Silent Hills

Did Guillermo del Toro ever say anything about Silent Hill before the announcement of Silent Hills?

I'd imagine that he was a fan of the Silent Hill series and was speechless or thrilled or something when either Konami or Hideo Kojima said they wanted him to do this game with them.

EDIT: Pagetopper.

edited 16th Aug '14 1:35:55 PM by TargetmasterJoe

There is nothing I feel I need to defend, because there is nothing it does wrong.

Look, if you didn't know that this was the teaser for Silent Hills what would it have been like for you? Just a real short surreal-horror demo for some indie game. You would have reached the "end", where it seems to restart, you would feel like you would have some sort of understanding of the plot and feeling of the game and you would be done with it. End of demo.

Most people would just quit after that, a few would put PT on their watchlist of games coming out, and an even smaller amount would have kept fucking with the demo trying squeeze every last secret out. It was meant to be a secret ending, only to be discovered down the line by the extremely persistant.

It was only by chance that someone tripped over the ending and found out, and now you feel entitled to see it because you assume that's what it was meant to lead to. It wasn't. And now because the secret is out but nobody knows the exact way you get it, you feel cheated.

There is nothing to be defended.lol

If the final game can capture the feel of P.T., I don't even know if I'll be able to play it. As someone who loves horror in all forms, P.T. may be the single most terrifying thing I've experienced.

Word to the wise, it is not a good idea to play it at three in the morning. I didn't even go past the second loop and I was jumping out of my skin. I did more just now, and "I can hear them calling me from HELL" was enough for me to put it down for a while.

I wonder what P.T. stands for

Playable Teaser.

That's so obvious it hurts. I feel dumb now.

At any rate, even though I absolutely loved the demo I don't think I'll be buying the game. Too scary

If it's as good as the teaser suggests, I will absolutely buy it.

Will I play it? I will try!

@offensivehandle: Its not in demo section though from what I've heard.

Anyway, I suppose you could mistake it for demo without actual ending, but usually demos DO end and then have "Please get the actual game!"

If it wasn't a teaser, then nobody would claim its "good" since it wouldn't have nothing to do with Kojima or Silent Hill so everyone would think its just really bad horror game that started out good <_<

Eitherway, really crappy and annoying marketing gimmick :p It seems to be one of those designed for uproar

^^The actual game will probably be nothing like the teaser though.

Why? 'cause thats what teasers are like. They have nothing to do with the finished product besides showing off the concept of what the game is like. In this case, surreal horror stuff and creepy creatures along with story hinting that protagonist did something really bad are what Silent Hill is about, it seems. It might not even be first person <_<

edited 16th Aug '14 6:46:01 PM by SpookyMask

Actually, it was announced as a teaser. Besides the fact that it's free, and full games typically aren't.

And I meant like the teaser tonally. I know it will have nothing to do with what I'm actually doing in the teaser. When I say I want the full game to follow through, I mean I want it to instill the same pervasive feelng of dread. I want it to be scary in a way that all I'm looking at is an empty hallway, but I have to turn off the game out of sheer fright.

I feel like the randomness is a nice choice, particularly in a genre that tends to lose its core asset on a second viewing.

However, that randomness can easily straddle the line between being driving the player to figure out the madness, or becoming tedious, confusing, and not scary because the player can't find it in themselves to invest in the thrills.

And that's a line a lot of stories straddle, but perhaps less obviously so than the horror genre. If I cannot invest myself in the characters, and I cannot invest myself in the spooky atmosphere and scares, than the entire story falls apart because of the eight deadliest words.

I, however, do find it interesting that a FREE playable teaser is probably generating more media buzz and conversation than a lot of PAID games are. I do worry that the finished game won't be able to attain the same hype since, well, its hard to recover if you're hype train dies down and you need to reach higher than the last time it was up; They may have set their bar too high for the future.

Anyway, I will say I find the graphics interesting as every You Tube Video I've watched on it made me think it was Live Action once or twice and not CGI. The laughing Fetus was probably the LEAST realistic thing in the game though. I sort of laughed at it... Though, I have a feeling it'd look more like a video game if I was actually playing it.

The graphics are nice.

Such is the power of the FOX Engine.

Any engine that can render a realistic Norman Reedus is a good engine indeed.

I kind of think that PT could also stand for "Pyramid Thing". I dunno.

Has anybody done the usual Silent Hill thing and broken down all the scary things into symbols that may or may not mean something?

I don't have a means to play this, but if I understand right, a lot of the horror and sense of pervading dread comes from the fact that you have no idea what to do, right? I'm surprised it took someone this long to figure out that randomization in a horror game works out a lot better than a scripted theme park ride approach.

Most of it actually is scripted. It's not until right near the end that it starts getting randomized.

Personally, the scariest moment in the entre thing (that's not the Jump Scare where Lisa chews your face off, which is only scary because you're already on edge) is turning the corner to find her just standing perfectly still at the end of the hall. Moving forward turns out the lights, and you have to walk through where she was just standing in the dark.

This happens at the same point in every play through, and it's the freakiest thing they make you do.

That was definitely one of the best moments. Honourable mention also goes to the "look behind you". It's just so simple, but something about the specific inflection and distortion used makes the line stick in your head. Overall, the teaser's palpable sense of unease is what's made me excited about Silent Hills, more than the evident budget or well-regarded names attached to the project.

It was the peephole for me. I kept expecting something horrible to come scare me.

Or Jim (I named the fetus Jim) to do something.

I expect Sink Fetus plushies.

edited 18th Aug '14 1:31:58 PM by occono

I want to see a webcomic of the protagonist just having a friendly chat with the fetus, both of them smoking cigarettes or something. I can see it now..."'Sup, bro. Welcome to my sink."

Another really good one is when the frame falls down from the balcony. If you turn around to look where it came from, Lisa's just standing on the balcony...staring at you...

Is that her name? Where'd it come from?

That's the name that eventually appears above the door that restarts the loop. I'm pretty sure it's still conjecture that the ghost is who it's referring to.

@Le Garçon on the graphics: Apparently, Kojima said they Actually significantly reduced the graphics to make it look more indie like.

I'd imagine that the randomness of all of it will be CERTAINLY a lot more bearable when its a larger scale area and, thus, the possibility of constantly repeating situations will be a lot less likely.

This is the alternate continuity's Lisa Garland, who's drug addiction might be shared with the protagonist.