An Observation of a Student Towards Mystery Horror Game: A Case Study

This thesis is based on research in observing on a frightening reaction of Akademi Seni, Budaya dan Warisan Kebangsaan student, and their experience while they are still playing the ‘SULUH’ Game. Their story is then captured into digital form and with the result of the elements that I gathered, will be implemented into a game that I built entitled. Majoring in a Digital Game Arts background, I always wondered how I could apply my skills to be applied to a game and finding people satisfaction in sensation seeking. I am grateful to have supervisors who are always supportive and helped me during the most critical period of this study. Therefore, in this research study, I wanted to explore more on how can I create a potential horror game in the game-making.

Introduction

This section will offer the detail of horror feature in the game making, and how does it actually can stimuli a person to get a fright or what causes them to get fright, fear and scared. The brief of this study to get how it actually related to the main problem statement, objective, and the questions of the main purpose of this study. The purpose of this study is to understand the what type of content, medium, and features that work for a horror based game. By recording the experience of the participant in digital form, evaluation, and results, this helps the developer to get a better understanding in stimuli the audience or the player in creating of game-making. The cognitive response by the participant much likely gives a big impact in the making of any kind of related genre that are seeking for stimuli audience that is enjoying the game or the content warning in the making of a frightening interactive platform.

Background of the Study

Mystery horror is a subgenre of video games inspired by horror fiction that focuses on a gothic and scary environment in the game. The supernatural character as the game tries to frighten players with either horror graphics or scary ambiance. This type of entertainment one of the popular and has been recognized of a way to gaming is to be one of an average person that almost spend a whole day just only playing a game. A person’s preferences of the game may be different based on their fondness, which a person likes to play a thriller, mystery or horror game. The “SULUH” is one of the games where the player likes horror and mystery game that will enjoy an incitement in horror genre, in which the player can view through various areas from across the room. The main protagonist must solve a riddle in the room before choosing the right killer at the end of the game, too gain of the horror general basic feature developer proceed further in the story where the player is equipped with a torchlight helps to manure through dark areas with the spooky audio effect which enhances the horror gaming experience.

Alexander Lewitzki (2017), said that art fundamentals have been known to work in favour of the horror genre, both by looking at it theoretically as well as study how some already existing movies and games in the genre have handled the issue. Travis Fahs' 'Alone in the Dark Retrospective' show, the direction of this project and the horror genre has featured in games since it's of its creation. Horror games are interesting and unpredictable content to analyze in many reasons. There can be in terms of emotional attachment or experiences. Which broadly, horrors can affect almost every emotion ranging from disgust to happiness, suspense, and fear to calm. Most emotional effects of horror content can be seen as suspense, fear, and worry, scary. Lewitzki mentioned that studies suggest that horrors rely on 'monsters' creating a feeling of horror and disgust.

Horror is known for its genre of fear and dread. Some of the genres may represent frightening incidents, such as war, disaster, and gunfights. The truth of horror is truly causing a fuss of the fearsome. Many people get the wrong idea of the genre and tend to think every plot that frightens the audience in any way or shows horrific imagery classifies as horror. 'If that were the case, however, the term would lose all meaning and horror would no longer be a distinct genre' (Sipos 2010, 2). In the making of visual, there a few rules are very important that need to take care and to understand. The most common are which give a production unity, style, and visual structure. As visual component can be used to correspond of horror, but with only with the element has been conveyed to the audience at some point said Block (2013, 4). The customization and the randomness a personality of the characters, situations, and locations in a story will be helpful in the show of a movie or game.

