To start off I will say that yes, i have played through the whole game, with surround sound, in a dark room, and my couch about 1 meter from the large TV screen. And yes, i did nearly crap myself (excuse my French) on multiple occasions, so the game does have that scare / psychological factor.
Now i will begin by addressing the mechanics that are used in this game. There is the main mechanic that is a factor throughout this game and could be effective to incorporate in the later assignments. This mechanic is the dependence on a light source and the minimal light provided by this. Also, the decreasing amount of fuel for the lantern makes the player have to think about how many torches they light up or how long they use their lantern. That mechanic ties in together with the sanity mechanic that produces hallucinations throughout the game. The emphasis on survival and helplessness to defeat the enemies is important too. This makes the player feel useless, forcing them to hide which just emphasises their utter useless.
But these additions that Keller talks about and gives examples of would literally boost the level of frightfulness and make the continuation of horror easier.
He starts by explaining that the player can break the horror at any point by bringing up the inventory menu. This gives a pause in the game which allows the player to relax and calm down. But as Keller explained, what if instead of having a button-press inventory system that pauses the game, having a sort of rucksack that the character has to pull out, dig around in to find the key or oil for a lamp, without pausing the game entirely? This is incorporating a style of menu that was used in the Dead Space franchise, where the character has a hologram of their inventory displayed from their spacesuit. This will mean that the horror effect will not be pause-able, making the horror of the game much more effective. Keller explains this effect with the example:
Say you've found a key by sneaking past a terrible necrotic beast-monster, except now the monster knows that someone's been nearby fiddling with his key. Sneakily, you've got to make your way to the locked door and unlock it. But, just as you reach the door, you hear a shuffling behind you! The monster!
Quickly, you pull up your satchel, pawing frantically through the things you're carrying with you--matches, lamp oil, laudanum--until you find the key! Hurry! Put it in the lock! GO! THE MONSTER IS RIGHT BEHIND YOU!
He then goes on to bring up the point that where would you be able to see your sanity level or your health level? They're important parts of your inventory screen aren't they? By using a similar sort of interaction to the previous example, the game is less broken up and there is no pause in the horror, making sustained horror easier to achieve. Keller's example was to have an animated sequence of the character lifting two fingers to their wrist and the sound of a heartbeat would be audible to the player. The speed of the beat determined what the condition of the character was. For example a slow, heavy beat would be healthy and sane. A light, fluttering beat - Near death; a quick beat - going insane and will snap any moment.
This system will make a continuous horror style that makes the player fear more for their own safety in the game. Rather than stopping the game-play completely to check on their condition, they must find a safe place to interact with themselves to find out their condition.
Now, because this system hasn't been used in games before it could crash and burn quite easily, as players would find it "stupid" or "too different" in comparison to the other mechanics used. But the exact opposite could be achieved, where players accept the change in mechanics and systems and agree with the new horror style mechanics.
Info sourced from: http://wwwidd.blogspot.co.nz/2012/11/amnesia-part-one-basic-mechanics-or.html
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