Sunday, March 12, 2023
There Is Something Behind You
Genres
define the games they inhabit and how the game uses its unique features
to achieve or subvert the expectations of the audience. This is
especially true for horror which aims to invoke feelings in the
player that many other genres deliberately steer clear of. As such it
is an excellent candidate to begin to observe how visual novels adapt
themselves to accommodate and play to the strengths of a specific
genre. When a developer sets out to make a horror game they are
shaping their game into a framework with the aim of creating fear and
dread in the player. This is an extremely narrow set of priorities
which often leads to creative use of assets and ideas, but also
restricts what a game has access to in terms of standard motifs since
it is highly incompatible with other genres. Visual novels are by
nature a medium of limited means of expression while still being
extremely flexible and has lead them to have an odd relationship with
horror. Let’s dive in and find out exactly how the bond between
them manifests.
Less Is More In Horror And VNs
The
strongest bond between horror and visual novels is their
understanding that less is more when it comes to narrative and
presentation. For horror this is about not giving away too much
information in order to insure that the source of the fear and dread
does not become a known quantity and thus familiar to the player. By
contrast visual novels lean into this narrative style more out of
necessity due to the limitations of the medium and the need to keep
the pace of story up while making the most out of the assets
available in creative ways. Regardless of their differing reasons for
this choice, it makes for an excellent pairing with horror which is able
to cleanly achieve its aims and not put a burden on the resources of
the visual novel. Perhaps the most iconic example of this common
trait is the original Higurashi. This title had a very limited
budget to work with resulting in the creator having to make all the
artwork himself and splitting the overall narrative into a series of
shorter visual novels. However, these apparent shortcomings were in
fact strengths for the horror focus of the game. They prevented
the source of the fear from becoming an easily identifiable element
through the odd style of the artwork and limited nature of its
implementation does as much for obscuring the truth as the narrative.
While other horror visual novels might not practice this technique to
the extremes of Higurashi, they nevertheless lean into it for both
budgetary and artistic reasons to help form the desired dread in the
player.
Monster Of The Week
When
it comes to structural elements, there is one type which both horror
and visual novels love for longer form storytelling and this is the
episodic format. The most common manifestation of this format for horror
visual novels is a monster of the week style where the threats facing
the characters changes regularly to keep the player on the edge of
their seat. By not sticking to a single monster the game can preserve
the overall sense of the unknown since it can discard an individual
threat the moment the player no longer feels fear from them. It also
allows for the build up of a greater and insidious final antagonist
to act as a capstone for the game through an escalation of the
dangers facing the characters, thus making the entity responsible for
all the previous monsters come across as particularly threatening.
The Death Mark games showcase this compatibility through the
various ghosts and ghouls the developers based their episodes around
and the way in which the visual novel format complements this
approach. Each self contained segment has its own mystery and
mechanical puzzles to complement the associated monster and provide a
pacing tool through which the game uses to control the build up and release
of tension. This is important as for a game of Death Mark’s length as it
cannot keep a constant tension otherwise it will wear out the player
and cause them to want to stop playing the game. So the solution
Death Mark hits upon is to simulate the highs and lows of an overall
horror experience on a smaller scale to give space to breathe and
generate excitement for what is coming next. It is the also a great
pacing tool utilised by visual novels in general to make break their
longer games into manageable chunks, leading to them slotting nicely
alongside horror.
Control Over Information
One
particular sub-genre of horror which does not adhere to the episodic
format is Denpa, a genre where controlling the player’s access to
information is critical to the effectiveness of its fear. Given the
limited means visual novels have of presenting the player with
information, they are capable of providing a developer with precise
control over what is know, while still offering the option to drop
hints and create striking moments. This might be through the use of
specific character portrait placement, subtle audio cues or the
clever narrative moments. There are a surprising number of avenues to rely ideas down but these have limitation on the amount which
can be conveyed at once and this sets the player’s expectations for
what they are witnessing.
Together these are excellent tools to sow
doubt in the player's mind and invoke a paranoid state in them that is
the hall mark of Denpa. Soundless - A MODERN SALEM IN REMOTE AREA –
is a good example of how compatible Denpa horror and visual novels
are at their core. The overall aim of Soundless is to create a sense
of claustrophobia and doubt the game can channel into making the
player question everything as events decay into a whirlpool of
madness. To do this, the game establishes a status quo through a set of
symbols and sounds that meet the player’s expectations while subtly
cueing them in that something is not right, but never allowing them to
put their finger on what it is. Thus when events start to slip into
an uncontrolled descent, the player cannot tell if the protagonist is
a reliable narrator to events given how off they can be at times, but still having to grapple with them as their only source
of information. The restricted space to understand what is happening
provided by the limitations of the visual novel medium ensure the
player will always be in the palm of the developer’s hand and
experience the desired dread.
What You Imagine Is Scarier Than Reality
Sometime
it is best to let the player hang themselves with their own
nightmarish vision of what is hiding under the bed. No game can
possibly match the power of our own mind when it comes to creating
fear, so why not let it help the game’s main purpose. Visual novels
are especially well placed to exploit this feature of the human mind
since they by nature have large gaps in the presentation which they
expect the player to fill with their imagination. These spaces around
the edge of the threat can be positioned by the game so that
they do not come across as holes in the narrative, but instead as the
insidious and unknowable nature of the horror. Controlling this
balancing act is key for this techniques success, the player must
never know that they are the source of the fear and must believe in
the game’s power over their emotions. This kind of horror can be
difficult to maintain for long play times and as such visual novels
with this as their core then to be on the shorter side. We can look
to Phenomeno for a concise example of this approach since it is
entirely reliant on it to scare the player. The game heavily leans into the
implications of a threat without ever showing anything, from
unsettling music and sound effects to ominous visuals since, its
monster lacks a form to appear in. In doing this Phenomeno has to
tread the fine line between the player’s desire to see the threat
and their dread about seeing it, which it does through never dwelling too long
on any one source of fear.
Conclusion
Horror,
just like humour, varies by person, some find grotesque monsters scary
while others find the unknown a source of dread. Regardless of what
type of horror experience is desired, visual novels offer a flexible
environment to create an emotional roller-coaster for the player.
Their compatibility with horror is founded in a fundamental
commonality with how the two approach their structure and execution. From
an emphasis on a limited means of presenting ideas, to an episodic
centric approach to long form stories, to an ability to create gaps
into which the player can project their own monsters. Together they
can create games and narratives which would not be possible in other
mediums due to their more expansive tool sets and differing player
expectations. Horror is a genre defined by its ability to make something
from very little material and visual novels understand this approach
in a way nothing else can hope to match.
