Those of us who live in civilized society are lucky enough to go most of our days without ever experiencing mortal fear. We're lucky for that, as there are people all over the world for whom gut-wrenching terror is not an uncommon feeling.
After having played the demo for Amnesia: The Dark Descent and reflecting on the early games in the Silent Hill series, I started thinking about the feeling of being truly afraid. I don't mean "afraid" in a worried or stressed sense, but rather the primal, reactionary fear that can only be summoned by the brief (or prolonged) sensation that you are about to suffer mortal harm. I remember watching the Making of Silent Hill 2 years back, and in that video one designer states that they aimed to make the player experience fear because it's an emotion that most of us don't encounter on a regular basis. Since the sensation is so buried within us, evoking it (as the Silent Hill series was very good at doing) can be a very intense and unfamiliar experience for most of us.
But enough yammering. What was the moment in which you were the most scared in your entire life?
For me, I'll have to go back to when I was about eight years old. As a young child, I used to sleep with my door open and the hallway light on. After I was sound asleep, my mom would usually turn the hallway light off and go to bed, herself. One night, I woke up probably around midnight. The room was pitch-black, but my eyes started adjusting slowly to the point where I could gradually make out more details. As my pupils dilated and made the room more visible to me, I stared at my open door. It was then that I saw the shadow of a hulking male figure staring into the room. My heart sank and I held perfectly still, keeping my gaze on the figure. I kept thinking that it would eventually materialize into something less threatening, like a shadow cast by a bundle of clothes or something, but as I lay motionless the figure remained. It was obviously my scared, childlike mind playing tricks on me, but I could have sworn that I heard him breathing. After a few minutes, I mustered up the courage to run over to the light switch and flip it on. Once I did, the shadow was gone. Obviously there was no one there, but you know how it is when you're a kid. Everything is amplified, and a large intruder standing menacingly in my doorway was an imagined image that terrified me to the core.
Bonus Story:
Here's one from adulthood. One summer during college I was staying at my parents' house alone while they were out of the country. This just happened to be when I was first playing through the Silent Hill series. I had played SH2 and SH1, so now I was making my way through the third game. Being that I'm all about creating the right atmosphere (and slightly insane), I thought it would be a good test of my bravery and play SH3 at midnight with all the lights in the entire house turned off. If you've played SH1-3, you know how terrifying this can be. Anyway, I popped in the game and started playing through a particularly evil and creepy sewer section. Just as I had entered a new room in the game in which horrible sounds emanated from just off-camera, the door to my room BURST open violently. I'm being dead serious when I say that my heart stopped. I nearly shit myself with bowel-churning fear. As it turns out, there was a wire hanger on the top of the door when I originally closed it. As I played the game, the wire hanger was slowly but surely resisting between the door and the frame. Eventually it had built up enough tension to pop the door open with surprising force.
That might sound like a lame story, but really try to imagine it. Silent Hill in the dark with the volume turned up is already messing with your head, you KNOW that you are supposed to be completely alone in the house, and then your door fucking flies open just as your tension reaches its peak at a scary part in the game. Suffice to say, I took a break from playing SH3 at night.
After having played the demo for Amnesia: The Dark Descent and reflecting on the early games in the Silent Hill series, I started thinking about the feeling of being truly afraid. I don't mean "afraid" in a worried or stressed sense, but rather the primal, reactionary fear that can only be summoned by the brief (or prolonged) sensation that you are about to suffer mortal harm. I remember watching the Making of Silent Hill 2 years back, and in that video one designer states that they aimed to make the player experience fear because it's an emotion that most of us don't encounter on a regular basis. Since the sensation is so buried within us, evoking it (as the Silent Hill series was very good at doing) can be a very intense and unfamiliar experience for most of us.
But enough yammering. What was the moment in which you were the most scared in your entire life?
For me, I'll have to go back to when I was about eight years old. As a young child, I used to sleep with my door open and the hallway light on. After I was sound asleep, my mom would usually turn the hallway light off and go to bed, herself. One night, I woke up probably around midnight. The room was pitch-black, but my eyes started adjusting slowly to the point where I could gradually make out more details. As my pupils dilated and made the room more visible to me, I stared at my open door. It was then that I saw the shadow of a hulking male figure staring into the room. My heart sank and I held perfectly still, keeping my gaze on the figure. I kept thinking that it would eventually materialize into something less threatening, like a shadow cast by a bundle of clothes or something, but as I lay motionless the figure remained. It was obviously my scared, childlike mind playing tricks on me, but I could have sworn that I heard him breathing. After a few minutes, I mustered up the courage to run over to the light switch and flip it on. Once I did, the shadow was gone. Obviously there was no one there, but you know how it is when you're a kid. Everything is amplified, and a large intruder standing menacingly in my doorway was an imagined image that terrified me to the core.
Bonus Story:
Here's one from adulthood. One summer during college I was staying at my parents' house alone while they were out of the country. This just happened to be when I was first playing through the Silent Hill series. I had played SH2 and SH1, so now I was making my way through the third game. Being that I'm all about creating the right atmosphere (and slightly insane), I thought it would be a good test of my bravery and play SH3 at midnight with all the lights in the entire house turned off. If you've played SH1-3, you know how terrifying this can be. Anyway, I popped in the game and started playing through a particularly evil and creepy sewer section. Just as I had entered a new room in the game in which horrible sounds emanated from just off-camera, the door to my room BURST open violently. I'm being dead serious when I say that my heart stopped. I nearly shit myself with bowel-churning fear. As it turns out, there was a wire hanger on the top of the door when I originally closed it. As I played the game, the wire hanger was slowly but surely resisting between the door and the frame. Eventually it had built up enough tension to pop the door open with surprising force.
That might sound like a lame story, but really try to imagine it. Silent Hill in the dark with the volume turned up is already messing with your head, you KNOW that you are supposed to be completely alone in the house, and then your door fucking flies open just as your tension reaches its peak at a scary part in the game. Suffice to say, I took a break from playing SH3 at night.
