For me it was Dead Space 2 when I was 12-ish. For reference, at this point the most gruesome/gorey/violent media I was exposed to was the Halo 3 Flood levels and the original 2 Alien movies.

I had way too much fun playing it to be traumatized by it at the time, although when i was old enough to understand the horror of the whole “your memories and experience becoming food for a god-like being that has absolutely zero respect for your existance”, that did inform my perspective of other media such as Evangelion or Childhood’s end when I watched them for the 1st time.

What was your equivalent to this? I’ve heard the Resident Evil games are quite common for this but I want to hear your perspective.

  • Björn Tantau@swg-empire.de
    1·
    1 year ago

    Thief 3’s Cradle level was formative in the way that I have never ever seen a better horror game. Overall I didn’t like the game as much as the previous two. But the Cradle is unsurpassed.

    The demo for Alone in the Dark 1 also lives rent free in my head because it was one of the few games we had back then. Plus the graphics were absolutely astonishing. But I never knew how to finish it. I always died pretty quickly to some dog monster. I never played the full game.

    • GrindingGears@lemmy.ca
      0·
      1 year ago

      One of them would shank you, wouldn’t they? The butler? I’m struggling to remember the exact specifics, I just remember someone would kill you.

      • Uninvited Guest@lemmy.ca
        2·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, if you walked in to the dining room the butler would cut your head off. If you walked out to the backyard the dog would tear you up.

  • ARxtwo@beehaw.orgEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    The 7th Guest was the fist one I really cared about. I grew up watching horror movies from the age of 5, but never really played a horror game until I got The 7th Guest in a CD-ROM drive bundle for Christmas of '93. It’s not so much a horror survival game as it is a horror puzzle game, but a great game nonetheless. I’ll never forget the opening: “Old man Stauf built a house and filled it with his toys. Six Guests were invited one night, their screams the only noise…”

    • blip@beehaw.org
      1·
      1 year ago

      I remember this game too! The live action cut scenes were really creepy as a kid. I distinctly remember the hands trying to press through the painting and the ghost luring you deeper into the maze. My dad and I got stuck at the one Othello style puzzle with the amoebas. We went out and bought a guide to get past it, only to learn that the author of the guide couldn’t solve it either.

      • LoamImprovement@beehaw.org
        1·
        1 year ago

        Fun fact - that ‘puzzle’ has its difficulty set by your processor’s speed. The game uses a set amount of time to determine the best move for the computer, and plays the best it’s got after that time. On slower processors of the time, it would only be able to calculate so many options before needing to come to a decision, but because it didn’t account for better hardware, the computer can make the best move every single time, causing it to be unwinnable even if the human player also plays perfectly.