myzoowiktoriaizydorczyk

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Final - Main Menu

I roughly sketched out how the main menu would look, then i lowered the opacity and using a 2.5 pxl brush I did the line art. To create the ONIZOO writing I used the text option, then saved only that as a png. and put this in the drawing - that way i could edit each letter seperetly. Then I rearranged them to make it look like it has been printed on the metal board, but since i wanted it to look like it has been cut out i outlined eachlater and added lines on each top part to make it look thicker. .

When i finished all of the lineart i blocked out each section in a different colour, then i proceeded to do the shading, then i used colour dodge to highlight some areas and use black airbrush to make different areas darker. To make it seem like there is a background I created the fog that is also in the cover, this makes it seem as though there is something in the distance but it’s too foggy and too dark to see it.

After adjusting the tone curve and mixing it with the original version, i once again turned the hud and the writing on, but the transparent white seemed boring so i copied, pasted and made it a darker tone to give it a little glitch effect. I also made all of that seem more reddish so it wouldn’t seem out of place compared to the background. I modified the hud from the original template I made : i set the timer to zero, gave it a full battery and removed the red dot next to REC as this is pre game so it’s not recording - hence why “Continue” is darker as there is no game file yet.

If this was a proper game:

the camera would be shaking up and down a bit to indicate breathing from the person that’s holding it

 the overlay would glitch a little on it’s own

when switching betweem things in the menu the select square would glitch

the fog would move

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Since this is a horror game where you have no choice but to run, I don’t want the HUD to remind the player that this is actually a game and they are save. Therefore since the protagonist is a journalist, I decided that there should be a camera like overlay which is at 70% opacity.

The timer would count up the time the player has played the game, while the battery charge would go down in certain checkpoints of the game, untill the character switches it to a new charged one around the halfway point - unlike in “Outlast” where the baterry goes down depending on how much you use it and you need to find baterries yourself to keep the camera rolling.

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Final - Game Cover

This game cover is based on one of the sketchy trials that previously, however it’s at a different view and the protagonist is hugging a different wall from the one she used to. I have decided to settle with the female version as since doing the trials I grew to like it more.

I began by doing a rough sketch using thick lines, however since I mainly did the outline of the hyena, I lowered the opacity and drew the hyena with more details over it. Then using both of those layers I went ahead and did really thin linear using a 3pxl brush.

I selected a standard pen brush and lowered its opacity to 20%, using this I could build up shadows in areas - focusing on what areas would be the darkest and which ones would be the hit the most by the light. There is a lot of rim lightning since I am trying to do the chiaroscuro effect. 

After I did that I asked for feedback on the lightning and I was reminded that since the hyena is between the protagonist and the light, there would not be as much light on her.

Once I finished working out the tonal differences, I blocked out the different areas of the drawing so I can colour it without worrying about going over the lines.

I did the proper shading for all areas except the gut and hair where I mainly airbrushed the shadow and highlight colours - plus on hyena the different patterns on him. Also I did not do the shadow of her hair on the forehead as I knew that likely after completing it the shape will change and I will have to fix it again.

To make the fur and hair seem more detailed, I took the shadow and highlight tones and did short strokes in the direction of the hair. I copied and pasted that layer, added more shadows with 20% opacity brush and blended it in. Then I lowered the opacity to still make the short strokes visible.

I took make the lightning more dramatic, I used a black airbrush to darken the areas and add softer shadows. I also added a lightsource behind the hyena, however some of the light goes over the animal to show the intensity of the light. 

Using custom brush I created for in the background and then fog in the foreground, this leads the viewer to think that there is a background - it’s just that it’s too dark too see it. I also added few sploches so it looks like there are random bit’s of dust just floating around.

I wrote the name of the “game” using the text tool, then I saved it with transparent background as a .png file, then placed it in the drawing behind some of the fog and shadows. Using the lasso tool I separated some of the areas making it look cracked, then I added some tone from top to bottom and then in between the cracks.

Since while drawing this I was inspired by “Alien: Isolation” cover I wanted the work to seem green, I decided to save the cover as PNG and change the hue of the entire drawing to more green, adapted the tone curve and darkened it more using an airbrush.

 However I decided that the green does not fit and since I already shaded everything with a green hue I could leave it how it is. So I repetead the process while leaving the first step out. This decision also caused it to fit in more with the current game covers of horror titles.

 Then I noticed that some areas which should have more light on them are too dark so i used colour dodge to create rim lightning on the hyena, the title and protagonist’s hair plus eyes, when I was done I lowered the opacity 

I’m much happier with this final than the one form previous term since this time I learned about Chiaroscuro effect and I did a small practice of it, so now it doesn’t look like the characters are standing in a void.

[myzoowiktoriaizydorczyk]

Colour Range in Horror Games

When you think of a horror game, you think of dark and cold colours, from the games I have analysed there is a gradient of colours as the games are newer. They mainly used black and blue, until in 2009 a warm colour appeard on the cover of ” Resident Evil 5″ for the first time  - it contrasts well among other games of that franchise.

Then the games started using green instead of blue - but three of those are from 1 franchise (Outlast) which uses the green colour to emphesise night vision mode of the cameras as it’s a key feature of this game. But there are outliers in that time zone: 

Resident Evil 6 is purple, it also stands out from other games in it’s franchise but not as much as 5th game as purple is a secondary colour of blue and red making it seem bland.

“Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs” is the second game that appears with warm colours, this contrasts the first game of that series which actually uses the popular green.

“The Evil Within” uses a monochrome of black and white tones which creates the biggest contrast so far between this game and the other ones. Also the game uses colour red for the title, since red and green are complementary this makes the game pop out even more.

titles. 

