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The World of Scary Video Games
A Study in Videoludic Horror
The World of Scary Video Games
A Study in Videoludic Horror
Description
As for film and literature, the horror genre has been very popular in the video game. The World of Scary Video Games provides a comprehensive overview of the videoludic horror, dealing with the games labelled as “survival horror” as well as the mainstream and independent works associated with the genre. It examines the ways in which video games have elicited horror, terror and fear since Haunted House (1981). Bernard Perron combines an historical account with a theoretical approach in order to offer a broad history of the genre, outline its formal singularities and explore its principal issues. It studies the most important games and game series, from Haunted House (1981) to Alone in the Dark (1992- ), Resident Evil (1996-present), Silent Hill (1999-present), Fatal Frame (2001-present), Dead Space (2008-2013), Amnesia: the Dark Descent (2010), and The Evil Within (2014). Accessibly written, The World of Scary Video Games helps the reader to trace the history of an important genre of the video game.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I: The Genre
Chapter One
The Horror: Falling into the Arena of Video Game Genres
Crossing Paths with a “Monstrous” Concept
The Need to Use a New Combo
Finding Some Directions
Chapter Two
“You have once again entered the world of survival horror. Good luck!”
Loading Screen…
A Species of Their Own
A Cross-Media Genre
The (Survival) Horror Genre
Chapter Three
Something to Fear: From the Fictional to the Videoludic
Gut Reactions
The Answer Is Fear
Fear-Motivated Actions
Chapter Four
Building the Pyramid of Scary Video Games: Toward the Scare Tactics of the Videoludic Horror Genre
The Gaming Apparatus: Technical and Formal Aspects
The Videoludic Treatment of Horror
Figures of Interactivity, Actional Modalities and Scare Tactics
The Pyramid of Scary Video Games
Part II: The History
Chapter Five
Thinking about the History of the Videoludic Horror Genre, Part I: From Teleology to the Initial Cluster
Teleology, This Monster (Before 1981)
The Scattered Generic Cluster (1981-1991)
Chapter Six
Thinking about the History of the Videoludic Horror Genre, Part II: Crystallization and Bipolarity
The Crystallization of the Survival Horror (1992-2005)
The Antipodal Clusters: Fight or Flight (2006-2016)
Scary Virtual Reality (2017 and the future…)
Part III: The Scare Tactics
Chapter Seven
The Frightening Regimes of Vision
The Experience of Gamership
Third-Person Frightening Regime of Vision
First-Person Frightening Regime of Vision
Seeing Is Not Everything
Chapter Eight
The Frightening Regimes of Audition
Third-Person and First-Person Frightening Regimes of Audition
Synch to the Rendering of the Gruesomeness
(In) A Fearful Mood
Dreadful Listening and Terrifying Forewarnings
Chapter Nine
Scary Playgrounds
Setting the Mood
Caught up in the Maze
Unsettling Progression
Chapter Ten
Monsters Meet Scared Player(-Characters)
Some Kind of Monster
Figures Under Threat
Seek and Destroy
Surviving Horror
Afterword
References
Ludography
Index
Product details
| Published | May 31 2018 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (Epub & Mobi) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Extent | 488 |
| ISBN | 9781501316210 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Illustrations | 50 bw illus |
| Series | Approaches to Digital Game Studies |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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