Conversation started May 24, 2017 at 17:36.
Ixrec
Ixrec
May 24, 2017 17:36
What makes a game scary for me is not the threat of punishment (eff you Dark Souls) but me having some element of control over whether I die or not. It has to be something I'm actively thinking about how to stop from happening.
waits for laptop to wake up before tying this tangent back to my thoughts on Covenant
DaaaahWhoosh
DaaaahWhoosh
I think the best way to keep people engaged, keep them fighting until their last breath, is to make the punishment for death large. But I guess it can go both ways, it's really more in building that struggle than it is making people care about failing
(but please, tie it back)
Ixrec
Ixrec
so for me the single best moment in Alien: Isolation was an encounter where the xenomorph spotted me, I started running, realized I'd turned into a dead end by accident, threw a flashback behind me, and just as the Xenomorph was leaping at me it went off and several seconds later I was stunned to discover I was still alive
That could've happened pretty much any time during the course of the game, but that's the kind of thing I'm looking for. I probably died five minutes later for some simple mistake, but the fate of that particular run didn't matter.
Now, the other way that horror can work for me is when it's less about scary moments and more about a general atmosphere of tension and apprehension about what's going on. This is related to why it's popular to claim that relying on jumpscares is "lazy".
video games where I can die at any moment sorta get that for free, but movies can totally do that, and that's when horror movies really work imo
Usually either by making me care about the characters, or by having some other element to the story that makes the monster killing the people mean way more than just "the monster just ate red shirt #2".
DaaaahWhoosh
DaaaahWhoosh
@Ixrec I got the feeling in Covenant I neither cared about the characters, nor did the monster killing people mean anything
(but go on)
Ixrec
Ixrec
Hence, in Alien: Covenant, the scariest moment for me was when the newly-chestbursted xenomorph stood up and rose its hands in mimicry of David, signifying David was its true creator and master or whatever else you want to read into it. That was the "welp humanity's totally screwed now" moment for me.
if more of the movie had tied into and explored that and whatnot, then the movie as a whole might've been scarier
but most of the movie was just the monster ate a guy
DaaaahWhoosh
DaaaahWhoosh
@Ixrec yeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssssss that makes perfect sense to me
Ixrec
Ixrec
May 24, 2017 17:48
and in the end I mostly agree with that stuff Dizzle said in his review
DaaaahWhoosh
DaaaahWhoosh
yeah, the last scene with the alien on the ship was completely useless, it meant nothing
they could've spent that time in the beginning, getting to know the characters
Ixrec
Ixrec
Or, that scene could've been what I mistakenly assumed it was for several minutes: Walter testing humanity to decide if David was right about them.
I still kinda wish that was the actual twist but oh well
 
Conversation ended May 24, 2017 at 17:50.