Fear is a basic reaction to a danger signal which is deeply rooted in any living individual’s bra... more Fear is a basic reaction to a danger signal which is deeply rooted in any living individual’s brain. Hence, ‘being horrified’ as an emotional state should have an overall bad connotation, yet frightening content of any sort enjoys great popularity in pop culture, being depicted in all kind of media. People like getting shocked. From the Gothic Novel over horror movies of various subgenres to shocking videogames, being exposed to horror has always been fascinating for the human brain. Especially over the last decade, with rapidly developing technical possibilities, games provided a new and notably different approach to experiencing fear by, unlike literature or movies, actively involving the recipient. The most common type, and at the same time pioneer for horror portrayed in video games, is the genre of the Survival Horror. Even though there are numerous horror games, game studies seem to solely focus on this subgenre. There are nearly no reliable sources analyzing other horror game categories that emerged over the years - and even the research on survival horror is rather restricted to the two biggest and most popular game series in the franchise, namely Silent Hill and Resident Evil, with two existing considerable scientific essays. The focus of those studies lies mostly on fear evoked by monsters and supernatural events although the trend tends towards an establishment of psychological horror in video games. Even though there are notable differences, the resemblance to one of the earliest widely consumed horror medium cannot be denied: the Gothic Novel, or in this special case the Victorian Gothic. For these reasons, this paper tries to examine the field of psychological horror games and its roots a bit further. It analyzes the first-person gothic walking-simulator “Layers of Fear”, which blends various horror game characteristics with typical Victorian Gothic elements and heavily focuses on story and exploration from the point of view of a psychic painter. Plot-wise, his wife is his muse, but after she is disfigured in a house fire, the artist develops a schizophrenic disorder and is unable to paint. The goal of the game is to create a new magnum opus while exploring the dark past and happenings in the painter’s familiar environment. The game will be examined with regard to the Victorian Gothic narrative and therefore, the paper focuses on the similarities between the two genres in order to get a basic understanding how Layers of Fear evokes Horror. To get a fundamental overview, the first part of this paper deals with several definitions of fear and how it affects the mind. It then examines how horror is portrayed in literature, using gothic fiction as an example. The focus lies on Victorian gothic. The main part will consist of an analysis of the game “Layers of Fear“ and is divided into two sub-categories which reflect on the everlasting discussion ‘Narratology vs. Ludology’: content and form, frame, game design. Therefore, on the narration level, recurring Victorian gothic horror-motifs in the game are examined and directly compared to horror elements found in Oscar Wilde’s novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, since the novel is the main inspiration source for the aesthetics of the game. Of equal importance regarding horror aspects are game mechanics and design which will also be further explored. To conclude the paper, an outlook for the possible development of horror video games and their ways to trigger fear in the future is presented. All screenshots used in this paper are taken by myself to support my analysis.
Fear is a basic reaction to a danger signal which is deeply rooted in any living individual’s bra... more Fear is a basic reaction to a danger signal which is deeply rooted in any living individual’s brain. Hence, ‘being horrified’ as an emotional state should have an overall bad connotation, yet frightening content of any sort enjoys great popularity in pop culture, being depicted in all kind of media. People like getting shocked. From the Gothic Novel over horror movies of various subgenres to shocking videogames, being exposed to horror has always been fascinating for the human brain. Especially over the last decade, with rapidly developing technical possibilities, games provided a new and notably different approach to experiencing fear by, unlike literature or movies, actively involving the recipient. The most common type, and at the same time pioneer for horror portrayed in video games, is the genre of the Survival Horror. Even though there are numerous horror games, game studies seem to solely focus on this subgenre. There are nearly no reliable sources analyzing other horror game categories that emerged over the years - and even the research on survival horror is rather restricted to the two biggest and most popular game series in the franchise, namely Silent Hill and Resident Evil, with two existing considerable scientific essays. The focus of those studies lies mostly on fear evoked by monsters and supernatural events although the trend tends towards an establishment of psychological horror in video games. Even though there are notable differences, the resemblance to one of the earliest widely consumed horror medium cannot be denied: the Gothic Novel, or in this special case the Victorian Gothic. For these reasons, this paper tries to examine the field of psychological horror games and its roots a bit further. It analyzes the first-person gothic walking-simulator “Layers of Fear”, which blends various horror game characteristics with typical Victorian Gothic elements