Mar 21, 2022
The Tartarus Key - Dora
Hey everyone! We thought this was a great opportunity for us to talk a bit about how we approached some of the scarier elements of The Tartarus Key, and why we often went with creepy vs cacophonous when it comes to our scares.
When we first started developing the game, we wanted it to be entirely devoid of jumpscares. While a lot of people really love them, we know for some people they can make a game challenging or unpleasant to play, so we were determined to avoid them completely. And we did, for much of development! Atmosphere is about building tension and fear overtime, through the visuals and sound. This is harder to pull off and involves making something that appears scary in the mind of the player. The same kind of fear that people feel looking into a dark room, it's more about what could be there, regardless of if it's rational or not.
Surprisingly, we found this really limiting. Most people take "jumpscare" to mean "something unexpected pops up in your face and screams really loudly" or the equivalent. But more subtle sudden movements, loud noises, even when used in moderation, are jumpscares too. Used carefully, a jumpscare is just another tool to enhance the players' experience. We do believe that players are more apprehensive about jumpscares now due to the rise in horror games that use them. After all, they lose their effectiveness with repetition. If every candle in the game blew out as you approached it then by the third *POP* you would probably start to be more annoyed than surprised. Remember this classic?
It's a sliding scale. Not all jumpscares are equal in that not all of them are intended to accomplish the game thing. There are no screaming ghost faces in TTK, but you might find doors that slam shut as you approach them, candles that go out, and books that fall. These are jumpscares, largely involving motion or sound that you weren't expecting, but we soften the blow by making sure that the player was already looking in the direction and aware of what was happening. We try to avoid having things surprise from offscreen.
Atmosphere is hard, and sometimes ineffective, because you can't predict how people will respond to it. An example we had early in our playtesting is the very first hallway you can enter near the beginning of the game. One of our testers opened the door and simply refused to step into the hallway, to paraphrase "No, I can't. Something's going to get me." It took a lot of reassuring and promises to get them to move on. Darkb bloody hallways have a way of scaring people - can't imagine why. Another didn't give it a second thought, threw the door open and ran straight to the next room; hadn't even considered it scary.
The end result is that a lot of time has gone into trying to strike that balance between "this is creeping me out" and "this is way too much". Some of the scares we have are blink-and-you'll-miss-them subtle, while others are more in-your-face. However, we've tried to make sure The Tartarus Key is unsettling more often than it purely makes you jump, and we hope when you finally play it, you'll agree... and appreciate those few jumps all the more.
When we first started developing the game, we wanted it to be entirely devoid of jumpscares. While a lot of people really love them, we know for some people they can make a game challenging or unpleasant to play, so we were determined to avoid them completely. And we did, for much of development! Atmosphere is about building tension and fear overtime, through the visuals and sound. This is harder to pull off and involves making something that appears scary in the mind of the player. The same kind of fear that people feel looking into a dark room, it's more about what could be there, regardless of if it's rational or not.
Surprisingly, we found this really limiting. Most people take "jumpscare" to mean "something unexpected pops up in your face and screams really loudly" or the equivalent. But more subtle sudden movements, loud noises, even when used in moderation, are jumpscares too. Used carefully, a jumpscare is just another tool to enhance the players' experience. We do believe that players are more apprehensive about jumpscares now due to the rise in horror games that use them. After all, they lose their effectiveness with repetition. If every candle in the game blew out as you approached it then by the third *POP* you would probably start to be more annoyed than surprised. Remember this classic?
It's a sliding scale. Not all jumpscares are equal in that not all of them are intended to accomplish the game thing. There are no screaming ghost faces in TTK, but you might find doors that slam shut as you approach them, candles that go out, and books that fall. These are jumpscares, largely involving motion or sound that you weren't expecting, but we soften the blow by making sure that the player was already looking in the direction and aware of what was happening. We try to avoid having things surprise from offscreen.
Atmosphere is hard, and sometimes ineffective, because you can't predict how people will respond to it. An example we had early in our playtesting is the very first hallway you can enter near the beginning of the game. One of our testers opened the door and simply refused to step into the hallway, to paraphrase "No, I can't. Something's going to get me." It took a lot of reassuring and promises to get them to move on. Darkb bloody hallways have a way of scaring people - can't imagine why. Another didn't give it a second thought, threw the door open and ran straight to the next room; hadn't even considered it scary.
The end result is that a lot of time has gone into trying to strike that balance between "this is creeping me out" and "this is way too much". Some of the scares we have are blink-and-you'll-miss-them subtle, while others are more in-your-face. However, we've tried to make sure The Tartarus Key is unsettling more often than it purely makes you jump, and we hope when you finally play it, you'll agree... and appreciate those few jumps all the more.
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