Effects Research

In pivotal scenes, the lighting focuses on one room or one area and draws the player in with the addition of Music and Sound Effects. In doing this it allows the players focus to be concentrated on that area. A common horror trope is to have something happen within the area of effect. This could be something like a character or enemy showing up, pieces of information being introduced or a new pathway opening up.

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This effect would be very useful within our own game, Specimen. It can allow us to show parts of the story without the need for any Dialogue or navigation system, allowing the player to be fully immersed within the game. This is very important in the mechanics of our own game, and the atmosphere we cant to create for the players.

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Music

This is another very important part of the design process, and in some cases can even make or break a game. For this I wanted to make sure I had the right sounds made and the right research into it. Allowing time to research allowed me to make sure the sounds I created would fit the theme of our project. 

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I looked into a few games and took inspiration from each of their soundtracks. These included; 

- Silent Hill

- Visage

- P.T

- Resident Evil

- Until Dawn

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Each of these games provided a different style of soundtrack and a different perspective of music to analyse. They allowed me to pick different elements from each of the individual soundtracks and add them together to create something new and interesting for people to listen to within our project.

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Visual

Visual effects are a great way to go along with Lighting, it adds to it if another image or another texture appears on a surface or player. It also adds another element for adding in jump scared or tension. It is also a very good way to build tension within a scene, allowing things to be manipulated and change right in front of a person's eyes is an advantage only video games can really achieve without needing to cut footage or CGI effects on. 

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Physical

Physical effects are only beginning to be explored. With the new expansion of VR and the full-body suits being developed, it makes sense for physical effects to now come into play. We wanted to incorporate a VR element into the game should we have time, so looking into the use of these suits were vital.

 

VR genres like shooters or stealth games allow the suits to impact the player on the parts of their bodies that were hit, adding the feeling of it being real without the need to put people in dangerous situations. This can help with adding tension and adding realism, as well as giving developers the options to push boundaries that were previously set and create a wide variety and a new genre of effects that can be played with.