The World of Scary Video Games
A Study in Videoludic Horror
Published on 31. May 2018
Book
Hardback
488 pages
978-1-5013-1620-3 (ISBN)
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.
Reviews / Votes
Perron's essay is a rare example of a complete examination of a particular genre, and the way the author went about proposing the synthesis of a subject - perhaps not total, but also close as much as possible - should be a model for such an exercise in the future. * Spirale Magazine * It will undoubtedly find a place on many readers' shelves. Summing Up: Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty and professionals. * CHOICE * Thorough and laden with in-depth knowledge, The World of Scary Video Games is an invaluable resource for fans, scholars and artist/designers of horror. * Tanya Krzywinska, Professor of Digital Games and Director, Games Academy, Falmouth Unversity, UK * (Bloomsbury translation)Newcomers to this field of research will find a wealth of information on digital horror thanks to the detailed descriptions and historical overview, while experts will find new approaches and a well-founded bibliography to further their own research. * MEDIENwissenschaft *
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
50 bw illus
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Weight
712 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5013-1620-3 (9781501316203)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Bernard Perron is Full Professor of Cinema at the University of Montreal, Canada. He has coedited The Video Game Theory Reader 1 (2003), The Video Game Theory Reader 2 (2008), The Routledge Companion to Video Games Studies (2014), as well as Figures de violence (2012), The Archives: Post-Cinema and Video Game Between Memory and the Image of the Present (2014) and Z pour Zombies (2015). He has edited Horror Video Games: Essays on the Fusion of Fear and Play (2009). He has also written Silent Hill: The Terror Engine (2012) in The Landmark Video Games book series he is co-editing. His research and writings concentrate on video games, interactive cinema, the horror genre, and on narration, cognition, and the ludic dimension of narrative cinema. More information can be found at his research team website: (soon to be changed to LUDOV, Laboratoire universitaire de documentation et d'observation videoludiques/Video Vames Observation and Documentation University Lab).
Content
Acknowledgments
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
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