Players of fear

“We’ve learnt a lot about scaring people,” claims Piejko, “what works better or worse, and of course that players have completely different reactions to being scared. In Layers Of Fear we didn’t have a crouch mechanic. But we got a lot of feedback that some players just want to crouch in a corner and not watch what’s happening. And we’ve learned that the music and the atmosphere is more important than jump scares. If you have a game packed with those it will just get boring.” Zieba agrees: “Fear is in the mind of the player. You can give them a crouching mechanic, some sound cues, some music and they’re in the corner and they’re terrified when nothing’s actually happened!”