Why we are so scared but never stops playing the horror game? See below article:
Fear and anxiety are two powerful and fundamental emotions. The burning need for these emotions to be experienced in a controlled environment is addressed rather widely in fiction. Literature, games and films all invent and develop new ways of delivering truly horrific experiences in order to meet a growing demand, but only digital games with their complex structure seem to be able to fully satiate this demand. This structure is comprised of a network of multifaceted game mechanics which, if harmoniously set together, is able to exploit human cognitive potential remarkably well. This paper will argue that horror digital games make use of several fear- and anxiety-inducing techniques, making their gameplay not only narrative-driven, but also fully embodied experiences. In doing so, I identify a number of cognitive stimuli in Slender – The Eight Pages (Parsec Productions, 2012), explaining their form and purpose. The results show that although relatively simple in structure, especially when compared to other horror digital games, Slender is a great repository of fear and anxiety inducing mechanics. The game’s components, such as game world design, weather conditions, objectives, the elements with storytelling potential, perspective, interactive items as well as the opponent, prove to be fully capable of inciting a multimodal feeling of dread. The article also emphasizes the importance of making a crucial distinction between a number of key concepts used in the study of horror. This article’s findings and novel approach may be relevant to horror game designers and media scholars interested in in particular. It may also be useful to game researchers involved in the study of multimodality in fiction.
Originally in: http://gamestudies.org/2102/articles/dudek