These outliers carried on into the next games as “The Dark Pictures Anthology” games are all bright like “The Evil Within” with hints of warm colours, except for the first game which looks blue since it probably wanted to play it safe with the colour they knew how to handle since “Until Dawn” is also blue. But both of these games beinh blue makes a lot of sense considering one of them takes place in winter on a mountian while the other at sea.

Even “Resident Evil 7” uses a bright cover which stands aspecially from it’s previous games due to the colours and the fact that it illustrates an old house instead of characters armed to the teeth.

Eventhough the games seem in lighter tones, there are a few that are still dark, mainly “Resident Evil 2 remake″ and “Resident Evil 3 remake”, “Amnesia Rebirth” and “Darkwood”.

The first two use the old blue and black format to honour the original games, however there is a warm light in the first cover as well as both covers have two letters of the title in red emphesising that they are new.

“Amnesia:Rebirth” is like that so it can fit along with the previous Amnesia titles, even though there is more black space than ever which I suspect is to make the light and warm light more attractive to the eye.

“Darkwood” started it’s development in 2013, which is when the games all used to be mainly black, so technically it’s the first monochromatic cover on this list.

In horror games the dominating colour seems to be green, however the base colours of the animal and protagonist are warmer and more reddish. So I overlayed the back colours with green and yellow colour to get the shadow and highlight colour - these were mostly used as guidelines as later on I varied from these tones.

Creating my own cover

Eventhough the covers are starting to get brighter, I wanted to include the  chiaroscuro effect. The animals I twisted are more reddish, as well as the colour scheme of my character - which means I can use that to my advantage as it fits in with the current titles.

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Sketchy Trials

I took some charcoal and sketched the protagonist encountering the various animals that would appear in the zoo, those are the moments that would happen in the game. I decided to use the female protagonist since I like the female outfit more, I might use one of these ideas for front cover which is a part of finality of this project.

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Developing the protagonist

Since the protagonists face has not been created in the sketching process, I had to do it here. I began by drawing three different faces and making all of their features vary. Then I took certain elements I liked from them to create a face. From the faces I created I then chose one to be the one of my main character.

After creating a face I played around with three hairstyles they could have, keeping in mind that they are supposed to be a young news reporter who is desperetly trying to get their career rolling. Remembering their story I went ahead with the first hairstyle as it’s messy and gender neutral since at this point I haven’t decided whether the protagonist will be a man or a woman - 2nd hairstyle seemed too feminane and 3rd one is too unprofessional for someone who want’s to be a journalist.

Since I still have not decided weather or not this would be a female or male, I decided to sketch both a male and female version, to make the face more feminane I drew a bottom and top lip plus eyelashes. Eventhough I had some practice drawing females I still think her anatomy is way off since she looks like she has an hourglass figure and her arms are too small. The male version also looks too thin, even though I wanted to keep him relatively slender, mainly his shoulder and his body should be wider. However since this is a sketch I decided to move on.

Those are both the outfits I have already sketched before, I have drawn them swiftly on top of the sketched bodies mainly so I could test out the colour scheme I would give those clothes. I think I will make the protagonist a female since people tend to be sexsist so it would make more sense for her to be struggling to be a successfull journalist even though you see male characters as protagonists (aspecially in horror games) more often.

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Sketching the protagonist

In my last project I had instantly decided what gender and body type the character would have, so to not make that excact mistake I decided to create rough sketches which would be in different categories, then I would mix certain aspects together. In all of them I added a meerkat just so they wouldn’t be randomly standing there. 

All of the characters were sketched in mind with the fact that this is a young journalist who is struggling to work their way up in the industry - meaning that the character would have to look professional and be relatively young.

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Lion in Voxel

Since this is a creature for a horror game I wanted to create it in Voxel to show how one design varies in different media and how certain themes do not translate in other forms. Since I have used MagicaVoxel in Year 1 I decided to create a model of my twisted lion in 80 80 80 scale.

First i began by roughly building up and chiseling down the face, then added blocks around the head to create the mane. I used a tool that created cubes between the place I click the mouse and the place I let go at as it was effective in covering large areas, however to add more detail i used a tool which only build up on the blocks that my mouse was. Using this tool I switched between “add” and “remove” to add more details into the mane, making it more rough and less blocky. After the mane I created the ears and the fence bit since if I did that before then they might have gotten disfigured while creating the mane. 

Using the same tool I switched it to paint mode and used 8 colours to paint the voxel, in the mane the colours are placed randomly on top of the base while on the skin the darker colours are in the areas that catch less light. After colouring I rendered the voxel  to give it a bit more ominous setting.

But how does this voxel prove the fact that not all media can translate horror well ? Well since everything is so blocky it’s hard to add a lot of details which would make the animal more twisted and scarry. Even the darker shadows don’t help that much, to make this model terrifying it would have to rely a lot on sound, animation and setting.

Render Options

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Chiaroscuro effect

Chiaroscuro effect’s most famous and talented user was Caravaggio and his followers who used a harsh, dramatic light to isolate their figures and heighten their emotional tension

I took a pencil and lightly sketched out how this will look, then I went over it with a 0.1 mm fineliner and then I erased everything. I used 6 alcogol based markers, building up from brightest to darkest to add shadow.

I scanned in the traditional artwork and started tracing over the lineart digitally, however since I have recently bough a digital tablet with a screen and I got really used to it so when I drew at school with a tablet that doesn’t have a screen I was really struggling with creating lines. Also since I do not have Photoshop at home I decided to keep this one sketchy and prepare for the next step.

I once again traced over my previous work, since I was using the tablet with a screen I wasn’t struggling at all. I blocked out all areas seperetly and then I rendered them. After rendering I used an airbrush to darken some areas since both of my previous works - aspecially the first one- were too bright for this effect.

