Microsoft Forms (Primary Research)

What Scares You?

(Results come from peers that I personally sent a link for the form to)

Question 1 - 

This question was to see if I should make use of darkness in my project or whether I should have a lighting able to let the player see everything surroundthing them. The results implie that perhaps I should limit the light in the levels in order to have the player be concerned about what is lurking in the darkness, this is vital information for my level planning as well as when I implement the lighting into the level.

Question 2 - 

The next question was about how often to show the monster, the responses to the question imply that I should show the monster fairly often but not too often so I can still appeal to the surprise choosers. This might be doable if I have shadows or random things in the windows rather than having the monster fully shown, hopefully appealing to both sides.

Question 3 - 

Question 3 was supposed to help with my character design, unfortunately I didn't get much information from it. 40% of replies said that all of the monsters were just as scary to them, whilst another 40% said zombies were scariest and 20% said that Slenderman was the scariest choice out of the options I put. I could use some sort of rotting design for the monster to appeal to zombie lovers as well as having the creature be strangely proportioned like Slenderman is. This would hopefully allow me to cater to every audience possible.

Question 4 - 

Question 4 gives more context to the previous question, it seems to imply that people are scared of infection as well as having the creature be far away and unnaturally proportioned, unfortunately for me the answers don't line up together so this is quite tricky to actually make use of past the idea of something being there but not completely visible. I think this answer might link to just tension and creepiness which I could definitely make use of.

Question 5 - 

This is just a more specific question than question one, I believe that the fear of the unknown in question 1 came from limited sight and light, with this question just proving it. 80% of people seem to believe that not being able to see effectively can create fear and tension better than having full vision of what's going on. The limited sight could also link to a fear of being ambushed, perhaps hinting that some sort of jumpscare could be good to scare people who play the project.

Question 6 - 

The question to ask for an explanation about why limited sight is scary was meant to stop me having to guess and instead give me concrete answers. Luckily this worked perfectly, one person mentioned having paranoia which lines up with peoples ideas of not being able to see what's coming and potentially being cornered, all being relatively paranoid responses. This will hopefully help me make the most of darkness rather than relying on it as is.

Question 7 - 

Luckily for me, the answers from this question on the form support what I had in mind to begin with. My ideal monster is similar to the monster human chicken sort of creatures you can find in the SCP universe. I would love to use a creature similar to that with a few alterations to hopefully allow me to cater to both sides of the question without missing too much of what I wanted to do originally. This is one of the rare cases where the research genuinely works in my favour.

Question 8 - 

The next question has various different features that my peers would expect a monster to have, these include things like horrifying screaming as well as it being distinct and perhaps being slightly human. This research question unfortunately doesn't help me too well, it instead just shows me that no matter what I do, I can't cater to every potential player of my game. It's also very obvious that different things scare different people, meaning that I could possibly go as many routes to scaring people as much as possible.

Question 9 - 

Thankfully people seemed to completely agree with each other that audio in games can be scary, this tells me that rather than the game being silent I should try and have sound effects and background noise scattered throughout in order to make the game seem more alive and according to the potential players more scary in general. Potential sounds could be wind on the windows or even cars driving past, things that I could plausibly record in real life to avoid having to use other people's sounds.

Question 10 - 

I made a slight error with this form, initially it said option 1 and option 2 instead of yes and no, so the other just means yes. This means 80% of people find blood and gore scary, outnumbering the 20% who happen to not think these things are scary at all. This influences my decisions on how the character should die, maybe having a lot of blood and gore rather than the character just disappearing or a fade to black. Depending on time, I'll try and get as much blood and gore as possible into the project.

Question 11 - 

People seem to agree that the reason blood and gore is scary is because it naturally makes players uncomfortable, it also shows the capabilities of the monster to hurt you, something that 2 out of the 5 people who answered the form agreed upon. Someone also answered that it's blood and gore, implying it's an obvious thing that people are scared of blood and gore rather than a rarity, vary useful information.

Question 12 - 

Most people seem to think that doppelgangers are scary, with only 1 in 5 people responding that they aren't. This sort of implies that having the monster copy the player in some way could be a good way to scare the player rather than outright blood and gore like the previous 2 questions seemed to suggest. This horror would be a lot more psychological than the monster itself and the blood and gore / being chased or attacked outright.

Question 13 - 

The final question suggests that seeing yourself in an unnatural way is just generally very scary, whilst other people mention being replaced without anyone noticing and another mentioned not being able to trust anyone because anyone could have been replaced without you noticing. The idea of trust is an interesting one but I don't think that I will have any time to make this sort of thing appear in the project. Even if this question doesn't help in this project, it could do in a future one.

Conclusion

The conclusions I have reached after this primary research form have been varied. They include but are not limited to perhaps making use of blood and gore alongside psychological elements such as having a doppelganger and darkness to inspire paranoia in players. Furthermore, I could definitely make use of the information I gathered about what the monster should look like, this would happen in the way that I take another persons idea and build upon it, making sure that I can appeal to the people who want a totally new creation whilst also having my own flair on the monster like people seemed to also want.

It's also going to be very useful that I now know to reveal the monster a little bit earlier than the end in order to scare the player through the entire project instead. This can be coupled with the limited sight people claimed to scare them, perhaps allowing me to have the monster be partially visible at times but not enough to give the entire thing away until the end of the project.