Evoking Fear Through Level Design
By: Matt Wilkinson
Supervisor: Jon Skinner
Masters of Interactive Technology degree conferred May 16, 2009
Thesis / Project completed: June 19, 2009

Level Designers continually strive to immerse their players in the game they are playing. The best way to immerse a player is to evoke emotions in them through the game, and few emotions are more powerful than fear. By using a variety of “scare” methods to evoke fear in the players, this thesis hopes to improve a level designer’s ability to frighten their players.

Using horror and similar elements in games has always been around, but it wasn’t until the mid-nineties that the technology had improved to a point where games could truly begin to rival Hollywood movies in creating fear. Games like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and Fatal Frame popularized the genre that Alone in the Dark had introduced a few years before. Survival horror became one of the industry’s favorite buzzwords. Today, there are a number of successful horror franchises in the gaming industry, and new games like Dead Space and Prenumbra are leaving their mark on the genre’s history. This thesis uses many of these games as examples in showing some of the ways games can scare people.

This project aims to test four methods of evoking fear: Darkness, “Shock” scares, Sound Cues, and Disturbing Images. By creating a level that focuses on these four methods and subjecting it to a number of testers, the project investigated which methods are most effective, as well as any other ways that the fear experience can be enhanced. Examples of each of the four methods are located throughout the test level, as well as featuring a dedicated room for each method. Testers completed a questionnaire both before and after the test.

Overall, the test produced interesting results. All four methods proved effective, but sound cues and darkness were the most effective. In addition, testers felt that darkness enhanced other methods, and other forms of information or sensory deprivation proved very effective in enhancing the whole experience.

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