I think that I did not do this effect correctly since you can still see the stuff in the background while you are only supposed to see few things. I think that if it wasn’t  backlit but instead the lightsource would be in front of the lion then it would be much more like the  Chiaroscuro effect

source: https://www.britannica.com/art/chiaroscuro

[myzoowiktoriaizydorczyk]

Until Dawn

“Until Dawn” is an interactive drama survival horror game developed by “Supermassive Games” and published by “Sony Interactive Entertainment”, it was officially released in 2015 only on PlayStation 4.

“Supermassive Games” was founded in 2008 and currently has 200 employees. They are known the most for creating “Until Dawn” and recently launched “The Dark Pictures Anthology” which is a series of stand alone horror games. 

About

“Until Dawn” is a survival horror which is played in third person, throughout the game you switch between eight characters. The game is filled with quick time events which can decide weather or not the character you play lives or dies, but also relationships with other characters and interactions with the environment can also decide on the survival. You can die by failing a quick time event in the most action filled scenes or even by simply opening a hatch which is not even an objective during the calmest moment. Even if you suceed all the quick time events and your character needs someone elses help and that is someone you insulted they will not help you : resulting in death. Every decisions matters, it decides on your survival.

Story

Story of Blackwood

The mountain on which the story is taking place has been cursed by the Spirit of Wendigo. Anyone who finds themself starving on top of these mountains will be forced by the spirit to perform cannibalism, after doing so they will be lost forever.

Their limbs will start to grow, their teeth getting larger and sharper and their strength and speed increase massively. The most interesting feature is what happens with the Wendigos eyes as they become much more powerfull while simulteniously are the biggest weakness. The wendigo can only detect movement, which means it’s effective at catching a running away pray however by stealth it can even stand right next to you and not notice you.

In these mountains there are mines, which collapsed causing some people to result in cannibalism. However before their transformation they have been rescued and transported to a Sanatorium. There they transformed killing everyone in their sights.

The wendigos have been trapped in there ever since by a character we only know as the Stranger since killing the wendigos causes their spirit to be free and find another victim.

Prologue of the Game

Three siblings invite their seven friends for annual winter getaway, some of the friends decide to play a prank on one of the sisters - humiliating her. She rans out into the woods followed by her sister who wants to comfort her. After joining up together they ealise that something is following them- a wendigo- ,as they try to run they accidently fall of a massive cliff -resulting in death of one of the sisters and the other becoming a Wendigo.

Story of the Game

After a year the brother of missing sisters invites his seven friends once again to the mountain. However the brother has gone crazy after the disappearance of his sisters so he pretends that he is a psychopath that is there to kill them all. Eventhough he traumatises each of his friends by staging his own death and staging a scenario where they have to kill at least one or they both die, no one dies by his hand. However as his friends split up the Wendigo sister starts hunting others and try to murder them. 

Game Trailer

The Game Trailer is amazing since it only focuses on the fact that there is a psychopath on the mountain hunting everyone down, but there is no mention whatsoever about any Wendigos and supernatural. It shows some deaths, but it does not reveal where or how they died and since this game is based on players actions some players might not even see the death shown in the trailer - and if they do they wouldn’t expect it since there are so many ways to die.

sources: 

https://www.supermassivegames.com/about

https://until-dawn.fandom.com/wiki/Until_Dawn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT2HtIEUXuk

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The Dark Pictures Anthology

“The Dark Pictures Anthology” is a series of stand alone games which all take place in the same universe, they are developed by  Supermassive Games and published by  Bandai Namco Entertainment. It currently consists of two games and one is to be released next year : “Man of Medan” (2019), “Little Hope”(2020) and “House of Ashes”(2021) - there are planned to be 8 of them in total.

All three games are categorised as survival gorror, adventure and exploration - eventhough it was developed by the same studio as ”Until Dawn”, these games are not considered as popular as their hit game. The Anthology games just like “Until Dawn” rely on quick time events and are supposed to be played multiple times as it is not possible to see all the content with one playthrough but their gameplay only lasts around four hours, while Until Dawn has 10 hours of content.

“Man of Medan”(2019)

“Man of Medan” is based on the legend of a ghost ship SS Ourang Medan where the entire crew mysteriously died. The story is about 4 Americans who have heard rumours of a WWII wreck nearby which has plenty of on-deck goods. A storm traps them on the ghost ships where they have to fight for survival and escape to safety.

Trailer

The trailer shows us some scenes from the game play, however the suprising thing is it shows actual people playing the game - which is something you never see in game trailers, aspecially horror games - they did that to emphesise the fact that you can play this game with your friends. This option is something new however playing horror games with someone is not as scarry as when you play alone since what will probably happen is someone will start cracking jokes and the tension will cease.

I think that they might be aware of the reduced horror factor due to multiplayer as the music that they used does not fit a horror game at all - in horror games the sound is usually high pitched and quick paced but here the music makes it seem like you are the one in control and there is nothing to fear. The music along with the creature effects makes me think of “Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War”(2020) which is a first person shooter - which is not similar at all gameplay wise.

“Little Hope” (2020)

“Little Hope” is based on witch trials in Salem and Andover. Four college student and their teacher are trapped in a town miles away from anywhere as their bus crashes and their bus driver disappears. They are trapped by a mysterious fog in the town of Little Hope where visions of their past lives haunt them. 

Also this game pulls out the worst trick in the book and everything is a hallucination so it doesn’t matter weather the characters die or not - it’s all pointless.

Trailer

In the trailer we instantly are welcomed back by a man who is The Curator of Stories - he is the one that records the stories of each game and tells them to us, to the players. The welcome back doesn’t make sense unless you played the previous game - and these are supposed to be stand alone games- since you do not meet him in the trailer.

