Horror games are undoubtedly one of the most suitable types of games for VR devices, and it only requires some simple operations to achieve a complete set of exploration and puzzle gameplay, allowing players to immerse themselves in it wholeheartedly. Combined with VR, it achieves the effect of promoting strengths and avoiding weaknesses.
Recently, there is a domestic VR horror game "Forbidden" officially released on Steam. Players will take on the role of the protagonist into the dark and eerie ancient mansion, shuttling back and forth between distorted dreams and reality, solving puzzles on the road, piecing together the whole story through fragmentary clues, and digging out the truth behind the evil order of "Saint Gian".
Gloomy atmosphere of horror
From primitive societies onwards, the fear of darkness permeated human genes. When the most dependent vision cannot be exerted, people's fear of the unknown is spawned by darkness, and when this unknown comes from a gloomy ancient house, those dark corners may become particularly terrifying because of the hidden ghosts and ghosts.
When the player is in a dark mansion, the only item that can help the player illuminate the way forward is a lantern that never goes out, which can give the player a limited sense of peace of mind within a narrow light range. The lantern is fixed to the player's left handle, exactly the same way it is used in reality: when walking, you need to raise your arm flat to illuminate the way ahead, and if you want to see the books on the table, hold the lantern close to the top of the book. This kind of realistic operation also makes me feel immersed when playing.
Once the player is accustomed to using the lantern as a life-saving straw, the game will also reverse the player's dependence on the lantern, waiting for the opportunity to deprive it to create a sense of fear for the player. When the darkness comes "What about my oil lamp?" Oh, here it is. When this ghostly muttering, even if nothing terrible happened, it scared me to run for my life.
On the other hand, the dark environment will also make it easy for players to mistake certain items for other similar things, so as to scare themselves during the game, making the horror atmosphere more intense. The wooden dummies in the game, although the material is far from the real person, I often mistake them for living people because of the light or distance. Especially when I opened a closet, all the dummy parts scattered inside fell on me, and in an instant, like the human remains of broken limbs, they pounced on me.
In addition to these, the game also has a more direct way of showing horror, such as allowing players to witness bloody animal carcasses or organs soaked in glass bottles. In the puzzle in the basement, the player also needs to hold a thick-backed kitchen knife to dismember the corpse on the bed, bringing a stronger visual impact.
Compared with the creepy scene environment, Jump Scare, which often "shocks you" in the game, is the culprit that makes people frightened.
As players get used to the darkness, the sudden onset of light becomes a means of intimidation. The game is accompanied by bright lights and flashbacks, often with "warm" memory clips. The seemingly warm orange pillar of light is projected on the mannequin without a head, and this great contrast creates an eerie feeling and makes people feel chilling.
If the player is focused on doing something, the game will often scare the player with unexpected elements. Some drawers, the moment the player pulls open, stretches out the ugly palm of a skeleton from the inside, shakes it a few times, and then quickly withdraws back into the darkness; When the player finds a toy car coming to his feet from the darkness, looking all the way to the ground and walking towards him, suddenly someone comes to him and tears his throat open, and then the player realizes that this is just an illusion in the dream... These Jump Scares are enough to scare the player in a specific situation, but they will not continue to bring a strong sense of horror to the player, even if the player is not very receptive to the horror content, you can feel the fun.
However, what really attracts players to explore is the huge mystery of why this ancient house is occupied by evil spirits. In addition to the information brought by flashbacks to the player, the story settings in the game are hidden in the text descriptions of the collections in the scene, forming a fragmented narrative structure. Players need to analyze and restore the truth of the story through these scattered paragraphs, which makes the plot produce many blank spaces, which is more obscure and in line with the overall atmosphere of the game.
Puzzle solving experience in VR
Unlike the ordinary play experience, the interactive operation using VR has a very strong sense of substitution. Under the six-degree-of-freedom design, the player can push the left handle stick to walk, shake the head or use the right stick to turn around, and from time to time crouch down and stand up to open a low drawer or a high bookshelf. Because the actual actions made by the player are almost synchronized with the protagonist, the signal difference between the visual and motor sensing organs is reduced, and the feeling of vertigo is reduced to a certain extent. In addition, the process of the player turning can also be replaced by a joystick, so that people will not have physical discomfort in frequent turns, so in the process of passing the level, there is almost no vertigo, and the overall VR experience is very smooth.
In addition to the chest of drawers, many of the small objects placed in the scene can also be interacted with. Letters, books, and toys can be grabbed by the player with the handle and taken to the eyes for detail, while fragile objects similar to jars can also be thrown out and broken.
This kind of finding things has also become an important part of the puzzle process. Bookshelf puzzle is one of my favorite puzzles in the game, the player needs to rummaging through the entire room, from drawers, cabinets, etc., to find a few books that are missing on the shelves, and then put them back in place according to the serial number. The arrangement of the books requires the player to raise the lantern, raise the neck, and observe closely to reach a conclusion, and the gameplay of picking up the book and stuffing it also requires the player to continue to hold down the shoulder button of the handle and put the hand into the gap to learn through attempts. The puzzle seems simple, but each place corresponds to the operation that would be performed in reality, and it is undoubtedly exciting when the conjecture using the logic of reality is successfully confirmed by the game.
Another puzzle that impressed me was the lighting of a candle. Players need to find the candles held by the three puppets in their hands in the dark room and light them with a lighter, although the operation is simple, but the performance is very good. As the players light the candles one by one, the NPCs make a wish in the darkness, and eventually their wishes are destroyed and disappear in the strange magic array, leaving me with a unique emotional experience.
There are also some puzzles that, although well thought out, are limited by VR and the actual effect is not ideal. For example, in the puzzle of controlling the direction of the light by switching, since the switch and the light are not in the same direction, the player cannot observe the movement of the lights in the side corridor while pushing the switch on the wall, making the process of obtaining information somewhat difficult. In the process of solving the puzzle, the player also needs to turn around frequently, making the operation extremely cumbersome, and some lights are too far away from the player, so that people can't see their trajectory clearly. These factors have caused me to have a poor experience in the puzzle solving process of this mechanism.
In addition, because VR brings an immersive experience, some details that look a little strange may also be magnified in the eyes of the player, thus misleading the player's puzzle solving direction. The oddly shaped handles and locks on individual cabinets, the unnatural gold suitcases on shelves in the basement, and the receipts marked with the exact weight figures of the meat all once made me think that they were the key links in solving the puzzle, but in the end I found that they had no practical use.
Overall
"Forbidden" gives full play to the functions of VR equipment, bringing players an immersive horror game experience. The game's grasp of horror can be described as just right, which not only retains a certain horror atmosphere, so that players will be frightened by Jump Scare from time to time to shout, but not too scary for players to play. Although there are still some minor flaws in the puzzle, this game is still worth a try.