Good Scary Antagonist?

Hello!

I would like to hear y'alls
opinions/ideas on a scary monster

My Idea: You're getting chased
by a scary antagonist inside of a
truck with your friends, you find a
stopping point in the middle of the
road with special materials around
the area and inside the car.

The antagonist is able to kill you, or
your friends, or you and friends, or
you can simply make it out of there
alive with your friends.

My storyline so far: (Not really that linear)
A group of friends are driving inside a
truck on the road in the middle of no where
inside the mountain range, the antagonist
chases after them after the group of friends
pissed him off (Or something to make him mad.)
and trys to catch the gang to get revenge.

Any ideas on what the antagonist should be?

All comments are appreciated!

 

Well, first, your villain should be someone or something they can't just outrun in a truck. That's actually not that hard; once you start playing with physics and multiples of human strength and speed, you quickly realize things like "Dracula should have ripped that hunting party to pieces just by punching them."

Another alternative is some sort of dream villain; they can't escape because dream logic.

Or, a villain who can teleport.

 

If your antagonist is able to think, it can become far scarier, especially if the player doesn't realise this at first. Perhaps it could prevent them from escaping in their truck/car/four-wheeled-trollcycle by dropping a tree across the road they take, e.g. the road winds a lot, but the antagonist can move directly.

Another trick would be to limit the appearances of the antagonist, and let the player's imagination do the rest. Nothing is scarier than, well, nothing (obligatory warning about how TvTropes is a fantastic time-sink).

 

I agree with above - don't overplay the story - mystery is very scary - maybe you don't know who is hunting you or why? Background audio soundbites from the NPCs like "why is he doing this?" and "who is he?" could add to the mystery. Think 1971 film Duel.

 

I was going to suggest Christine, but Duel is an even better suggestion. Maybe take a little inspiration from both!

 

I always found a very interesting method is to set the enemy rules, for example they cannot open doors. Then, some time through the game, the rules completely change, so you'll go hide in a room, think your safe, the door slams open, and players will just be terrified

 

Avoid jump scares. Jump scares are a quick terror spike, but fade quickly. The best scary antagonist is one you can't see, but know is there. It attacks from shadows, it sneaks up behind you or your compatriots. It doesn't strike when you're in a group, it lures you apart and takes you one by one. Remember the rules of horror.

Once you see the monster, it isn't scary.
Once you understand the monster, it isn't scary.
Once you can kill the monster, it isn't scary.

 

Some of the scariest things I've seen lately have been on Dr Who (the reboot. The original scared me as a kid but doesn't hold up for scares now).

I'm thinking of the Angels that can only move when you aren't looking at them (don't blink or turn around, sleep is deadly), the little kids in bombed out London that have the gas masks as part of their faces, the shadows in the library world. The kids were freaky & scary, the shadows were scary because everyone is afraid of what hides in the dark/shadows (it's primal), & the Angels were scary because you knew they were there & what they could do, how to limit their movements & you had to do everything without taking your eyes off them & the urgency increased the longer you went without blinking (blinking then reopening your eyes started off with slight discomfort as you sort of noticed slight differences in their positions & escalated to jump fears as they got closer & their true faces showed right up close to you).

 

I agree completely. Never let them actually get close enough to see the monster clearly.

I always found human like creatures to be very creepy. Slenderman is a good example because he looks human, but isnt really human. Does that make any sense at all?

 

As stated above, never show your monster. In fact, it would probably add to the horror if the player didn't even know whether or not the antagonist is human or monster. You could do this by giving it an appearance that might resemble a humanoid if you don't get a good look, and make sure the player never gets a good look. Maybe showing off its silhouette on occasion, but as soon as some light source appears that would reveal anything more than its outline it vanishes from sight.
If you give it sounds, give it sounds that both a human and a monster could make. Though no sounds tend to make it freakier since you got no signals telling you it's coming.
And remember: No matter if it's human or not, give it as few human aspects as possible. Display of emotions, even those like rage and triumph, will humanize the monster. Same with speech, so don't make it talk. Inhuman things scare us, and the more humanity we remove from an antagonist, the scarier it gets. Unless you can pull off a really good human character, but few ever have and I've never seen it happen in a game.

Finally, if you do decide to show the monster at some point, try your best to not make it disappointing. Make it new and creative. We've seen mutants with tentacles, we've seen werewolves, we've seen so many overused monster designs. Try to make yours as fresh and original as possible, while also of course making it as scary as possible.

 

Use the sounds and lighting to scare people before anything has even happened. Atmosphere is the best.

True. As a child, I'd avoid nightmares after a scary movie by finding images of the monster online and staring at it until it wasn't scary. The most effective monsters never stay on screen for more than a few seconds If you have a monster that is actively chasing the player, add in some distractions that constantly pull the monster out of view if it isn't going to kill the player in ~2 seconds.

This is probably more true when combined with the first point. There are plenty of monsters you can understand (like slenderman), but if you don't see him frequently then you can still fall prey to cheap jumpscare tactics

Killing a monster should definitely be an endgame goal. I don't mind using things to slow down or temporarily trap a monster, but killing them early on definitely takes the fear away. The only exception I guess would be something like zombies. They're still scary even if you kill them because killing them is risky enough when there's only 1 or 2... but there's usually a horde you can risk gaining the attention of.

The most terrifying games I've played are ones where barely anything happened.