This Trailer starts out much better than the previous one since it’s a child singing a children’s song but it echoes and has creepy sounds in the background. However it all get’s flipped upside down when once again they want to show that the game can be played in multiplayer and they do it in a much worse way than before - they add cameras on bottom of the screen anytime it show’s gameplay almost as if this is a youtube video and they comentate over the game and talk about it. WHY?! If they removed them then the trailer would have been much better. They try to do a one of the players is posessed or something halfwaythrough and after that they disappear, but the music changes to the crappy one that does not fit.

“House of Ashes”(2021)

“House of Ashes” is taking place in Iraq after the end of the war, Special Forces which searched for weapons of mass destruction find a Sumerian temple infested with ancient creatures in the Arabian Desert - to survive they form an allience with their war enemies.

Trailer

The trailer is considerably shorter than the previous ones, this time it doesn’t show players and doesn’t even mention weather or not this one is multiplayer - however that might be solely due to the fact that this game has not been released yet and there are no gameplay elements in the trailer.

Eventhough this is the first trailer that shows guns and has people fighting against something, this is the one that seems the most helpless because of the music - it’s not hype, it’s calm and almost tragic.

The music in this is thousand times better, it’s reminiscent of Iraqi traditional music which is perfect since it both fits the locations and the echoing effect that they added along with it and low bass noises makes it much more creepy and mysterious. In this trailer we actually do not see the creature which will make it more terrifying when you actually see them in game - in contrast in “Man of Medan” one of the creatures T posed threateningly at one point over the protagonist. 

“O Death “ song and it’s recurrence in Supermassive Games 

“Man of Medan” and “ Little Hope” both use a cover of a song “O Death” by Ralph Stanley, but the cover that they do does not fit in at all with horror game theme. I find this really annoying since they also have a different cover of this song for “Until Dawn” except that cover was good and fit in with the game. I can understand that they use one song for the Anthology but it would make more sense if they used a different song that the one they used in their previous game - it’s almost as if they are out of ideas. But the remeeding thing is that they do not use the song in “House of Ashes” which makes it a million times better but then it doesn’t fit in with the other two that had it - but I am glad it’s not used again.

sources: 

https://www.thedarkpictures.com/

https://www.thedarkpictures.com/man-of-medan

https://www.thedarkpictures.com/little-hope

https://www.thedarkpictures.com/house-of-ashes

https://thedarkpictures.fandom.com/wiki/The_Dark_Pictures_Anthology

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7q5SHNDJAc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3NlyiwpdlI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0gnHeW4Hf8

[myzoowiktoriaizydorczyk]

Amnesia The Game Trilogy

Amnesia is a Trilogy of Games, the first one being “Amnesia: The Dark Descent”(2010), then “Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs”(2013) and the last one “Amnesia: Rebirth” (2020)

“Frictional Games” is the studio that developed the first and the third game in the Amnesia series. They started out in 2007 as a virtual company of 25 employees around Europe, later on they set up an office in Malmö,Sweden which consists of half of these employees and interns.

“The Chinese Room” is the studio that developed “The Dark Descent”, the company originated as a mod team for Half Life 2 based in University of Portsmouth in 2007, in 2018 they became a subsidiary of Sumo Digital.

About

All of the Amnesia games are first person perspective survival horror adventures, all of the protagonists are amnesiacs that explore mysterious and dangerous locations while solving puzzles, maintaining sanity and avoiding monsters. Even though this is a horror game, there are only few jump scares - the game relies on music and atmosphere to manipulate the players mind into making the games scarier than they actually are.

The player has to avoid and run away from enemies since there is no way of fighting back. The locations are usually dark so you are forced to carry around a lantern and light up torches you find, if you do not do that then the character’s sanity will decrease and eventually lead to death.

Each of the games is taking place in a different locations and at a different point in time, there is also a different protagonist in all of the games. The main protagonist wakes up in a abandoned location, with no clue of what they are doing there. They explore the are and find their own items, notes and diary entries of his own dairy. As they collects those items he starts to remember what happened.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent

Story

The protagonist - Daniel -goes on an expedition to Africa in 1832 to find an Orb which has supernatural powers and has influenced history of Britan. During the expedition he finds it, however the floor collapses and he is later on rescued by Arab Diggers. He is forced to come back to England, however his team suddenly disappears, Daniel then realises that everyone he comes in contact with dies soon after his visit. Paranoid that he is next, he manages to find help from Alexander of Brennenburg.

Turns out that Alexander is torturing animals and humans to extract an essence (”vitae”) which is used to activate the orb, he manipulates Daniel into helping him to kidnap and torture people as doing this will free him of the “Shadow” that is killing everyone around him, but in turn he can use the orb for his own purposes.

Daniel get’s filled with guilt as he realises what he is doing, he decides that he wants to start anew without those horrible images so he drinks a poison that causes amnesia - only leaving him self a not with his name, his willingness to forget, and resolve to kill Alexander for what he has done. This is where the game begins. 

Then he is on a quest of escaping form the “Shadow” and trying to prevent Alexander from completing his ritual but most importantly to kill him.

Trailer

I like how the trailer started zooming in on a colapsed tunnel, they tried to build tension but It would have worked better if they had music building up there. Instead they bump up the music when they show the character wandering around the castle, even though there is nothing there the tension builds up but it’s ruined  they cut between two different locations, the music just stops and changes to a different one.

After the character jumps into a hole it blacks out after a while to show a chase scene - it would have made more sense if it switched instantly mid jump. 

Then again after an intense scene the character just walks infront of an enemy and crouches there staring at him - which makes no sense. This trailer would have made more sense if they decided not to show the enemies which would have created a intrigued people and made them want to buy the game.

Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs

Story

In 1899, the protagonist Oswald Mandus returned from a disastrous expedition to Mexico, he was hit by fever and has returned home. He falls asleep for months, he dreams of a dark machine until he wakes up - when he does he hears his children calling for him.

