Iconic985 Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 Recently I've began developing a horror-themed quest mod for Skyrim. So far its been coming along nicely and I have heaped together a bunch of ideas, sounds, music and meshes to include in this mod, I've even began work on the quest itself. I intend for there to be many puzzles as well as scares, which is where I've sort of run out of ideas. I based many of the already made puzzles from games such as Amnesia: The Dark Decent and Outlast however I would like to hear some ideas from the community as well. Scares are another major problem as well. Seeing as Skyrim was never intended to be scary I've had to start from scratch. I've gathered together a bunch of sounds for monsters, jumpscares and ambiance but am out of ideas of how to use them. So if anyone has any suggestions or is willing to help out just let me know. -Iconic985 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adecurus Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 There are different kinds of ways to scare people, some may work better with Skyrim than others. I think you could go for a bit of a cosmic horror angle (like Lovecraft), which would work better for Skyrim, since you could just put it into books. Also, keep in mind that fear is fuelled by suspense and foreshadowing, even jump scares. This, again, can be achieved through books or NPC dialogue. You want to show the player why they should be scared of something before they encounter it. You should only let the player actually see the monster at the very end, keep it in mystery. The combat side of Skyrim simply will not work with horror, so try to stay away from it. A good way to do this would be to place 'scenes' of objects around the place, like a headless body on spikes (but more original than that, maybe see what is done in horror movies). Those are my thoughts, good luck bro. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iconic985 Posted January 28, 2014 Author Share Posted January 28, 2014 Thanks for the reply. I am relying on ambiance and music rather a lot. I'm also trying to use as little jump-scares as possible as I find them to be the lazy kind of horror. Instead I'm using thing such as mannequins that move when you aren't looking, spooky cut scenes and little ghost children running along through visible but inaccessible areas. Of course there will be no combat however I am thinking about stealth, requiring the player to run and hide when a monster approaches rather like in Amnesia. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adecurus Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 Sounds good, but it would be hard to get the average Skyrim player to run from an enemy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Akoolpoptart Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 The best horror I think skyrim is capable of is the psychological kind. Lord Balmers Playground and Into the Depths were perfect horror mods that put me completely out of my comfort zone by messing with my head, but the thing they lacked was a proper ending. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iconic985 Posted January 29, 2014 Author Share Posted January 29, 2014 The best horror I think skyrim is capable of is the psychological kind. Lord Balmers Playground and Into the Depths were perfect horror mods that put me completely out of my comfort zone by messing with my head, but the thing they lacked was a proper ending. Yes there definitely going to be a physiological aspect to it as well (Upside down rooms, floating furniture jumping puzzles etc). As for getting the player to run away from the monsters a simple message should solve that problem. Thanks for all the help guys, keep it coming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lazyskeever Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 I think being chased by something you can't kill (at least not in a normal way) is usually pretty good for suspense in games. Just don't get too liberal with the jump scares like Doom 3. And whatever you do, don't do it like There are some cool creepy mods for Doom that I've played which I think would serve as good inspiration for scary TES mods. One of them is . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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