DGC Ep 407: Fatal Frame (part four)

Dev Game Club

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we complete our series on Fatal Frame. We talk about a couple of rough things about the game, some things we loved, and then turn to our takeaways. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played: Into Night 3 (Brett), End of Night 2 (Tim)

Issues covered: ritual - oof, haunted house effects, effective randomness, character reactions, a consistent atmosphere, excellent cinematic control, mask themes and usage, integration of masks into multiple avenues of design, audio and music design, Foley work for footsteps, level reuse and recontextualization, increasing house connectivity, motivating the space, feeling empowered by learning, replanning routes, map visual language, lack of signaling about difficulty, four difficult ghosts, the possibility for grinding, unlocking nightmare mode, extending the life of survival horror games, power ups for the camera, combat is still combat, a high skill floor, the difficulty, economical and disciplined design, audio as the gateway to the limbic system, excellent lighting, projected shadows, a culturally driven story, grounding survival horror, a really great haunted house.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Eternal Darkness, PlayStation 2, Nintendo, N64, GameCube, Resident Evil (series), dagur danielsson, Silent Hill 2, Tecmo, Luigi's Mansion, Ninja Gaiden, Ju-On: The Grudge, The Ring, Final Fantasy VI, Biostats, LostLake, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time: TBA!

Twitch: timlongojr Discord [e-mail]