During his search Mandus hears a machine, then a phone calls him to tell him that if he wishes to save his children he needs to repair the machine. When he manages to do so, he realises that he has been betrayed as he has killed his children before falling asleep and the voice was his other half of his soul that is combined with the machine. 

The machine unleashes an army of pigment into London, Oswald then goes and destroys the machine learning that he killed his children after seeing a vision of their death in WW1. He then destroys the machine, dying along with it. 

Trailer

This trailer starts off with a child talking which is always a scary feature to add to a trailer, aspecially if like in this cas, there is a demonic muffled voice talking along with them. They use those high pitched sounds and build the tension from the very start, which is absolutely great, then they do a montage of locations that switches in the rythm of the music.

One of these scenes I find hilarious as they show that the protagonist is starting to pull a lever, but then they suddenly stops - this is because in Amnesia games a lot of people struggle with interacting with things such as doors, levers etc. as the mechanic of that seems a little broken: they could have easily redone that moment and they would only waste 5 seconds.

After the exploration of the locations, they do a well executed transition from calm to sneaking around in absolute since with no music but horrifying sounds of the pigman. Unlike in the previous trailer, this time they don’t show the monster which is amazing as they make the player scared just using the noise and saving the suprise of seeing it for themself.

Amnesia: Rebirth

Story

This game is set in 1937, Anastasie “Tasi” Trianon wakes up in a crashed plane in an Algerian dessert. She searches for her missing companions, as she travels she finds notes that give her back the memories. She discovers that she has a relic that can make her jump into other realities and then she remembers that she is pregnant. 

She ends up at an abandoned French fort, the military killed for unknown reason. She remembers they were here before, she manages to find a radio and contacts one of the survivors who tells her to go to a village nearby. However the building crumbles and she falls deeper into the ruins, she has to avoid ghouls which try to attack and kill her. She finds her self in the alien world, where she learns that the ghouls are there hunting her since they want to capture them and create “vitae” to extend their lives. But the world was destroyed  and “Shadows” have emerged, these shadows decided to chase after Tasi as she had to use an Orb to return to her reality. 

After returning her pregnancy developed few months, she discovers the remains of an expedition from the first game. As she is about to rift to the village, the shadows cause her to go to the alienworld where she discovers that her child is really sick, a spirit tells her that vitae can cure her child ( players choice), she also discovers that the spirit was the ruler of that land but an uprising stood against her which destroyed the other world. 

She finally finds the village but her pregnancy developed once more and everyone there is dead, she enters a tower where one of her companions is turning into a ghoul - the ghoul dies by the hand of her other companion and Tasi gives birth in a nearby cave but they steal her relic and her child. 

She runs into the other world, she remembers that the spirit offered to save the group after the crash in exchange for the baby. When Tasi denied, the spirit tricked them into drinking a fountain that infected them and started causing them to turn into ghouls - hence why taxi’s companion stole the child, to bargain for a cure.

Tasi kills her companion and is faced with a choice weather or not to give up her child to the spirit or not. Leaving her would mean that the child would live, however taking her means that she would eventually die.

Trailer

This trailer shifts from the crashed plane and the protagonist exploring the mysterious ruins around her. As the man in the radio get’s more desperate, the protagonists starts panting and runnining for her life the music builds up until it suddenly stops when she gets trapped.

After a few seconds with no music, we are blasted with it, there is so much of different sounds that you cannot wrap your head around them - this represents how the protagonists must feel as she is once again fighting for sutvival

sources:

https://amnesia.fandom.com/wiki/Amnesia:_The_Dark_Descent

https://amnesia.fandom.com/wiki/Amnesia:_A_Machine_for_Pigs

https://amnesia.fandom.com/wiki/Amnesia:_Rebirth

https://frictionalgames.com/about-frictional/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chinese_Room

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1nY_5-UrY4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZV6Fwx_Sf4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NiQAlGUw_o

[myzoowiktoriaizydorczyk]

Outlast

“Outlast” is a first person survival horror game developed and published by “Red Barrels” in 2013. 

“Red Barrels” is a game developing company which was founded in 2011, they have 27 employees. Their headquarters is at Montreal, Canada. The studio was founded by Philippe Morin and David Chateauneuf, both of them worked on popular games such as “Assassins Creed”, also it was founded by Hugo Dallaire who was an art director of “Splinter Cell”.

About

“Outlast” is a survival horror in which you play as a defenseless  journalist trapped in an asylum which is in an emergency state as all the patients have been released, the staff murdered and special forces exterminated. 

Story

“Outlast” is a game about a journalist called Miles Upshur who travelled to the Mount Massive Asylum to write a news story about it. Initially the protagonist is trying to figure out what happened in the Mount Massive Asylum, however when he discovers that this is the death trap he tries to go back and leave as quickly as possible. Unfortunately he encountered a patient which wanted bloodshed, causing him to go further into the Asylum. 

Upshur discovers that there is a military base under the asylum where there was an experiment known as “Project Walrider”. This was an experiment on an inmate which caused him to control a ghost like entity, with this power he decided to kill everyone and caused chaos and insanity throughout the entire asylum. At the end, Upshur manages to kill the physical body of the Walrider however he gets possessed and becomes the new host of the entity - at the end of the game he gets shot by the military.

Game Trailer

I like the trailer since there is a noticeable contrast between the tone of the person talking and what we see. The camera never cuts, it just goes smoothly throughout the entire area showing us the destroyed building and massacred people. The person speaks really carelessly, almost as if they didn’t understand how horrible the situation is : this is perfect since it causes a surprise for when you see him at the very end of the trailer - but this moment is build up as music get’s more intense and you hear a heartbeat beating faster and faster. His voice shifts from a careless and light tone to deep and seriously as he shows him self, this pushes the fact that you should not trust anyone - not even someone who used to be a doctor at this place.

