STACK #130 Aug 2016

GAMES

FEATURE

visit www.stack.net.au

Supermassive Games are trying their hardest to scare the living daylights out you. Cabin Fever W hy on earth would you want to go and stay in a cabin in the woods for the night? Do these people not watch films? Clearly not. Until Dawn is a horror survival game alternatively leading them to the slaughter. In what is known as the ‘Butterfly Effect’, each choice that is made in Until Dawn has a direct consequence that will shape the outcome of the game. Once someone dies, they stay that way, so repercussions are ruthless. This becomes clear early in the demo, where players are tasked with making a significant decision whilst dangling precariously off the edge a cliff face. While it soon becomes apparent that the eight are being stalked by a killer, clues

from Supermassive that has been gestating for a number of years. Development was originally undertaken for the PlayStation 3, but it soon became clear it would be a good fit for a PS4 exclusive – thus the project was moved to Sony’s latest platform. We were fortunate to get some hands- on with the game in early July and can confidently report that it will certainly scare the life out of you. The elements of your stereotypical slasher movie are all in place, but this time you’re playing one instead of watching it, and that is a totally different proposition altogether. On the anniversary of the disappearance of twin sisters, a group of eight friends head to the cabin (why?) for a morbid reunion. The characters – all controlled at some point by the player – are typical horror film teen stereotypes. The big twist in Until Dawn is, ultimately, players are directly responsible for keeping these characters alive, or

Once someone dies they stay that way, so repercussions are ruthless

Bring in the experts “We have Larry Fessenden and Graham Reznick as our script writers,” explains Harris “They are horror encyclopaedias in human form and have worked on all sorts of acclaimed horror movies, like The Innkeepers and Stakeland. ” The element of surprise “What we’ve tried to do is ensure that if you’re a fan of horror movies it will feel familiar – and that’s absolutely deliberate,” says Harris. “What we want to do is put

you in a playable horror movie. We want to make you feel like you know what’s going on and that you’re in your comfort zone. Then we can yank you out of it extremely hard as the twists and turns play out.” Always have willing test subjects “One of the things we realised very early on is that once we’ve been scared by something, that scare quickly diminishes every time you play,” Harris explains. “And of course we play the game an awful lot, so you start questioning whether something

is scary, forgetting the fact that it scared the life out of you six months ago. So we do a lot of user testing. We get players in that are completely fresh to the game, so we can check that we’re still making an impact.” Harness the science of fear “We do a lot of work with galvanic skin response,” Harris continues. “We have testers strapped into apparatus that monitors their temperature and the level of moisture in their skin. We’ll sit and watch the data as the person plays the game, and if we get a

Producer Jez Harris talks through his five-step formula for guaranteed scares.

AUGUST 2015 JB Hi-Fi www.jbhifi.com.au

066