Other than that, in the same way, one can use the exposition to define the meaning behind a visual component in a production (Block 2013, 234). Block (2013, 255-257) stated that there are also many ways to choose which visual components to use, instinctual, arbitrary, researched, or analytic. This thesis will be using the researched style of choice, which means to look at art books, photographs, reading books on the subject (Block 2013, 255-257). When creating psychological horror, it is most important to work with surrounding and emotion said Danielsson (2009, 70). It can also be effective to visually reveal as little as possible of the threat to the audience. (Block 2013, 128) In order to get this data, Akademi Seni, Budaya and Warisan Kebangsaan are the spotlights as the school has many varieties of art student which from 8 different faculties. This will significantly help and a great source to seek a various idea, assumption, the creativeness, and the expectations. This led to giving great data to any creative industry that are looking for a different perspective of different layers of art students.

Problem Statement

The coverage topics on horror mystery game genre are still limited in local area. As the local people are more likely to expect more to western and any Asian source. This shows the impact of local acceptance in the understanding of horror feature is lacking and depending on supernatural, high scary effect makeup rather than observing other small details. When it comes to a game, game designing is much less than novel and disadvantage of creating horror persona. Developing a horror game also taking too long just to get the perfect sculpture that represents the horror in the game. This led to the attraction. Game industry in Malaysia is still developing and this requires time to time, but with the boundaries of international hands, it much likely speeds up the pace of local industry to follow up and generate a new talents. The mixture of the different country also playing an important role, and this helps to generate a new idea and open wide the creativeness inside local talent.

Aim and Objective

The aim of this study is to observe how well ASWARA student reacts to the horror mystery game of 'SULUH'. Other than that, the objective of this research is also to identify the problem within the game. This helps to put more interesting content for gameplay, visual and storyline in the game scene itself. In meantime, the data can be a great source to reconstruct and to improve in many levels either of design or the gameplay.

The Research Flow

This research flow is to let the participant play 'SULUH' game for about 10 minutes, and let the participant figure out how to play the game. Observing the participant throughout the entire interview sessions and to identify the reaction of the participant while playing the game. In meantime, while they playing the game, an interviewer will record the participant and to record every physical reaction, facial and any cognitive response while they playing the game. Next, after the participant finishes the game, the next session will be asking a question that has been prepared. In this process, the gathering of data will helps a better understanding of what do ASWARA student prefer inside the game, and what do they hope, it can be changed or to improve inside the 'SULUH' Game.

The Significant Study

This study allows the researcher to understand the effects on how well any graphic visual, sounds and interactivity can occur a physical and emotional reflex. Other than that, this study can help by giving information to game makers or any indie game company that like to induced inside the game scene. This study also benefits to the game designer that like to create they're first any horror related game. The information that has been gathered, can be informative to any game community to understand a better result with certain features in the game development. Last but not least, with the collected data and with the experience of the participant giving an inspirational in the develop making and for the storyline.

Motivation

This study is conducted to get inspirational in the game-making. Other than that, with the advance of technology, in hope, these studies can be a great reference for creating a game-making for more virtuality and to seeking an incitement for people who are sensation-seeking. Next, with this practical practice in the seeking of more knowledge and to share the benefits of a new finding in horror maker.

Methodology

A qualitative will be used for this research within among the students. The interview will be conducted with Aswara student from 8 faculties to understand the acceptance of horror experience while playing the ‘SULUH’. This studied will carry out in Aswara, Faculty Animation, and Multimedia. The researcher idea is to observe how well Aswara student accepting the implement of horror genre within the game of SULUH.

Thesis Outline

In this thesis, the researcher has offers an overview of this study In chapter 1, the researcher offers an overview of this study. This includes the problem statement, research question, objectives, justification, and background of this study. In chapter 2, the relevant literature is reviewed. Detailed background information of the study is included. The literature review will cover the finding, positive content from other country experience sharing and experience sharing of fear experience. As for chapter 3, segmented the research method adopted in this study, which in this case is the interview method. This participant is from Akademi Seni, Budaya dan Warisan Kebangsaan.

In this review, the researcher reviews the literature of an analysis of college students’ fear experiences with video games. This study presents the outcome of a survey of 269 undergraduate students conducted to investigate fright experiences caused by video games. Over half of the participants reported game-induced horror. Sensation-seeking and empathy all appear as an important separate variation in terms of entertainment of frightening content, consumption of frightening content, and frequency of fright encounter. Interactivity and presentations of realism also predicted fear. This work identifies titles, stimuli, and features that caused fright experience.

