As scary as some games are, how can we make them better.

(Don't do the obvious, like play at midnight)

Turn off all the lights, turn up the surround sound, turn your cell phone on vibrate (so when it rings it scares the obligatory defecation from you) and make sure you play it alone. At least that's how I'll be playing Dead Space.

It takes two to tango with the following suggestion:

Game designer: Create a game with atmospheric and superb sound design

At home Gamer: Own a good surround sound home theater system.

Lights off, etc....that sort of stuff.

Less focus on killing mounds of monsters with ease, and concentrate on handfuls of singular,difficult encounters with interesting beasties. (although, this doesn't easily lend itself to multiple play throughs)

Play alone. Not just alone in the sense that your in your room, and your mom or something is downstairs. It's got be an empty house. Obviously the lights should be off, and you should play after the sun goes down. Leave a couple window's open, and your door unlocked. That way, you'll know that anything you think is out there, WILL be able to get in.

Make it really difficult to survive. You value your life more that way.

Excellent lighting effects for the win.

The musical score plays a big part as well. Turn off own music. If the developer intended to make a good scary titles then chances are they hired someone to set the mood with an appropriate score.

More sharp objects and a lack of proper wound care.

2 words:virtual reality

Play with headphones. Seriously, it makes all the difference. More important that playing in the dark or alone, in my opinion.

All these reasons are why i enjoyed Left 4 Dead so much when i got to play it.

Sound is a HUGE factor in my eyes, Silent Hill is a the best example of sound being used to its full potential. Sounds that are unfamiliar are even better at causing that feeling of unease.

all of the above+be paranoid, however you accomplish this.
have a friend who knows your playing a scary game and can "enhance" the experience, perhaps with the occasional rustling of bushes in your backyard, or a scream outside, or knocking on windows then hiding before you can see them. that might be effective, but modern horrory horror games really arent that bad. just playing them alone in a dark room is good enough, or keeping your eyes fixed to the screen with noise cancelling headphones in a dark room.

Breathe irregularly and drink lots (not necessarily alcoholic). It gets a feeling of discomfort, and really heightens the atmosphere of tenseness.

Turning brightness down on your monitor sometimes has a better effect than turning the lights off, though that helps too. To me, most "horror" games arent scary. Resident Evil4 was a pretty good game but it never scared me. Same thing with all 3 Halos, even whent hey were tyring so hard with the flood. Half-Life 2 Episode One did a good job, and that is mostly due to Valve's perpetual talent of genuine atmosphere. Also I think it helps when the character knows nothing, as in Half Life, and not an omniscent view like in the Halo games.

Half-Life, Halo and Resident Evil 4 aren't horror. Try Silent Hill, (Forbidden) Siren, Project Zero, Condemned etc.

Slycne:
The musical score plays a big part as well. Turn off own music. If the developer intended to make a good scary titles then chances are they hired someone to set the mood with an appropriate score.

Completely agree. One word... 'They'. As a pre-teen, that part of Majora's Mask freaked me out. (Now it just frustrates me, but that's another story)

wait the halo series and resident evil 4 were supposed to be horror games? you can tell resident evil 4 tried, and their writing/atmosphere department just wasnt competent, but halo tried to be a horror game? i think your trying to trick me here so i look like an idiot.

Take mushrooms beforehand. Only jokes. Don't sue me if you do.

I agree with Harhol. Play with headphones, especially a decent pair (Sennheiser etc)

Yup, a good pair of Sennheiser make the difference.

Christ, I thought Sennheisers were a niche thing. Everybody on the internet seems to have them!

Geoffrey42:
More sharp objects and a lack of proper wound care.

I agree.

What I would like to see is something a little more like Call of Cthulhu(sp) or Eternal Darkness where they not only try to screw with your head but rather try to disturb the player rather than startle them. (Which seems to be the tactic I see most commonly employed but it's very effective, it's made me jump a few times in American McGee's Alice and Undying, which I doubt people think are really scary games)

what I'm thinking of is...think of what made Dumbo so disturbing. Remember what I'm talking about? Pink Elephants on Parade? Exactly. Imagine sequences like that where the things that make your character scared are so fantastical and over-the-hill they can't possibly be real and at the same time you wonder what the heck was going through the developer's minds, or even the characters' minds since they're seeing this. And of course the twist at the end (okay not really at the end) is that they were imagining the stuff like Pink Elephants on Parade, or being forced to, so they were their worst fears throughout the course of the adventure.

It basically would play like a 3D version of "Point and Click" adventure games with emphasis on exploration and puzzles rather than poorly executed combat. The only way to defeat the enemies you don't run from is to simply outsmart them or outrun them, like in Clock Tower where you had to hide from Scissorman or get him off your heels by making him jump on a broken platform. Of course this is all inside your imagination...so what exactly did you hit?

I also would of course use the startle tactic...but I wanted to do something different. Instead of say, the Bathtub scene in Eternal Darkness, more like play a scary noise and then show a field of flowers, or other various psych-outs like where oyu hear something scratching on the floor behind you or somebody walking, or hear a car coming towards you from behind the camera and when you turn around there's nothing.

Short of killing the player's console every time the player dies (which Microsoft seems to be attempting), I don't have many ideas as to how to make gaming scarier.

Devloper idea: make a game preloaded with tons of enemies then before starting the game have the player enter a list of fears, have the encountered enemies based on fears and phobias

As mentioned, Play Alone with really no one around PLUS if you really want to add paranoia to it, set yourself up so you can see into a dark space beyond the monitor/TV.

My monitor is in front of a window that mirrors quite well. Well after midnight i once managed to jump at my own reflection

Steal them.
And let the shop know you're going to be stealing them.

Scariest gaming experiance I ever had,

Doom 3, my little sister snuck into my room whilst playing (with the whole surround sound up lights off thing) and waited until something jumped out on me in game and jumped on me in real life.

I have never played it since. It was terrifying. I'm off to earn some man points back now.

lights off, secluded location, you'd need some kind of anxiety outside of the game. Like open a window and occasionally hear strange sounds

harhol:
Christ, I thought Sennheisers were a niche thing. Everybody on the internet seems to have them!

The office here is a haven for Sennheisers, everyone owns a pair.

I've got a pair of 595s at home, they are single handedly the best thing i have ever bought.

DesertHawk:
It takes two to tango with the following suggestion:

Game designer: Create a game with atmospheric and superb sound design

At home Gamer: Own a good surround sound home theater system.

Lights off, etc....that sort of stuff.

Less focus on killing mounds of monsters with ease, and concentrate on handfuls of singular,difficult encounters with interesting beasties. (although, this doesn't easily lend itself to multiple play throughs)

Game designers don't take care of the sound apsect of a game. They merely define and implement gameplay mechanics.
Your request is aimed at the sound designers and composers. (and voice designers too I guess.)

Enemy design. Use scary dark colours, like black. Not green or other colours like that! Also, the eyes are very important. Would Aliens be more scarier if you could see their eyes? Hell no!

Unknower:
Enemy design. Use scary dark colours, like black. Not green or other colours like that! Also, the eyes are very important. Would Aliens be more scarier if you could see their eyes? Hell no!

I meant existing games, how do we make THOSE alot more frightening.

If I may burrow a page from OMM, have the game randomly destroy your monitor. That'll terrify any self-respecting PC gamer.

1) Have a message pop up at the end saying that the game case has a tracking device in, and that the developers are going to come round in the dead of night with saws and drills to do some serious fucking of you up.

2) Act on said message.