Symbolophobia
Horror games are only truly scary when players can completely immerse themself. To fully experience the fear their digital counterpart would feel. Luckily, the brain helps this process by quickly assimilating another object into our emotional grid, given that the object in question is under our control. Controlled avatars swiftly gain our sympathy, but games need to use more unique approaches to truly reel the mind of a gamer in. These days it’s fairly easy to obtain simple immersion due to more realistic graphics, imagination is hardly required. However, there were times when this was different. When gamers were required to actively immerse themselves into games by using their own creativity. Mentally moving into the game is a fearstrategy no longer used in the videogame medium, but still the essential ingredient when delving into books. When it’s required, this creative effort will alienate many people, who will instead opt for more visual creations which portray the vision of another person, not their own. It’s harder to envision horror worlds alone, but as any avid reader can tell you; your own mentalwork is far more succesful in getting under your skin. A little imagination goes a long way.
Case in point: Castle Adventure, a DOSgame created by Kevin Bales in 1984. Nowadays, no honest gamer would find this game scary. In fact, it would be mostly considered comical. But for it’s time Castle Adventures was a fantastic and innovative game, fully capable to pull a player into it’s world, if they allowed it. Because of graphical shortcomings at that time, the fetal videogame medium had to generate immersion in a different way. Technology was still unable to display lifelike images, or even simple graphics for that matter, so instead this game used symbols to represent objects. There was only the two tone grayscale ASCII art, nothing more. You were a clubs symbol, surrounded by dotted grey barriers. The text at the side, however, proclaimed something different; You were trapped in a castle and you needed to get out. You were not given a map, or an objective on where to go first. You simply have to escape that Castle, how you are going to do that is your own problem.
Solving that problem would not only require the movement of your character by using the arrowkeys, but also the manipulation of objects and inventory by giving out textcommands. This combination is something truly unique, let alone for that time. You quickly get used to simple movement; it’s a bird’s view perspective, so movement really synchronizes with the arrowkeys. The textcommands take a little more effort. Games these days don’t have textual imputs anymore, it’s all buttonpresses. Shame really, because theoretically you have far more options when imputting textcommands and it requires more from the thought process. For example, when you LOOK at the WALL, you’ll be told more about it. You don’t have to do that, but it’s an interactive element which helps you slide further into the game’s realm. Giving the player the option to view his surroundings rather than forcing him to, is something quite special.
After the player has adjusted to the controls, he’s ready to move through the large doorway into the next room. The text below gives a minor slice of info on the room and although it largely looks similar to the previous room, this really is the Enterance Room. Not much here, although one can LOOK at the grey WALLS for some more information. Moving on to the North, one finds himself/herself in the Welcome Room. This square was once used to welcome the guests, but it’s now empty and barren. Four nicely decorated archways appear on each side of greyscale foyer. This is were the labyrinth starts, a quest from room to room, in search for the Gatekey. One could quickly traverse through it, but moving too fast will most likely get you lost. Esspecially when you move over staircases (symbolized by a U or a D for Up and Down respectively). But there’s also another reason why people should run through the cold castle walls too quickly…
Players might quickly get the hang of the controls, thinking that movement and investigation is all that is required in this seemingly crude puzzle game. One could not be more wrong. Reading each description would slowly engulf the player into the digital world, and it’s often then that the gamer finds out that he’s not alone in this castle. It’s always a guess what kind of room will show up; it will only reveal itself when you walk out of frame. It will often lead to some kind of treasure, or some lost artifact, but sometimes something more sinister shows itself. Upon the entry of a uninvestigated room, you can be greeted by one of the more monstrous inhabitants of the structure. Rapidly moving towards you, these Demons and Ogres will not hesitate to attack you. Players would often freak out at the sight of such a beast rapidly advancing. Hopefully they would have already collected the Sword and the Helmet, for you can do no battle without the first, and you need the latter for protection against the bigger beasts. If you are equipped, you do stand a chance, but it will come down to trading blows, and hopefully you’ll come out winning, for loss will result in the adventure being reset. Knowing this, castle adventuring becomes a slower buisiness for you never know when you will stumble on such a beast. When encountering such savage creatures, the best method is to just avoid them until you have better equipent. It’s a terrifying experience for first-time gamers and generally considered to be one of the scarier old-day experiences. Nowadays, the game requires quite tons of imagination to even dent your psyche, esspecially considering that the Ogres and Demons in this game are representated by friggin’ smilies!
Yes, this moment did not stand the test of time. The terror has been lost, and one must go through great lengths if one wants to experience the fear Castle Adventure one day presented. But the game is noteworthy for other reasons too: It’s incredibly how many Castle Adventure’s gameplay elements are still being used today. The cross between text and gameplay for example: In most Survival Horror games today, you can still investigate objects and it will give out a little bit of textual information. It’s often unrequired, not yielding specific rewards, but it does underline that text is still considered important in Survival Horror games. Perhaps it’s the cooperation between the left and right hemisphere of the human brain, each amplifying the fear. The left creeped out by the text, the right frightened by the visuals. But many more popular elements are present in the old DOS game; Limited inventory and puzzle solving for example. Collecting things becomes integral to gameplaystrategy if you can’t take everything with you. Puzzle-solving (using specific items in certain locations) also requires active interest in the enviroment. The combination of realtime fighting and timeless riddles has been lifted as well. Room-to-room movement could also be seen as an origin for the static camera elements in ‘newer’ games which use pre-rendered backdrops or fixed cameras. Even the basic story premise and setting has been cloned many times over.
The only difference between this game and the more established franchises we now know, is the graphical direction. Still, the game’s generated fear didn’t originate from simple forgiveness, firsttimers had no previous experience with such a game. It was a new adventure all by itself, this alone let the immersion do it’s work. You believed the screen, and although it definitely required some ingression to succeed, it was far more easier than today. Having no standard back then, created an easy entrance into the world of digital fear. It’s the same case with the early more-established Survival Horror games, graphically miles ahead of Castle Adventure, but still a long distance from what we are used to these days. Even though many are 3d, the pixelated and blurry screens often present a imaginary obstacle simple immersion can’t overcome. We are slowly getting spoiled by ‘better looking’ games, making it harder to enter the old survival horror worlds. However, if one actively tries to delve into those horror histories and is able to suspend their newly gained graphical knowledge, ingression comes into play and one could simulate the fear players used to experience.
Today’s games aim to be more realistic, and with each advancement they require less imagination. Suspension of disbelief perhaps, concentration surely, but little to no visual creativity: Spaceships are represented by spaceships, not by blocks. Demons are no longer smilies, but lumbering wirestructures which need to have blood dripping from their teeth in high definition. This is not a plea for the good old days, this is a statement to underline the fact that what’s scary now, will not be considered scary indefinetly. There’s an automatic immersion when playing games of the current generation, but one should always be able to apply ingression when playing older games. Not only to respect those creations, but also to give them the power to scare you into bits.
Ingression
– An active attempt to make yourself more susceptible to the game’s athmosphere
Symbolophobia – Fear of symbolism