Outlast : Whistleblower

Outlast: Whistle blower is a DLC for the original game, it start’s and ends both before and after the events of the main game. The DLC also has the same mechanics as the main game. The protagonist of this game is Waylon Park who is a software engineer at Mount Massive Asylum, after seeing torture on one of the inmates he sends a tip to Miles Upsher to see what is happening in the Asylum. Unfortunately, he get’s caught and is used for painful tests, however the Walrider breaks free enabling him to escape.  

When he escapes he manages to find a camcorder and records all of the events he witnesses in the asylum, eventually managing to escape in Upshur’s car as the dead man him self watches him leave from in front of the Asylum. Park publishes the video of the madness at Mount Massive, aiming to destroy the company and stop any more experiments.

DLC Trailer

I love that there is this cheery old music playing through a radio, it’s contrasts what we see in every shape imaginable, it emphesises the fact that these people at one point or another used to live a free life. As the trailer progresses the music gets quieter as screams and weapons of torture get louder, it represents how downhill the patients lives went - from free, trapped in an asylum, tortured to being free in asylum and returning back all that they lived through on the staff members and eventually on other patients.

This trailer does not smoothly go through one place like the one of this game does, since this is a DLC it focuses more on the locations that we see as it progresses. 

Outlast 2

The story of the second game is happening in the same universe as the one of the first game, however this game is taking place in Arizona and there are characters that we have never heard of before. The game was released in  2017 .

Story

The protagonist, Blake Langerman, is travelling to Arizona to investigate the murder of a pregnant woman. He is travelling by helicopter along with his pregnant wife when they suddenly crash. When he wakes up he is surround by cult Christians who take his wife, after rescuing her they are chased until once more his wife is taken and her child is proclaimed as the antichrist. 

You find the father of the woman you came to investigate, he reveals that he was being forced to kill her but instead he gave her a chance to escape. You are found by Christians once again and they crucify you, but you escape eventually freeing your wife and running away. Unfortunately your wife is in labour and gives birth to the child, dying in the process. The game ends as you walk away, everyone else dead.

Game Trailer

The trailer has a distressed woman singing in it, it sounds like a lullaby aspecially considering that she says “little (x) what you do”. She sings of the “father up above”, telling us that the theme of this game is religion aspecially that throughout the trailer there are many crucifixes. 

My favourite thing is when the lullaby gets interrupted as someone else screams that there is an outsider - shows us an insight contrast of one of the cult members life and a normal human beings who ends up in this place ironically forgotten by God. This is such a good opportunity to switch from showing locations to the gameplay and they take it, further emphesising the contrast of the womans and protagonists perspective.

sources:

https://redbarrelsgames.com/about/

https://outlast.fandom.com/wiki/Outlast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx-DT8wUY80

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aMJB6BDX4w

https://outlast.fandom.com/wiki/Outlast:_Whistleblower

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTM2655BA6U-

[myzoowiktoriaizydorczyk]

Resident Evil

“Resident Evil” is a survival horror video game series that has 9 out of the 10 games are in in third person where you actively use guns to fight off the enemies. The franchise started all the way in 1996, it currently has 7 original games and 3 remakes.

Capcom was founded in 1979 in Osaka, Japan by Kenzo Tsujimoto. This is a video game company that has also released few films based on their hit selling franchise Resident Evil.

Resident Evil I

This is the game that started the entire franchise, it was published in 1996 for Playstation, however the game got a remake in 2002 as Shinji Mikami - the designer and director of original game - felt like the game did not age well and the GameCube could bring it closer to original vision.

Story

The protagonists are Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, they investigate Raccoon City where their team members of an elite taskforce “S.T.A.R..S” disappears, they get trapped inside a mansion which is invested with zombies and other monsters.

Trailer

Eventhough this is a horror game, there is nothing scare about this aspecially considering the fast paced music that plays the entire time. The trailer switches between real life recordings which were used as cinematics and recordings, it also censors out any gruesome elements. This is not what I expected from the trailer that started this franchise but this is the oldest game out of all the games i looked at.

Remake Trailer

This is the first trailer that uses high pitched music to create the ominous feeling and build tension - this is the first trailer from the franchise that does this. They have clearly learned what is good and not from the previous three trailers : showing different characters, limiting the amount of times we see monsters, ending on a hopeless moment.

Resident Evil II

The second game of this franchise was published in 1998, this time Shinji Mikami was the producer while Hideki Kamiya was the director. After years of requesting a remake the director Hideki Kamiya finally convinced Capcom to create a remake which was published in 2019.

Story

Two months after events of the first game, Kennedy and Claire Redfield must escape Raccoon City after the citizens are transformed into zombies by biological weapons.

Trailer

This trailer only shows us the cinematic events of the game, but unlike in the previous one they are using the game locations and models and not realy life. Also this time we hear the sound effects of the scene and there are actually characters talking, the music they use in the background quiet, deep and ominnous at first but later more action like as they show the character encountering more zombies and other monsters.

Remake Trailer

Resident Evil III

Just like the previous game it was produced by Shinji Mikami but directed by Kazuhiro Aoyama , this game was released in 1999 and remade 21 years later in 2020. However this game was directed by  Kiyohiko Sakata Yasuhiro instead.

Story

Jill Valentine and Carlos Oliveira are tring to survive the zombie apocalypse while being hunted by an intellegent bioweapon known as Nemesis.

Trailer

This trailer once again developed as it doesn’t only show scenes with the protagonists but it also includes the policeforce encountering the infected and fighting. This is also the first one that makes you feel hopeless as it ends with every character dying and being eaten, this contrasts the music which makes it sound as though the heroes have arrived and will stop those creatures.

Remake Trailer

Resident Evil IV

This game is once again directed and written by Shinji Mikami.This is also the biggest gap between Resident Evil games as this one was released 6 years after the previous game - in 2005.

