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Julia Redden
Level Design
Ophelia : Best Practices in the Use of Phobic Objects on Player Tension in Horror Games
For my thesis , I researched best practices in the horror game genre , specifically with phobic objects in mind . Phobic objects are otherwise neutral objects that a horror game has taught you to fear through classical conditioning . The goal of the project was to demonstrate the ability to create a phobic object and use it to manipulate a player ’ s tension levels throughout their game experience .
To do this , I created a custom story using HPL2 , the engine of Amnesia : The Dark Descent . It tells the story of Ophelia , a troubled woman being followed by a monster in the water . Her story is used as a vehicle to make water itself a phobic object and use water as a design tool to manipulate player tension levels .
This project allowed me to learn the design fundamentals of horror games , and through them , learn which techniques I can use to have better control over a player ’ s emotional experience across genres .
The tools I used for phobic objects can be studied in future research to investigate their use in manipulating a player ’ s emotional states .
42 LEVEL DESIGN