46.800 new one. By metering out stuff like weapons and tools 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:50.320 and health kits and AMMO, the game forces players to 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:54.320 make tough and often quick decisions while trying to survive. 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:58.119 Some games that fall into the survival horror genre play 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:00.400 with us a little bit more than others. There are 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:03.240 the Resident Evil games that we'll talk about more later, 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:08.160 especially the later Resident Evil games up to about part seven, 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:11.600 where you start finding more weapons and AMMO and options, 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:14.840 and these games become a lot more action oriented. They 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:17.240 turned into more of a shooter game rather than a 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:20.399 survival horror game. Now, to be clear, there's nothing wrong 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:22.399 with that. You know, an action horror game is a 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:26.719 legitimate type of genre. Doom is definitely an action horror 0:18:26.720 --> 0:18:30.400 first person shooter, and there are doom titles that are fantastic, 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:34.040 but it is a different kind of experience. Alone in 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:37.359 the Dark had pre rendered backgrounds, but the character you 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:41.000 controlled was a three dimensional figure made up of polygons. 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:44.520 So this was right around the age that that computer 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:47.840 characters were emerging from being these little two dimensional sketches 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:51.679 into more three dimensional characters. One nice thing about the 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:54.320 game is that you could choose to play either as 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:58.000 male or female. Now this was in the early nineties. 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:00.480 This was a big step, although of course there was 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:04.520 still a lack of representation for non binary type characters. 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:09.119 Either way. The character needs to escape a mansion another 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:12.880 common thread, and must defeat enemies and or solve puzzles 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:15.000 in order to do so. Part of the game is 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:17.560 actually linear, that means you have to go through a 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:21.280 specific sequence to progress through the game, but other parts 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:24.000 of the game are nonlinear, where you can tackle different 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:27.520 challenges in whatever order you prefer. Some of the elements 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:30.920 would find their ways into other types of horror games 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:33.119 as well, and Alone in the Dark would become an 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:37.760 important foundational title for the horror game genre. When we 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:40.639 come back, we'll look at some more influential horror themed 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:45.520 games and some real standouts in the subgenre. But first, 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:58.920 let's take a quick break. In Virgin Interactive Entertainment published 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:03.040 a game called The Seventh Guest, a horror themed mystery 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:06.720 in which you solve various puzzles laid out within a mansion, 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:10.600 of course, and this game also featured clips of f 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:14.879 m V a k a full motion video. So the 0:20:14.960 --> 0:20:17.480 PC world at the time was going through a revolution 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:20.680 as CD ROM drives became available for the first time 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:23.640 and made it possible for software developers to create more 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:27.600 sophisticated games that wouldn't just fit on a floppy disk 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:31.280 or they would require way too many floppy disks. So 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:35.280 within the game you would get these little video sequences 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:38.920 of actual live action video played in the game. Actors 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:42.480 in costume would appear occasionally as sort of ghostly visions 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:45.040 to deliver lines in a way that reminds me of 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:47.800 some of the worst community theater I have ever seen. 0:20:49.000 --> 0:20:52.879 I loved it, but yeah, if you have never played 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:55.920 The Seventh Guest, go to YouTube, do a search for it. 0:20:56.480 --> 0:21:01.040 Watch some of those FMV sequences. They are ad and 0:21:01.119 --> 0:21:04.800 gloriously so there are actually videos of the full game 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:06.600 up on YouTube. If you don't have the patients to 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:09.040 solve all those puzzles yourself, and I have to be 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:11.359 honest here, at least a couple of the puzzles in 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:14.240 the game are pretty lame. Some of them are fun 0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:19.520 and challenging, others aren't not good. The plot combines elements 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:25.280 of weird fantasy, murder mysteries, and supernatural horror. In a 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:28.680 sequel titled The Eleventh Hour published, but that didn't quite 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:33.040 fair as well as its predecessor among both the critics 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:39.160 and the public. Also in Sierra released Fantasmagoria, a horror 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:41.639 game that looked at the FMV that was in The 0:21:41.680 --> 0:21:44.800 Seventh Guest and The Eleventh Hour and said, but what 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:49.080 if we did that more. Fantasmagoria has a couple of 0:21:49.200 --> 0:21:53.240 dozen characters, all played by different actors, has tons of 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:57.720 full motion video. It required seven CDs to hold all 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:02.640 the datum, which was excess at the time. The game 0:22:02.680 --> 0:22:06.320 has some pretty grizzly imagery, even in the intro of 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:09.880 the game, which has not one but two waking up 0:22:09.880 --> 0:22:14.080 from a nightmare sequences back to back spoiler alert. The 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:17.520 style of game is a point and click adventure game, 0:22:17.600 --> 0:22:21.080 but instead of controlling like a little animated polygonal figure, 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:25.760 your choices guided an actress named Victoria Morsel who was 0:22:25.800 --> 0:22:30.679 playing a protagonist named Adrienne Delaney. So if you clicked 0:22:30.680 --> 0:22:35.280 on a door, Victoria as Adrienne would walk to the 0:22:35.320 --> 0:22:37.520 door and try to open it. So I imagine it 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:39.760 must have taken a very long time to capture all 0:22:39.800 --> 0:22:43.160 the different variations of actions that could potentially play out 0:22:43.200 --> 0:22:45.720 in the game. As for the plot of the game, 0:22:46.200 --> 0:22:50.679 Adrienne is a novelist who along with her husband Don, 0:22:51.160 --> 0:22:55.159 has purchased an old mansion since the theme yet and 0:22:55.200 --> 0:22:59.240 the mansion's previous owner was a stage magician with a 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:04.080 dark lee passed involving multiple marriages and the mysterious death 0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:11.280 of his wives. Adrianne encounters various supernatural puzzles and different 0:23:11.359 --> 0:23:15.000 kind of supernatural happenings in the house as the story 0:23:15.040 --> 0:23:18.479 plays out. It ultimately leads to a showdown with a demon, 0:23:19.200 --> 0:23:22.560 as these things are wont to do. The game was 0:23:22.640 --> 0:23:25.280 a pretty big hit, and it was a definite step 0:23:25.480 --> 0:23:29.320 up on the production side from games like The Seventh Guest, 0:23:29.480 --> 0:23:32.800 though a lot of reviews criticized that the puzzles in 0:23:32.840 --> 0:23:36.800 Phantasmagoria were a little too simple. One of the reasons 0:23:37.040 --> 0:23:39.479 I wanted to bring up this trio of games, in 0:23:39.480 --> 0:23:44.040 particular Seventh Guests, Eleventh Hour and Phantasmagoria is because they 0:23:44.080 --> 0:23:47.240 were almost an overcorrection of some of the issues I 0:23:47.320 --> 0:23:50.639 had with earlier horror games. Right, the earliest horror games 0:23:50.640 --> 0:23:55.080 were so simplistic, and the primitive graphics and the really 0:23:55.359 --> 0:23:58.800 you know, low fi sound design acted as detriments to 0:23:58.840 --> 0:24:00.879 the effect of the game. They weren't going to make 0:24:00.920 --> 0:24:05.560 you feel scared, really, they weren't really unsettling. The era 0:24:05.680 --> 0:24:08.560 of the CD ROM gave game developers the ability to 0:24:08.640 --> 0:24:12.240 use actual video of real human beings in their games, 0:24:12.280 --> 0:24:15.760 so there was no need to create realistic graphics if 0:24:15.800 --> 0:24:20.040