Topic: Games you've recently beat

Expand

@LtSarge I'll watch horror movies all day long, they are my favorite genre but I've seen behind the curtain and know it's not real. In a movie situation it's happening to someone else and I as a person am removed from the experience. I also tend to watch movies with someone else, or in a room with someone else. I tend to game alone, I don't discuss what I've played and no one would be all that interested. Folks around me see games as toys and not much else, it's not ignorance, gaming just isn't part of their paradigm or on their radar. For me it's something entirely different, it's room to breath, explore, build, experience art, learn a new skill and have something to accomplish in my day.

If I did try to play a horror game I'd control the avatar and that connection means I'd in a way become the avatar. Horror games as a rule seem to focus on jump-scares and those speed my heart up, which isn't good. They are usually set in the dark and I have a serious fear of the dark. The character is usually alone and I don't do the alone thing, especially when it means being in the dark waiting for who knows what to jump out of the shadows. I don't fear the thing/monster that does jump out, more-so the anticipation. It's the knowing it's coming and not being able to predict when it's going to happen. Even right now I'm getting anxious thinking about it and I have little to no experience with horror games. I think it's kind of fascinating but also a downer because some of the most respected franchises are horror games and if you are ten or fifteen titles removed from the material you are equally removed from the discussion. Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Alone in The Dark, Fatal Frame and Until Dawn are all series or titles that I'd like to try but I know my limits.

I think it directly loops back into the same systems that drive anxiety in the brain, it's virtual but the uncertainty and anticipation aren't. I tried the first two Resident Evil games not too long ago on the original Playstation. I thought the dated graphics would remove some of those emotional responses and they didn't. Graphics don't seem to impact immersion when the player is already hyper-focused, scanning their surroundings for threats, and limited in their abilities and resources. The same thing happened with those Sniper Elite games and the system where you take a breath to take a steady shot. It was causing anxiety which is really strange because I can and do handle real rifles and none of that anxiety is there but it is when it's virtual. I'm not sure if anyone else has ever experienced that in such a trivial setting, even if I was hidden and no one was on the alert, it would still happen. I'd anticipate missing, whereas in real life I rarely miss and there is no anxiety only a careful trigger squeeze. It's a strange situation and maybe the virtual heightens something.

It might be that just like in a horror setting my mind was constantly prepared for danger and was convinced that the situation was 'real'. I don't shoot people or animals, only paper or cardboard, there's no real threat there but in a game they do shoot back. I considered horror as a method of exposure therapy and was strongly advised against it. I tend to game late at night too and I don't think that would help. Most people can probably manage a situation like that by managing that controlled fear, they know it's not real and can turn it off at any time. My mind doesn't care if it's real or not, I can't control that part and fight or flight won't kick in so I'd have to sit there and take it. The way I game would make it even worse, I have to reach completion meaning I'd need to reach the end to feel like I accomplished something. Those are two major factors out of my control and both would impact being able to enjoy or even tolerate (safely) horror or horror survival. Then there are loud unexpected noises too, those are equally as disruptive and often dangerous.

I'm not a nervous wreck, I just have amplified responses to certain stimuli and almost every aspect of my life relies on some form of preventive measure. When I do game I'm in there alone, resource management and personal safety are all my own responsibility. I do like starting with nothing, it's a kind of luxury, balance, and the kind of games I play reflect that. I can farm and prepare for something in a survival game or in a simulator and I know I'm not going in there under-prepared. Survival horror likes to limit a player, limit resources, manipulate their surroundings and often plunge them into darkness. I'd find it very hard to put myself in that kind of a situation when I do know the risks. Other than some art-books and renders I haven't really seen how realistic a modern horror game can look. I don't look at footage or trailers for new groundbreaking horror games. Killer Frequency was as close as I've come to horror and that game sure had it's moments. I did a quick trophy/game scroll and see nothing else that comes close to horror.

• It's a long answer but I really do respect the genre and I think it's done a lot to bring gaming to a wider audience, it's just not all that accessible to me and I'm not sure it ever will be. Those same limitations are preventing me from playing titles like The Last of Us and quite a few others. I don't dwell on it too much, what happens with a game like Sniper Elite is a lot more annoying. If I ever try Alan Wake I won't be going for one hundred percent, I'd play it for the sake of continuity and curiosity. Which will hopefully happen.

Do you know why you like horror games? do you enjoy being scared or is it more the art/aesthetic? I'm sure some people play them for the same reason that they might ride a roller-coaster and I've never done that either. I'm good with heights and spend a lot of time in the air, but being in something that zooms around, soars up, plunges down no thank you. I found out I had an aversion to that sort of thing when I took the opportunity to go up in a Mig fighter jet and that pilot didn't hold back, they are built for high performance and dog fighting, I'm never doing that again. I'm good with speed, the rest not at all. I guess what I'm saying is that I try not to knock something until I've tried it and I have tried horror, the results really spoke for themselves.

Expand

Even watching a TV show like Fear the Walking Dead has put me in a better mood. It sounds weird, but these things have actually helped me recover and now I'm looking forward to going to work on Monday. I honestly can't figure out why these things have been helpful. Maybe you have an idea?

• Dopamine would probably be one of the main causes, as would Oxytocin and Endorphins. The brain naturally releases those in times of fear, during heightened moments of stress and in situations where you might feel helpless or a loss of control. I depend on all three on a regular basis and I don't get them through fear but they do help me to regulate, de-stress and create an incredible sense of balance. It's highly likely that you are getting those hits yourself especially if you felt that a game with deep psychological content helped you. It may have been entirely subconscious at the time but what was happening beneath the surface wasn't. It's also possible that the game and show served as a way to project your own anxieties elsewhere but entirely controlled, as in you could have at any time turned it off and done something else. Not tapping out would have then served as a kind of win which too would have amplified those same natural chemicals.

