Zombies, horror and scary kids – why we can’t stop playing horror games | Sports

Hhorror is very hot right now. There’s Obsession, Evil Dead Burn and Hokum in a movie, Widow’s Bay, Out and Something Bad is Happening on TV, and, of course, a rotten smorgasbord of horror games to include. Requiem Evil Requiem (pictured above) and Animalsthey will soon be joined by Silent Hill: Townfall, Silver Pines and Dreadmoor. We’re also seeing weird genres, with horror studio Blumhouse making games, where the games become horror movies as well all kinds of back rooms it affects every process it can affect.

So it was interesting to attend the horror and games conference last week at Falmouth University, in Cornwall: a meeting of students, researchers and teachers, all involved in the study of horror games. There were excellent talks on zombies and posthumanism, gothic in gaming, and the role of little girls in survival horror (there are many!). Various subjects such as male weakness, disability and old age came up; Will Doyle, creative director at Supermassive Games, provided great insight into the art of creating horror in games using tools such as sarcasm, conflict and human instinct. apophenia. I learned a lot about theorists like Julia Kristeva and Mark Fisher, and about the technical similarities between indie horror and film noir (for example, the use of darkness and camera techniques to “hide” budget restrictions). It was incredible fun.

One topic was how horror tools such as zombies, apocalypse and the supernatural are constantly updated to stay current. What’s most important about horror games right now is how they see how they can be helpless – and victims – of increasing global problems. “Organization is a big concept that enters into cultural studies – thinking about organization as our power to act, as the illusion of control or how control is created and negotiated,” says Poppy Wilde, senior lecturer in media and communication at Birmingham City University, who spoke at the event. “What’s interesting about video games is asking where the agency starts between the player and the game, or the character, or the changes, and how it all comes together. Horror video games often play very clearly with the idea of ​​control and uncontrollability as horror; they argue with the logic or illusion of agency depending on what your skills are and what they aren’t.” We see this in roles like Routine, and The Complex: Expeditionwhich constantly asks questions about the role of players and the ability to change.

Job security, or the lack thereof, is also becoming a popular topic of concern. Ewan Kirkland, senior lecturer in critical studies at Creative Arts University, said: “In Lethal Company, Five Nights at Freddy’s and Mouthwashthere is a theme that the workplace is dangerous and that your employer does not care about your health, which is interesting considering the times we live in.

Is it important for academic work to be done on horror games? Hell, yes. It is important for computer games to be valuable as a culture, but it is also important on a practical level, as the industry grows, to give ideas and knowledge to new developers of how games work – not as computer programs, but as cultural, aesthetic and social texts. It is also wild to talk about the connection of the tentacle porn with Baldur’s Gate 3or Anthony Vidler’s theory of “magical strangeness” related to Raccoon City.

And it’s a life skill. Horror is a thriving genre because it is, and always has been, a way to deal with human problems, threats and dangers. We need to know what’s in the basement; we need to understand what Zombie wants and what it stands for. We must understand that no work of apocalyptic horror fiction existed in the distant future – it was almost here.

Toys

Keza has been playing Rhythm Paradise Groove, A wonderful little game that makes you talk to strangers, bounce apples from bodybuilders’ biceps or trigger frogs to sound. Amazing and simple, it’s just a holdover from the more complex mobile games of the past. Unexpectedly, multiplayer games have been a big hit with the family, especially when you both try to get a piece of the cake and have a good time. He told me: “We got weeks of fun out of games that I thought would last a few days.”

Available at: Change / Update 2
Estimated time: a few minutes at a time, 10 hours in total

For you to read

• For more from Poppy Wilde, read on this piece for what he calls “accountability” to the players a post-apocalyptic gameand entering My Friend Is a Raven, a short game from 2019 with four endings. And from Ewan Kirkland, this paper on Silent Hill and psychoanalysis.

• Following the latest vicious cycle dismissal on Xbox, Id Software he said that it still has the staff it needs to continue working on the game and its Id Tech engine, even after losing half of its staff. Id founder John Carmack he has spoken again about the situation: “My ‘Microsoft will probably be a good brand manager’ statement is not aging well.” Meanwhile, Bethesda’s staff is organizing strike action protest against dismissal.

• Very nice Difficult Distancewhich oversees the publication of online video games, has links to interesting articles on Sony’s recent announcement about the end of the game PlayStation. There is a personal story about sports and poverty, and a piece on price of retro games.

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Question Block

This one comes from Nickvia email:

“My boys (11 and nine) have an hour of screen time per day, which they usually spend on their desktop PCs in the living room. We’ve all played Minecraft for a while, but they’ve gone beyond that. They he played again Breath of the Wild is Pokémon ZAbut my elder brother A child mainly just wants to play Roblox.

I know the dangers of that platform, and have helped parents manage it, age restrictions, turn off chat and more. But what a mind-blowing game they are playing. and true trash – more than a fruit machine, while clicking to spin and win ‘ultra-rare’ take over. (They don’t have) a specific strategy, difficulty or any other game.

I know there is a rich world of fun games out there. How can I test him out of Roblox and what? Or on PC (which cannot be tolerated very much drawingss) or Change.”

This is difficult, because it is a place to jump, and not a specific game, that many young fans of Roblox find compelling – like a version of TikTok. There is always something happening five seconds away. For Change 2, consider Donkey Kong Banana or Poké Pokemonwho have many and varied colors to keep your sons.

To bring them back to the Zelda style experience with a little twist, try it Bravely Unchanged: Flying Fairy HD Remaster or Rune Factory: Managers of Azuma. On PC, there is Palworld (which has a rating of Pegi 12, so check yourself first), Satisfying, Minecraft legs and Terrariawhich combines elements of Minecraft and the mini games of Roblox but offers more flexible and expanded gameplay. For more on Zelda, try it Mina the Hollower or Way in the Sky 1st Chapter (Pegi 12, again), which many people called the great beginning of Japan’s most difficult events.

My fellow readers, let us know if you have any game ideas or ways to introduce kids to new games.

If you have a Question Block question – or anything else to say about the newsletter – post a reply or email us at pushingbuttons@theguardian.com.