and heavily focuses on story and exploration from the point of view of a psychic painter. Plot-wise, his wife is his muse, but after she is disfigured in a house fire, the artist develops a schizophrenic disorder and is unable to paint. The goal of the game is to create a new magnum opus while exploring the dark past and happenings in the painter’s familiar environment. The game will be examined with regard to the Victorian Gothic narrative and therefore, the paper focuses on the similarities between the two genres in order to get a basic understanding how Layers of Fear evokes Horror. To get a fundamental overview, the first part of this paper deals with several definitions of fear and how it affects the mind. It then examines how horror is portrayed in literature, using gothic fiction as an example. The focus lies on Victorian gothic. The main part will consist of an analysis of the game “Layers of Fear“ and is divided into two sub-categories which reflect on the everlasting discussion ‘Narratology vs. Ludology’: content and form, frame, game design. Therefore, on the narration level, recurring Victorian gothic horror-motifs in the game are examined and directly compared to horror elements found in Oscar Wilde’s novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, since the novel is the main inspiration source for the aesthetics of the game. Of equal importance regarding horror aspects are game mechanics and design which will also be further explored. To conclude the paper, an outlook for the possible development of horror video games and their ways to trigger fear in the future is presented. All screenshots used in this paper are taken by myself to support my analysis.
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For these reasons, this paper tries to examine the field of psychological horror games and its roots a bit further. It analyzes the first-person gothic walking-simulator “Layers of Fear”, which blends various horror game characteristics with typical Victorian Gothic elements and heavily focuses on story and exploration from the point of view of a psychic painter. Plot-wise, his wife is his muse, but after she is disfigured in a house fire, the artist develops a schizophrenic disorder and is unable to paint. The goal of the game is to create a new magnum opus while exploring the dark past and happenings in the painter’s familiar environment. The game will be examined with regard to the Victorian Gothic narrative and therefore, the paper focuses on the similarities between the two genres in order to get a basic understanding how Layers of Fear evokes Horror.
To get a fundamental overview, the first part of this paper deals with several definitions of fear and how it affects the mind. It then examines how horror is portrayed in literature, using gothic fiction as an example. The focus lies on Victorian gothic. The main part will consist of an analysis of the game “Layers of Fear“ and is divided into two sub-categories which reflect on the everlasting discussion ‘Narratology vs. Ludology’: content and form, frame, game design. Therefore, on the narration level, recurring Victorian gothic horror-motifs in the game are examined and directly compared to horror elements found in Oscar Wilde’s novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, since the novel is the main inspiration source for the aesthetics of the game. Of equal importance regarding horror aspects are game mechanics and design which will also be further explored. To conclude the paper, an outlook for the possible development of horror video games and their ways to trigger fear in the future is presented. All screenshots used in this paper are taken by myself to support my analysis.
For these reasons, this paper tries to examine the field of psychological horror games and its roots a bit further. It analyzes the first-person gothic walking-simulator “Layers of Fear”, which blends various horror game characteristics with typical Victorian Gothic elements and heavily focuses on story and exploration from the point of view of a psychic painter. Plot-wise, his wife is his muse, but after she is disfigured in a house fire, the artist develops a schizophrenic disorder and is unable to paint. The goal of the game is to create a new magnum opus while exploring the dark past and happenings in the painter’s familiar environment. The game will be examined with regard to the Victorian Gothic narrative and therefore, the paper focuses on the similarities between the two genres in order to get a basic understanding how Layers of Fear evokes Horror.
To get a fundamental overview, the first part of this paper deals with several definitions of fear and how it affects the mind. It then examines how horror is portrayed in literature, using gothic fiction as an example. The focus lies on Victorian gothic. The main part will consist of an analysis of the game “Layers of Fear“ and is divided into two sub-categories which reflect on the everlasting discussion ‘Narratology vs. Ludology’: content and form, frame, game design. Therefore, on the narration level, recurring Victorian gothic horror-motifs in the game are examined and directly compared to horror elements found in Oscar Wilde’s novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, since the novel is the main inspiration source for the aesthetics of the game. Of equal importance regarding horror aspects are game mechanics and design which will also be further explored. To conclude the paper, an outlook for the possible development of horror video games and their ways to trigger fear in the future is presented. All screenshots used in this paper are taken by myself to support my analysis.