Reaction Occurs Stimuli

A fear reaction may not happen when there is no experience relating to blood and injury suggest by Harrison and Cantor (1999). Other findings support this notion. Neuendorf and Sparks (1988) let the participants watch horror films and found that prior fear of stimuli represent in the film was a strong predictor of fright. Their evidence suggests that when a film turns on, a schema an emotional response happen due to stimulus generalization. In other words, although the onscreen event portrays something of a realistic experience, the memory of another disturbing event is similar enough to cause horror.

Presentation of Graphic

The ability to appropriately deal with fright responses, which may be quite exciting, that inspire some to consume frightening media. Certainly, horror developers intend many of their portrayals to be intensely frightening. Designers use darkness, disturbing imagery, uncanny noises, and other stimuli to stimulate terror (Noles, 2011). The causes fear and the nature of those reactions in games remains unexplored.

In game-making, developers designing environments, characters, and experiences entirely from computer or console renderings. Hence, game content varies dramatically in presentation from title to title and may change a player’s experience. For instance, enhance realism may increase frequency of fear. Two definitions for realism considered in this study identified by Barlett and Rodeheffer (2009). The first, which researcher will refer to as graphics realism, is the standard of visual presentation (Ivory & Kalyanaraman, 2007; Martins, Williams, Ratan, & Harrison, 2009).

Comparing Males and Females

Entertainment is not the only differentiation between males and females regarding fear. Females more frequently experience enduring fear (Harrison & Cantor, 1999) and more overemphasize fear responses than males. Example, Harris and colleagues (2000) found that females reported about twice as many negative reactions and sleep disturbance issues as males after viewing a horror movie during a date. Males, then, perhaps experience fearless intensely than females. For these differences to manifest, video games supply the newest medium. The ESA (2012) reported that in 2011 nearly half (47%) of all gamers were female. In spite of, popular belief that games are a male-dominated medium. Still, it rarely appears in the genres of games that women prefer. Men tend to prefer action, shooter, sports, and fighting games. Women, on the other hand, more often choose a puzzle, simulation, and card games ( Heeter, Egidio, Mishra, Winn, & Winn, 2009). The existing work on fright experience and frightening media.

Research Question

Research question on asked what games caused fright. Due to a similarity in content, the researcher direct this question in two ways. First, the researcher ran frequency analyses on the data from participants’ 168 reported fear experiences. Interactivity emerged as the most reported artifact (41.6% of cases contained reports of interactivity inspiring fear). Instances of surprise were the second most reported cause of fear (37.6%). Second, the researcher investigate participants’ selections from the list of frightening stimuli. Participants did not identify some items as causing fear in the open-ended questions. The researcher ran frequency analyses on participants’ selections from a list of fright response. Participants describe cognitive responses as the most frequent and physical reactions as the least frequent reactions.

Discussion

This study to investigate reports of fright experiences caused by video games and identified individual differences relevant in selecting and experiencing frightening games. Participants identified interactivity and realism as contributors to their fear with both elements correlating positively with fright frequency. As such, this study provides the first identification of features specific to this medium that affect fright experiences and insight into what fear reactions people experience with games.

Interactivity emerged as the most impulsively reported cause of fear. In part, researcher trait this finding to the consistent inclusion of interactivity across games. In other words, researcher would expect this pleasant experience, which separates games from many other media, in almost all games. Nevertheless, it remains that states such as presence might explain interactivity engagement in fear. Before-mentioned, experiences may prompt players to feel present in the content (Lombard & Ditton, 1997) and bring about states that would lead to different engrossing experiences. For instance, when playing a game an individual may feel transformed into the character (Anderson & Dill, 2000). To illustrate, in a film, the watcher wishes for the lead character to avoid entering the next room. By difference, a game wants the player to make the choice to enter the next room. Many participants spontaneously reported feeling helpless, hunted, and overwhelmed as causing fear. These interactive components transformed the experience into one where control or loss of direction seemed involved in the fear experience.