 

I think a lot of people in this thread are simply thinking movie and game techniques are interchangeable. They're not. Having a monster that stalks you in the shadows, barely making an appearance. Thats not scary in games. Because you quickly figure this out, you learn they're not a threat. In a movie, if you look down the road and see a girl just standing there, its terrifying, in a game, you just feel like its not a threat.

I think you need something that gives you a chance of survival, but does allow you to relax. For example, an enemy that constantly follows you, then you introduce things like door unlocking mechanics and other fiddly things.

I also think jump scares are a legit technique, but only if it is used as something to fear getting, rather than something that just shocks you at the time.

 

@ostrich160 there needs to be a balance though Over exposing the monster, despite it being more effective with immersion in video games as an interactive medium, will lessen the experience. It's a hard balance to achieve. I scared some friends of mine with a blind monster that ran to your location when it picked up a certain amount of noise form your computer's microphone (or from squeaky floorboards if unity couldn't find a mic). They got to see the monster plenty, but were always trying to quietly sneak away from it. They didn't die often but 1 mistake was fatal.

I know I've really got something with that, because it scared them despite the model and animations both being done by me. In fact, I didn't even know how to use normal mapping at that time. It looks like a big potato... painted to look like a domo. And the animation is it waving it's arms and head back and forth while the legs do what sort of looks like walking really fast.

 

Bad ass skeleton riding a bad ass motorcycle?

 

I guess that's something to be considered Tomnnn, it's not always that the monster itself has to be scary but that the players actions add to the risk/tension & the monster then provides a bit of release. Things like making more noise the faster you move slows the player down & boosts the tension if the visuals & sound subtly add to it. If the player stuffs up & draws the monster to them they may need to run away, possibly drawing others towards them if there's more than one, which releases the tension but boosts the heart rate until they find somewhere to hide & wait for it to lose track of them. That then let's the heart rate drop & the tension build again.

 

@tedthebug The idea is they only listen for you when the wooden floor creaks. You can sprint if you like, but it raises the chance that your next step will creak the floor. And if you jump, there's 100% chance of a noise to get the monster's attention. If you wait a few seconds, there's a noise from the monster to let you know it's no longer listening. It's pretty easy to figure out, but once you have it figured out it's still hard to deal with

 

I like the idea of an unknown enemy that only take people on their own, sneaks up from behind and tricks you into separating. It doesn't even need to be a physical being, it could be some sort of shadow entity that grabs people that are standing near shadow, facing away from it, while nobody else is watching. This will force your team to stick together and watch each others backs.

How the monster tricks them into splitting up could take some thought. Maybe he could trick them into thinking their team went this way, when really it was just a shadow cast by him that made it look like they went that way. Then when (some of) the lights come on, they find themselves alone. If no one comes to their aid fast enough, they get pulled into the darkness by this unknown entity.

It would give the players a constant feeling of being watched, they'd have to play smart and keep a cool head, conserving torch batteries like only 1 players uses their torch at a time, communicating constantly so they know how to find each other if they get separated (The monster could also trick people by imitating their voices)

All this talk makes me want to design a horror game, could be my next project!

 

@ Serinx,
Check out the Silence in the Library episode of Doctor Who & the beings called the Vashta Nerada. It is the first episode of a 2-parter, the 2nd ep is Forest of the Dead. It has carnivorous shadows & there's almost no way to tell if a shadow is a normal one or a carnivorous one before you touch it or walk into a shadow. Watch it at night with the lights off.

 

Another good strategy is to introduce the enemy with something specific, but realistic. For example, having a godzilla like enemy spawn from a thunderstorm following a heatwave will feel familiar to UK players right now, which will make them feel more like it would, or could, happen

 

It's a bit sad that comedy sites like Cracked provide content that's often as thoughtful as more formal news sites these days. Granted, they guilty of the same amount of clickbait, but they're no worse, and they're at least a little self-aware.


Half their readers now think Modelo is a city in Iraq.
(From cracked.com)

Anyway, that whole digression was to justify citing a comedy site's article: The Secret Thing All Horror Movies Are Really About. The thesis is: "Horror movies are about losing your virginity." Alien aside, this is usually metaphorical. The argument is far from original, but the article sums it up well in an entertaining manner.

Or, in somewhat more detail: "The heroine comes into the scenario innocent... slowly comes to understand and accept the situation... learns how to exploit the rules [and] escape from the monster. Long story short: She starts out innocent, but loses it by the end." If that sounds reasonable, you'll find it worthwhile to read the original article and not just my butchered quote.

I agree with ostrich160, who wrote: "I think a lot of people in this thread are simply thinking movie and game techniques are interchangeable. They're not."

But the core idea is still valid for games: A mysterious agent forces the player to abandon the innocence that they want to retain, in order to survive. The antagonist needs to be mysterious, as many have pointed out above, and the player needs a motivation to retain their sense of self (their "virginity") rather than transforming into a badass. This is why Evil Dead is a horror (mostly) while Army of Darkness is a comedy. In the former, Ash is a clueless camper; in the latter, he's a shotgun-handed antihero.

So the antagonist should be unknown, presenting at first an ill-defined but clearly mortal danger. It can help if you design it to resonate with contemporary fears such as totalitarianism or climate collapse, but abstractly -- no killer trees from The Happening, please.

And then the player has to choose to lose something valuable to progress. Amnesia handled this explicitly -- the player risks losing sanity by moving forward -- but I think it could be handled a little more subtly. I realize all this is rather vague, but I hope it provides some ideas to the OP's topic.

 

@TonyLi You knocked this one so far out of the park that I don't even have anything to add!