Komag on 15/3/2022 at 17:08
The Bonehoard for me was the epitome of what you're talking about, and in my book, pure magnificence. There was an early test mission created for TDM that mimicked it to good result, can't recall the name offhand though.
Overlord Nexus on 15/3/2022 at 23:22
Great post, Purgator!
You all might also appreciate (
http://www.kenopsia.com/) this. Lots of cool photos demonstrating that eerie, abandoned feeling.
downwinder on 17/3/2022 at 23:56
i love when i play a mission and its very lonely but at the very end right before mission ends you hear the people in the bar through the door,i ussaly just sit there a bit by the door and relax before ending the mission :)
lordhern on 2/4/2022 at 05:04
Quote Posted by rachel
System Shock 2 was tense, but Thief was
terrifying when I first played. The highest point was in "Return to the Haunted Cathedral", when at some point I realized I'd been waiting in a corner for literally 15 minutes, not daring to move. No other game has managed to scare the crap out of me like this, in great part due to the great sound design and how it combines with the environment to create that atmosphere. It does completely reinforce the immersion into a feeling of isolation like you said, it's so well done.
Yes - well said Thief was truly terrifying in my first playthrough. The Cradle level in deadly shadows matched the terror nicely.
demagogue on 13/4/2022 at 06:21
Quote Posted by Komag
The Bonehoard for me was the epitome of what you're talking about, and in my book, pure magnificence. There was an early test mission created for TDM that mimicked it to good result, can't recall the name offhand though.
In its original incarnation people just called it "the Bonehoard map", but when it started turning into its own map, it eventually got rebranded as The Dead Gathers, which Greebo & Angua were working on, and then later they handed it off to a campaign team, I think Crucible of Omens.
Komag on 13/4/2022 at 07:11
Ah, good to know, I'll have to replay it sometime
FenPhoenix on 13/4/2022 at 19:01
Quote Posted by Overlord Nexus
Great post, Purgator!
You all might also appreciate (
http://www.kenopsia.com/) this. Lots of cool photos demonstrating that eerie, abandoned feeling.
Kenopsia.com's definition:
Quote:
Kenopsia
n. the eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that’s usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet—a school hallway in the evening, an unlit office on a weekend, vacant fairgrounds—an emotional afterimage that makes it seem not just empty but hyper-empty, with a total population in the negative, who are so conspicuously absent they glow like neon signs.
articulates something I didn't know what to call before. In games that progress you in a linear fashion from area to area, sometimes you're able to go back quite a distance through previous areas, although you're not really expected to. In these games, there's almost like an intangible sphere of "life" or "action" or "presentness" that you would normally follow, but you can go back to previous areas where it used to be but isn't anymore. Previous areas where you've cleared out the enemies, solved the puzzle, met the new character, watched the cutscene, whatever... and there's less than nothing left. If you were to go back to a very early area, it feels deader than dead. It's still there physically, being correctly rendered and behaving as designed and all, but the intangible feeling of livingness has left it. There's a very strong and foreboding feeling that you are
not meant to be here. That you're in a place "forgotten by the game".
The game that always comes to mind is Resident Evil 4, with the village area. It's quite a large area and if you look at the map, you can see the path you came from and look all the way back to the start of the game, and think "what if I went back there?" At least to me, that gives me a creepy sort of feeling imagining how deader than dead the old areas feel. That's also the case with linear dead-end paths, like the lake or the house with Luis. When you go down them the first time, it feels like you're heading towards life, but if you were to go down them after finishing them already, it would feel like you're heading away from life and toward emptier-than-empty deadness.
At least that's the feeling I get, anyway.
It would be cool if a game were to exploit this effect intentionally. And I don't mean like Portal 2, which masterfully exploits this in an in-universe sense (the sealed-off "old Aperture" section), but in a meta sense. Like if you went back to old areas, they would be subtly modified to amp up the deader-than-dead feel on purpose. Like with creepy "hollow broadband noise" type ambience (there's one ambience in Project Eden like that, that sounds "dead", but I can't find a video or anything of it atm) and various small changes that you can't put your finger on that make it feel like I described up there. Or, maybe make it look like the game has so "expected" you not to come back here that it "can't quite remember" how this area should look, and it ends up making it be almost but not quite right, with things not in quite the right place, or not quite as they should be. Or make it like slightly "digitally rotted". I dunno. I think with some creativity, some really cool horror thing could be done with that.