Reputably, no variation emerged in how commonly the sexes experienced fear. This conclusion provides interesting insight into the social dynamics surrounding fear. Experimental work has shown that socially gender-appropriate responses during a frightening depiction improve partner enjoyment (Zillmann et al., 1986). In other words, females most enjoyed a horror film when matched with a brave male and males most enjoyed it when matched with a fearful female. People often play games individually, though, leaving out dynamics surrounding gender characters. Researcher findings suggest that fearful or brave behaviour during a fear-evoking experience may indeed be a social phenomenon. Perhaps females do not experience fear with more frequency but feel required to indicate in stress.

Limitation and Improvement

This study is not without conditions. First, the data are limited to providing solid causal, generalizable proof. Another limitation is that the secondary variables of enjoyment and frequency of fright applied single-item measures. Although single-item measures of enjoyment have found vital results in other work (Krcmar & Kean, 2005), the researcher may be less reliable than multi-item measures. Next, a limitation is that the researcher did not include measures of non-interactive media to compare to researcher findings for game stimuli and reactions. A final limitation was relying on self-reports. Exactness is a spot of all self-report, but it is a crucial one as this research sought to examine personal fear encounters. Moreover, research shows fright is a salient, enduring experience (Harrison & Cantor, 1999), making the use of self-report calculated. Despite these conditions, this research contributes to the fright findings by examining video games. Future studies may use the stimuli identified herein content analyses or experimental manipulations. Additionally, future research should explore the role of absorbing experiences and continue to study the impact of varying portrayals of realism on fright. Getting open-ended and forced-choice responses provided a holistic vantage of fright experience. Interactivity may up the ante by inducing player into the experience and gaining them feel engrossing fear.

In this study, researcher will carry this interview session at Akademi Seni, Budaya dan Warisan Kebangsaan for data gathering. There will be 8 student from every faculty. Researcher provided a consent letter before starting the interview session. Explanation of the reason the researcher using a qualitative approach for this study is because it is more suitable for the researcher to collect the fright experiences using interview rather than survey approach for the first stage.

Study Design

This study design is very important for any research that is required to answer the research objective. This research is to identify how well the implementation of visual graphic, audio and character playing the role in order to get a frightening reaction. Thus, this study design is the perfect use for this experimental form. Additional, the data samples accumulation with qualitative methods. Qualitative is suitable method to gather data for this research in terms of observing, and interview session with the student of Akademi Seni, Budaya dan Warisan Kebangsaan.

Study Instrument

Video recorder, audio recorder, digital camera and tripod were the instruments used to capture the student reaction, needs, thoughts and their emotions. The participant stories are captured digitally through audio and video. In this process, a camera with video capturing ability was used along with a voice recorder to record the interview session. This was to allow the researcher to transcribe the mattering points of and develop relevant content for the horror game design. The experiences are then will be collected and use for reference. At least 2 people will need to be in the interview session so that the researcher can conduct the interview smoothly and the recording to run without any errands.

For this study, researcher will introduce briefly about the Suluh Game to the participant. The participant will play the game for 5 minutes. For this session, researcher will conduct the game inside Aswara, 2D Lab. Which require 1 desktop computer. To structure the interviews, a set of questions was prepared for the interview and should start with leisurely talk to generate live atmosphere during the conversation with the participants. Interviewers formulated the questions in a way that demanded respondents to think of their game experiences in much detail, and to report about their thoughts and feelings whilst playing very thoroughly. Also, participants were asked to describe their memorable horror video game, their entertainment experience when playing that game, their criteria to determine the quality of a good (horror) video games, and, most importantly, their thoughts and feelings when they play had a moment of jumpscares while playing.