Moral Choices in Games/Creating Atmosphire

Games with a similar story telling/moral choice concept to the game I'm thinking of building.

Moral Choices in Games.

Fable is a sandbox rpg type game which uses a moral choice element to add a prospect of freedom in the game. This is implemented during the game were the player has the choice to develop their in game character by making choices, often positive or negative. However this really has no real effect on the story, only the characters appearance and reactions of NPC's around the towns. The choices are things like;
Do you help this guy kill his wife for the money- etc. As your character grows you can either be a good ruler or a bad ruler, either way it doesn't really make a difference, it just adds to the experience.

Papers Please is an indie game now available on steam.
You play as a border check point worker in an impoverished Russia. The moral choice in this game comes from your role as immigration inspector, choosing to allow people though the border or not.
Choosing to let them in will be good for them but have consequences on your country, choosing to deny them will of course have a negative impact on their lives, so it's very moral heavy. The whole game has a lot of variety and the alternatives are very well planed out. You see character development of the paper pusher as well as the customers and the weight your decisions have on their lives.

Bioshock is a first person shooter released in 2008 and plays around with a moral choice element which leads you to either a good or bad ending. The dissension making comes from these generically modified little girls who you see running around the game, the girls are protected by these big ass robot dudes who will do whatever to protect these girls. Once you've definite these guards you have a choice to make regarding the girls. These girls contain something called Adam which is a necessary element in progressing in the game. You can either kill these girls and get the most Adam possible from them, or you can convert them to almost a human like form which has no real benefits other than to be nice and a small amount of Adam.

The game itself looks amazing and I can't wait to give it a proper try once I have some free time.

Fallout 3 works similarly to Fable and Bioshock where you're given multiple choices which adds up to your karma. For example, you can either kill the old man to get what you need or you can do a quest for him and get it that way, or you can steal it when he's asleep. All your choices build up your karma which can trip you up with consequences if you don't watch yourself. 

The Walking Dead is another example of this concept, but the choices are more abrupt.
You are asked a question and can either choose to lie or be honest, similarly you can either save one out of two people, and the story takes a different path depending on what you pick.
I always felt a bit anxious when playing this game as I always felt the choices I made were wrong, and the characters reactions to you if you lie or even if you're telling the truth causes an awkward atmosphere.
It does this very well, but I get sick of everybody looking at me with their judging eyes.
It works on text more than action, so you are asked a question or have to select your answer via the mouse depending on what you're using to play it on, where as in Fallout you just do the thing that changes your path (like shoot someone).

Creating the Atmosphere

Slender Man is probably the closest example of what kind of game I am creating.

I have already spoken about it in previous posts, so I'll skip to the part I need to discuss; it's Atmosphere.

The atmosphere in Slender Man is amazing, I went into this game expecting not to be at all frightened, however I played it with a good set of headphones and was sucked right into its gradual fear.

When playing it I wrote down notes to understand why people think this is so creepy, and a few of the things I picked up on were;

- The Pacing

- The Sounds

- The Limited Controls

- The Gradual Appearance of Antagonist

- Setting

The Pacing- Slender Man moves very slowly, you can run but you do so at risk as your player lowers the touch when running. As your environment is dark, you need light to be able to see where you're going and to look out for the 8 Pages you're assigned to collect.  At first you're moving around all slow in a dark forest thinking ''boooooring'', but this is just one of the many elements that build up its tension.

The Sound- The game starts and all you can hear are your foot steps and the odd cricket sound, it's all pretty calming, but once you collect your first page the drums kick in. It starts playing this repetitive slow timpani drum which gradually unnerves you, it seems to increase the more pages you collect, and as that's when you start seeing more of Mr Slender himself, the drums really adds to the tension.

Controls - The controls are limited, you are only able to move your character, run, pick up the pages and turn off your flash light. This makes Slender Man feel more intimidating as you are unable to attack him.

Gradual Slender- Slender Man only starts appearing after you've picked up a page as far as I can tell.

