Investigating the audio-visual psychological effects in a horror game

Abstract

Horror games are the unique type of game that both scare and fascinate players. However, horror games are lacking in new ideas nowadays. Many horror games use the same scary tricks to make players feel scared. In many horror movies and entertainment products, jump-scare is a common scare technique, and many horror games rely on this scary technique to make players reach a high degree of fear too. To study how to make players reach the high level of fear through visual and auditory effects without jump-scares, I designed a horror game with four versions (default, decreasing-light, increasing-sound, both) and used it to test whether the player can reach the high level of horror with only increasing sound and decreasing visuals. In different game versions, players will encounter different lighting and sound effects settings in the game. This study compares four sets of player data to analyze the impact of the audiovisual psychological effects in horror games on players. Surprisingly, the results of the experiment showed that in-game light effect changes improved participants' level of fear more than sound effect changes, and the game version with the combination of light and sound effects had improved the level of fear the most. According to the experimental results, the conclusion is that the light effect can affect the player's psychological fear more than the sound effect, and the sound effect can make the player more immersed in the game than the light effect. When light effects and sound effects are changed just right, the impact on the player can be maximized. These results provide important insights for the design of horror games beyond the use of jump-scares.--Author's abstract