Story

Leon S. Kennedy is sent on a rescue mission to save U.S. president’s daughter Ashley Graham who has been kidnapped by a cult, this time instead of zombies he fights humans infected by a mind controlling parasite as he eventually gets joined by Ada Wong.

Trailer

Since this trailer came out after the remake of the first game was released, they decided to drop the spooky and horror theme. It reminds me of the “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” as it flashes between characters and surrounds them with words and phrases that describe them.

Resident Evil V

This game form 2009 is chronologically the first game from Resident Evil franchise that was not directed nor produced by Shinji Mikami as the director of this game is Yasuhiro Anpo and the produver is  Jun Takeuchi .

Story

Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar investigate a terrorist threat by as a terrorist plans to sell a bioweapons, however to stop him they also must fight humans which are being mind controlled by a parasite.

Trailer

They once again came back to the ominous aspect of trailesr, as they used only vocals based of traditional African music - location of the gam. But all they do is show the city, until the music stops when we see the first infected transform - that’s when we see acton and the music switches to being fast.

Resident Evil VI

Published in 2012, this game was directed by  Eiichiro Sasaki and produced by  Yoshiaki Hirabayashi. 

Story

There are four seperate campains that connect the same story, you play as Chris Redfield, Leon S. Kennedy, Jake Muller or Ada Wong depending on which one you choose. The world is once again being consumed by zombies and they travel from America to China to find the one responsible for it.

Trailer

The trailer shows us three of the four campaigns of this game, in fact they never even show that Ada Wong is in this game. It starts by telling us that there is no way of fighting it as even the U.S. President is infected, along with 70 thousand people. During this segment the trailer shows us the abandoned ruins of this city. Then it focuses on the gameplay which shows the characters fighting, and shows even more combat along with the other two campaigns while their respective protagonists talk over the music giving us hints as to what is hapenning.

Resident Evil VII

This game is not like any of the previous ones as this is the only game where you play in first person perspective but your character is also defensless. This game was released in 2017 - directed by  Koshi Nakanishi and produced by  Masachika Kawata.

Story

Ethan Winters is a civillian who searches for his missing wife Mia, he ends up in a derelict plantation mansion where the Baker family which is infected by a wierd virus. 

Trailer

Since the gameplay as well as the story of this game is much different, the trailer also needs to stand out form the rest. Throughout the entire trailer there is a song which is really low pitched which contrasts with the highpitched noises that  sometimes are added in the trailer. The trailer shows us the character wandering around the house as well as few shots that just show us things irrelevant to game play - outside of the house, animal decomposing etc. There are only few cuts where we see the protagonist being attacked by the antagonists, which is perfect as it keeps that element of suprise for the gameplay.

sources:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m80hA5bRk0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJYSznumed0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gun-MVEWg40

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjxFtFwY6jk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KTghW30ZuY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxJbz_3PKQo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sS_bGpe9qE8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3zIzY6M3fQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3wS-Q2KBpk

[myzoowiktoriaizydorczyk]

The Evil Within

The Evil Within (also known as Psychobreak in Japan) is a third person survival horror game  that was developed by Tango Gameworks and published by Bethesda Sodtworks in 2014. A direct sequel was developed and published by the same companies in 2017. 

The studio has been founded by Shinji Mikami who wanted to offer opportunities for young creators of this industry in AAA titles in 2010. Their headquarters is located in Shibaura in Tokyo, Japan.

About

In this game you battle disfigured nightmare-like enemies by using guns and melee weapons, eventhough you mainly fight the enemies, in some moments yoo have to use stealth to get by. 

Story

Sebastian Castellanos is a detective and the main protagonist, he arrives at a scene of mass murder at Beacon Mental Hospital. When he arrives he finds a lone survivor and video feed where he sees policemen shooting at something invisible before being murdured as a hooded man stands there. When the video ends he figure appears behind Sebastian.

Sebastian wakes up trapped in a room with dead bodies, as he manages to escape the Asylum he realises that this is not the world he was in. There was a massive earthquake and he is forced to flee into the forest that is filled with deadly enemies. It turns out he is in STEM. STEM is a made up world created for a man who wanted to live a perfect live with his deceased lover, however another company got involved and twisted the place into a nightmare.

Trailer

The trailer starts off well, showing us the beginning of the game where he wakes up in STEM, the music is imonous and more in the background as sounds of the environment overwhelm them  - creacking floors, blood dripping, door squeaking and cutting meat. But then, before the tension get’s even close to peaking, it get’s killed as there is a narrator which comments on everything that is hapenning. Telling us how the game works, what to do or not to do. The narrator is aware that this is the game and talks in a calm and stiff voice - it would have been better if at least the narrator was the main character talking to himself in his head and commenting on his own actions. 

The Evil Within 2

This game was developed and released by the same studio in 2017, however unlike in the previous game, the founder of the Tango Gameworks was not in the lead of the team creating this game.

Story

Three years after events of the original game, Sebastian’s wife disappears and his daughter dies in a house fire. it turns out her death was staged and she is the new host for STEM, Sebastian is forced to enter stem and rescue her. Eventhough it’s supposed to be an idyllic town, it’s filled to the brim with monsters once again.

It turns out that his wife along with few of her associated wanted to use Lily to destroy STEM once and for all, however one of them decided to betray them. Sebastian and his wife manage to fin Lily, so she decides to sacrifice herself and become a new host so that she can destroy the place. The woman dies as her family manages to escape from all of these cursed events.