A kind of transfer process occurs when you mix all three and if you add a surge of adrenaline that Dopamine shifts from that perceived feeling of uneasiness/terror to euphoria. In my case it leads to blacking out, the world goes dark, then I'm completely gone and it's sheer bliss. That's the more extreme side of excitation transfer and most people don't experience that because they don't have that natural surge of adrenaline coursing through them twenty four hours a day, I do and when that other Person can regulate that natural system they can regulate me too, which I depend on. Horror/fear would upset that balance, those natural fight or flight barriers aren't there. All I'd feel would be raw fear and it would hit like a train. You do have those barriers meaning that surge of adrenaline would then act as a boost in confidence and the energy and awareness needed to keep going, a real sense of survival would guide you, not cloud your mind with confusion. After you did push through you'd reach a state of euphoria. That euphoria is often so subtle that you might not even know you just experienced it. Instead it might appear as a kind of noticeable mood-shift and you'd question why something so dark or disturbing could make you feel good. As do I'm sure plenty of Horror fans, they might see it as 'what's wrong with me?', nothing, it's natural.

It's also possible that 'I got used to them' means the production of Endocannabinoids, that would make sense for a horror game and if that's what happened you'd feel accomplishment and relief for getting through the game, then feel a kind of urge to try another. On the surface you might think that's because you enjoyed the writing/atmosphere/action but there might have been something else at play, especially if you did enter into it during a time of stress. There might be some kind of emotional purging at work, that kind of emotional response is behind the creation of so many genres in cinema. We watch comedies to laugh, tragedies to cry and I think horror serves a purpose too. It sharpens the senses, raises the heart-rate, and allows it all to happen in a safe controlled space. A jump scare then becomes an accomplishment, seeing someone suffer some kind of traumatic experience (though extreme) becomes almost cathartic. Horror allows a person to experience intense emotions without any real risk to the viewer/player. Once they do pass one of those jump-scare tests the brain responds in kind and rewards them with that Dopamine hit. I think any game can offer hits like that but only Horror or a major sense of the un-easiness can release those kinds of major surges.

It's really interesting how scaring yourself senseless can reduce stress, it sounds absolutely counterintuitive but it's a lot healthier than it sounds. Those floods of chemicals are essentially free mood boosters and a stress reset. A stress reset like that is basically working your nervous system up to a point where it does hit a certain limit and then winds back down into a relaxed state. That's why I've experimented with different kinds of exposure therapy, the goal is to train my brain into handling stressful situations without fear. If you've ever seen my what must be a decade long Minecraft build, that's a big part of it. I've been trying to use games and worlds to try to build a resilience to those large open spaces. It only works to a certain extent, it might not work but it's the effort that counts. Horror worked for you because of the added element of flow and the distraction, it allowed you to temporarily focus on something else which does allow stress hormones to naturally subside. Large open spaces aren't survival for me, I don't need to go outside to survive, I can spend the rest of my life going from one car to another or one plane to another. There's no flow or distraction there, fear and survival (like in a game) creates a situation where you need to confront that terrifying something in order to survive and to push through the terror.

I don't know if you have or have had anxiety, it's sort of like a highly wound spring. Horror games allow that spring a slow regulated release and reset the nervous system to that natural baseline. The stresses of the day, tensions of the week then start to dissolve. Each time you take a trip to Racoon City or Silent Hill you are burning off the tension, reinforcing control over fear, and giving yourself a safe stress workout. My brain's threat detector and amygdala sensitivity is hyper-responsive, I can't tell if the threat is real or not. That's what happened with Control the first time I tried it. I pressed triangle, heard a loud boom and it triggered something else, soldiers have a specific name for it. I call it being in the wrong country at the wrong time. That something rewired my ability to feel exhilaration from fear/Horror, I feel genuine fear. It spikes Cortisol production but without the sense of relief afterwards. I can't turn off that natural threat detection, it's there all day every day and even when I know there are people tasked to deal with threats themselves my mind won't allow me to believe it. That's the main difference, you have the capacity to face and master uncertainty, switch-off when needed, and you can naturally see through the immersion and know it's not real.

You might over time feel a reduced reward from putting yourself in those positions and situations but you also called yourself a variety game and you might be getting something similar from trying new things too. There would be hits of Dopamine there too and my brains reward system is so broken that I rely on that same Dopamine there too. If you try something new/genre/etc and you get that response it's probably due to your brain experiencing a similar kind of Dopamine driven reward circuit, only as a novelty and not actual survival.

Hopefully that's not too obtuse. I've had to learn about and understand fear/anxiety and how they relate to stress. I want to know what's going on inside, rather than to just throw my arms up and allow it to become some kind of automatic defeat. I also wanted to understand how I could be so fearful and still watch so many Horror movies. I don't think there are enough hours in the day to really understand what's going on under the surface and perhaps like with depression and similar stresses we create a natural barrier and prefer not to think or talk about it. I think gaming is one of the healthiest hobbies for dealing with and addressing those issues, it allows for uncomfortable situations and gives the player the tools needed to see it through. A book doesn't, it's strictly linear, a game is whatever the person needs it to be. I'm sure gaming has helped to resolve a lot more issues than cause them.