His appearances increase the more pages you collect, and after 3 he's all over the place.

It seems to be random as sometimes you'd go longer without seeing him than you'd expect, but this really adds to the fear as you know this moment of safety will be short lives. It gives you an element of security and quickly removes it which adds a factor of unknown we find quite frightening. 

The Setting- The environment you play in is a dark forest surrounded by a wired fence.
The are different things in the setting such as large metal cylinders, a truck and an old looking public bathroom. The bathroom is probably the scariest part to check out as you have a very limited area to move in. If you forget to check this place early on you will be trapped by Slender Man, so make sure you get your first page from there! This makes us feel claustrophobic, however the increased appearance of Slender Man makes the whole forest feel closed off. The whole setting is very dark and your tourch will run out of battery, you have to keep turning it off to save power, otherwise you're walking around in the dark with that psychopathy until he gets you with his powerful t.v static.. thing...

For more information on the atmosphere and how it was created I emailed a member of Blue Island Studios who currently produce the Slender Man games. I was very grateful to receive a reply from Garett Marks, a writer at BLS. I asked him what he felt gives the game such an intents atmosphere, and we wrote back saying; ''Slender: The Arrival’s atmosphere is based heavily around a few key components. Slender’s strength, I would say, derives from its pacing and tension. To create that unsettling atmosphere, we try to pace the player in such a way that we tease them with the prospect of danger, while sometimes tantalizing them with the prospect of safety.  We try to ease them into the danger instead of over exposing the horror. I always found it difficult to compete with people’s imaginations, and never showing too much is a good way to get their imaginations flowing. If you look at the first Alien movie, most of the film surrounds building up that tension, hinting at danger, and scarcely over exposing the audience to the creature itself. The moment you start overexposing the player to danger, they become habituated to it, and the game loses some of its scariness. Another key component most certainly stems from the audio, knowing when and what kind of music to trigger, and when to solely rely on the ambience of the environment.

And finally, as HP Lovecraft once said: “Never explain anything”. Humans find the unknown quite frightful.''

He also informed me the game was made using the Unity engine.

Thanks to Garett I was able to confirm my notes were correct, now I can work on implementing some of these feature to build a similarly intense atmosphere in my game.



Bibliography:
Fable>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzJi-2X_ZSg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYQLR7dE5k4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLXOp0bHDOs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq5Qa9pAeFc
http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/fable-review/1900-6106444/
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/fable-the-lost-chapters
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/448838/reviews/review-fable-anniversary-is-doomed-to-repeat-10-year-old-mistakes-review/
Papers Please>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mNROSBJqio
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/08/12/papers-please-review
http://www.ign.com/games/papers-please/pc-162910
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-08-09-papers-please-review
http://www.polygon.com/game/papers-please/12395
Bioshock>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egIZUK0kiZY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGxo2X4B_LE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSdzPSAobdI
http://www.ign.com/articles/2007/08/17/bioshock-review-2
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/bioshock
http://www.gamesradar.com/bioshock-review/
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/169983/reviews/bioshock-review/
Fallout 3>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJiSuztcwL4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBF7uX73j-s
http://www.ign.com/articles/2009/10/15/fallout-3-game-of-the-year-edition-review
http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/fallout-3
http://www.gametrailers.com/games/njcm6e/fallout-3
http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/fallout-3-review/1900-6200093/
Walking Dead>
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/12/12/the-walking-dead-the-game-review
http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/the-walking-dead-a-telltale-games-series
http://www.gamesradar.com/the-walking-dead-review/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lw_bowdjCSI
Slender Man>
Email, Garett Marks, Blue Island Studios.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/04/03/slender-the-arrival-review
http://thepixelpulse.com/2012/07/review-slender-is-the-scariest-game-ive-ever-played/
http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/slender-the-arrival-review/1900-6406776/
http://www.gamespot.com/slender-the-arrival/
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/slender
http://s.olid.us/review/slender-review/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7KzV_oaOtw
http://jayisgames.com/archives/2012/08/slender.php
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0RNkkd2peE