<Username> on 14/4/2022 at 19:26
I had a similar experience with Resident Evil 4. After clearing a large portion of the castle, I got stuck and erroneously assumed I must have missed something earlier. So I went all the way back to the very first rooms, looking for clues. It was quite the trek. The longer I walked the now empty halls, the creepier the place felt. Where previously, enemies had attacked at every corner and shouting had filled the air, there was now dead silence. Blank walls and empty rooms with no movement. It felt like I was being watched. I started to hope for
something to happen to break the tension. That feeling of isolation and foreboding got so bad I hurried back to the room where I originally got stuck in. It was such a relief when I finally figured out how to move on from that room and enemies started attacking me again as I progressed in the game.
Quote Posted by FenPhoenix
There's a very strong and foreboding feeling that you are
not meant to be here. That you're in a place "forgotten by the game".
This nails it. This was how it felt for me as well.
mxleader on 22/5/2022 at 05:38
I guess I didn't think about the difference between T1 and T2 atmosphere until this thread. I think the ambient sounds in T1 really set the tone of lonely isolation, but at the same time you always feel that you are not alone and that something is near whether it's a guard or something else. The first FM that comes to mind that really has the same look and feel as the original T1 missions is Autumn in Lampfire Hills with it's lonely foreboding. The only mission in T2 that comes close to the same feeling is Shipping and Receiving and I think that it's mainly because of the ambient sounds. Loneliness in a video game is kind of a strange feeling to enjoy but yeah when you blackjack all of the guards and pop all of the zombies the game gets even more lonely. I think that is the angle. The immersion into the character of Garrett and the ability to suspend disbelief makes the game what it is and has been for so many years. Garrett in T1 missions are at times like looking at a photograph that has bit of important pieces cropped out and you strain to see the missing bits ... That's what draws people in.
wycha on 2/6/2022 at 13:43
I interpret that both games touch the loneliness and isolation; the way the game tries to awoke loneliness is different. To be more clear, diverge kind of loneliness. To illustrate that, the feeling of loneliness can be unalike in situation where someone escape from crowd to enjoy breath of fresh air and silence, and when one is in dark empty surroundings full of unfamiliar, rare noises, when at the same time seeing anyone (or anything) nor not seeing fuels the fear.
To be clear, The Dark Project/Gold is about literal loneliness as mentioned by others. Abandoned and eerie places. Creatures knows mostly from hearings or meeting from distance. While Thief the Metal Age deals with metaphorical loneliness within crowd. While humans and spaces are familiar, predictable even, they are all unknown and hostile (loud floors, well lit, crowded, always watching pair of imperfect eyes, guards and manmade horrors of abuse and technology). Garrett isn't part of societal hierarchy he steals from. Putting 'cultural differences' aside he must avoid human beings with only few exceptions, never interact with them - well its mandatory in one mission. While the plot of TMA also contains elements of making allies and putting trust to another people, Garrett tries to be distanced from the people who are friendly towards him.
Other users greatly explained why TDP areas makes us feel lonely and tense with uncanny valley, liminal space, abandoned areas. TDP hit jackpot with showing familiar and unfamiliar elements together by creature design, design of spaces and their purpose, ambience, (...). While TMA art direction did not. There is not enough uncanny and unfamiliar 'stuff' in it, which I believe it is possible to create tense/uncanny valley space while keeping it civilised, victorian, rich, shiny.
How about The Deadly Shadows though? From my personal experience with this tittle, it loneliness mostly comes from loosing allies, people. Yet it is something I didn't felt in major while playing it. Besides The Cradle and the Widow Moira missions. I am sure everyone are aware why The Cradle can be about isolation, so I explain myself with the Moira one. From the whole level, it was a burglary like any other mansion type of mission, it is the interaction with The Widow herself hit me. This delusion of whole situation, uncertainty if she is aware of who is Garrett, what happened to her husband, the lack of comfort from anyone besides bottle of wine servants refuse to give, and she gets it from a man who is robbing her house. Chef kiss, but the chef's lips has taste of melancholy.
For fanmissions... Some tittles are already mentioned. Also with great explanation, people can guess which one can touch the feeling of loneliness and isolation.
Last but not least, the loneliness is a feeling, while the video games and other arts know how to awoke some, this feeling still depends on the player, and this is the best part! Because someone's feelings towards 'situation' are aroused while no one else yet felt like that.
