BIOS
Summary:
A combination of famous horror movie monsters and the ghost investigation game Phasmaphobia.
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You control BIOS, a hastily built robot tasked with investigating CTRLV - 'Vee' - a machine capable of replicating any media it consumes. Vee remained docile thanks to strict isolation protocols, which eventually backfired when a breach occurred.
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An attempt to teach Vee how to experience the human emotion of fear involved using snippets from horror movies, but Vee accessed the full movie instead, now replicating iconic monsters and causing havoc inside the facility. Identify the creature so it can be shut down for good.
Horror Techniques:
Audio:
Both horror games and movies use sound effects to create a sense of worry and fear. I'm personally not a fan of jumpscares as they feel like a cheap way to make someone jump, so I avoided the use of sudden loud noises.​
I feel like the best way to use SFX would be something similar to Alien Isolation's motion tracker. It creates a sense of worry that something is approaching before it actually appears, giving the players the time they need to be frightened beforehand, so that even if the threat appears and they escape, they've already experienced the dread.
BGM:
A great example of music being used to create worry is The Thing (1982), which uses a low, slow paced, heart like beat.​
Another great example on the other end is Dead by Daylight infamous 'Terror Radius', a 3 stage music piece that gives the players a sense of distance, ramping up in volume, pace and overall instrumental density the closer they are to the danger.
AI:
When talking about AI, it's hard not to talk about Alien Isolation which has pretty much been the poster child for adaptive AI. But because of my gameplay limitations, I wanted to look more into the AI from a different game - Phasmaphobia. What I love about this game is that unlike other horrors which usually have a monster, is you can be in the same room as the creature without being in danger. This gives you so many different and unique types of interactions such as reacting to the player's actions and items when in proximity and reacting to the environment around it, with only a few examples being the Mare turning off lights, the Demon hunting earlier and the Obake leaving unique handprints.​
Presence:
What makes presence scary isn't presence itself, but the lack of it. Since audio and music are such an integral part of horror, it can feel odd when the expected suddenly isn't there anymore.​
SOMA is my favourite example of this, because you get used to all the tinks of heavy machinery and the ambience of the water. Then when all that noisy ambience that goes on without any signs of danger, suddenly gets cut out, it's like something is missing. Your brain naturally understands patterns, so when those patterns suddenly change, you begin to expect it's because something is different.
Mechanics:
One overlooked technique seen mostly in horror games is the use of mechanics to create vulnerability. This is usually an action that causes you to stay still, or using something that covers your screen, limiting how much information you're getting.
A perfect example of this would be Five Nights at Freddy's camera mechanic, which blocks your view when used, but is also an essential asset to deal with certain characters.​
Cognitive horror:
This is when the players are overloaded with information, tasks or anything to keep track of and Phasmaphobia is practically the definition of this. They give you access to a wide variety of tools, but only allow you to carry 3. They give you a wide variety of ghost behaviours, but never tell you the type of ghost. You're overloaded with things to keep track of, having to juggle between items and guessing different types of ghosts based on what you've seen. You'll slowly whittle down at the type of ghost as the ghost becomes more active and aggressive, until you either run out of time, or make it.
Currently in progress...
Demo set to release January 2026.