Trailer

Most importantly, they got rid of the narrator. This time all the talking in this trailer is done by the characters, this focuses mainly on showing us all of the eniemies including he main antagonist. This is good to show off their twisted creations, however it takes away the element of suprise when you actually play the game as you have seen them before.

sources: 

https://theevilwithin.fandom.com/wiki/The_Evil_Within

https://theevilwithin.fandom.com/wiki/The_Evil_Within_2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPNYGpV0XW0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEBnIsVvECA

[myzoowiktoriaizydorczyk]

Alien: Isolation

“Alien: Isolation” is a survival horror released in 2014. It was developed by “Creative Assembly” and “Feral Interactive” and published by “Sega”,”Feral Interactive” and “SEGA of America”. The game is a continuation of the popular movie franchise “Aliens”

“Creative Assembly” was established in 1987, it has over 750 employees and two studios in West Sussex, UK and Sofia, Bulgaria - making it one of the oldest and largest game developers in Europe.

“Feral Interactive” was founded in 1996, it’s located in London, UK. They have around 50 - 100 employees.

About

“Alien: Isolation” is a first person survival horror game where you have to be stealthy to survive on a space station that is also occupied by an Alien which wants to kill the humans inhabiting the station. 

Story

Fifteen years after the disappearance of Ellen Ripley, the mother of Amanda Ripley ( the protagonist ) is offered to join a mission to retrieve a black box of her mum’s lost ship which is on Sevastopol Station. Soon they discover that the station is severely damage and as Ellen and her group attempt to freewill inside, she gets separated form her group and enters alone without any way of contacting her team. 

As she gets inside, she found one of the human inhabitants who explained the situation on the station - there is an alien that kills all human being and the robot androids kill anyone who attempts to contact the outside worlds.

Turns out that the ship that recovered the black box followed the flight data to find the ship it self, they found them self on a planet where the Aliens were found in the first place. One of the cremates was impregnated by a Facehugger,  due to her unknown illness she was bought to the Sevastopol station where the Alien was unleashed.

After eventually killing the alien, the robots went ahead to kill all of the humans on the station. Turns out that they were programmed to protect the Aliens and kill anyone who might harm them, so when the alien was killed they deemed everyone on the station a threat. Turnout that all the inhabitants that have been presumed dead were trapped in the reactor core and acted as hosts for new aliens.

Amanda learns of her mothers fate, she decides to do the same and she blows up the space station. After making it to a ship, she discovers that there is another alien there, so she sucks herself and the alien out into the space - later on discovered to still be alive.

Game Trailer

The game trailer shows only cinematic shots that happen throughout the game, the trailer explains who the character motivation and how everything goes downhill when they arrive at the station. It mostly focuses on the environments and sometimes on characters, but they keep the alien away from screen until the very end of the trailer. This really gives us the feeling that the character is isolated from everyone, everything is broken. Keeping the alien a mystery makes is seem more dangerous when it actually appears on the screen.

sources: 

https://www.creative-assembly.com/studio

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_Interactive

https://avp.fandom.com/wiki/Alien:_Isolation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h0cgmvIrZw

[myzoowiktoriaizydorczyk]

Darkwood

“Darkwood” was successfully crowdfunded on Indiegogo in 2013, gathering more than $57,000. The game was initially released in July 2014 as an early access, however the full game was published in August 2017. The game was developed and published by “Acid Wizard Studio” and “Crunching Koalas”.

“Acid Wizard Studio” was founded in March 2013, located in Warsaw, Poland. This studio involves “three guys (and a dog)” who specialise in “making trippy games”. 

“Crunching Koalas” is a studio that started in 2012 and was formed by 5 people: three if them were inexperienced indie developers and two casual game industry veterans. This studio is also located in Warsaw, Poland.

About

“Darkwood” is a survival horror from a top-down perspective, the maps are randomly generated woods where you need to scavenge for materials to survive the night. You are free to explore the map during the day, every decision you make affects the story and other characters, however when night arrives you need to find a shelter and defend yourself from various horror creatures that are eager to kill you. 

Story

Story of the Game :

Events of the game begin in August 1975, when an object of unknown origin fell from the sky at the heart of the forest Darkwood(Poland). The infection spread rapidly, symptoms appeared after three years - trees started growing fas and thickly while animals and people began developing symptoms of an unknown and incurable disease. In 1979 the government built tunnels to try and research the origin of this infection, however as the trees were growing more they caused earthquakes which caused the tunnels to collapse. In 1987, the infection ended as Darkwood and surrounding woodland caught on fire. 

Story-In-Game:

In September 1987, three outsiders were studying the deepest part of Darkwood. Their camp was overwhelmed by savages, they got tied to trees and a ritual by savages was performed - leaving only one out of the three alive. Somehow the protagonist escaped the savages and got found by the doctor who injected him with an unknown substance, after the injection the character started to hallucinate. The character is now infected with the plague, he tries to backtrack his steps to return home, but unknowingly he travels to the heart of the forest. Depending on the players choice, the protagonist either falls victim to hallucinations, falling asleep and eventually dying or he realises the truth and breaks free. When he wakes up he realises he is next to the Being which is surrounded by it’s sleeping victims - villagers and outsiders. Among them he finds a soldier who is carrying a flamethrower, after taking the flamethrower the character kills the Being, the victims and the forest.

Game Trailer 

I like that the trailer for this game switches between gameplay and animated illustrations of different areas that are in game. They illustrations appear in the order that you see these in game, butone of the last illustrations you see is a syringe pointing at someones eye as this is what happens to the protagonist at the beginning of the game.

In my opinion the mystery during the game is enjoyable, you don’t know why the forest grew and why humans mutated, all you know is that you have to survive. Eventhough the game pulls the worst trick of making everything a hallucination, it is the best take on that point I have seen on any game as eventhough 99% of the gameplay is not real there is still an overgrown forest which trapped everyone that appeared in the hallucinations as they were all connected by the Being.

sources: 

https://www.darkwoodgame.com/presskit/

http://www.crunchingkoalas.com/about

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6Mi29yJE44

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1735392239