Introduction: A Haunted Attraction

In 1995, a friend and myself rented a top floor portion of an old binding factory in Downtown St. Louis, in which there was over ½ acre of floor space. Since I was about 11, I had been jotting down notes about creating my own haunted house, and finally my dream came true. I am going to cite the order of its design and construction as it can relate to the process of game development. Just imagine a virtual haunted house attraction and build it in 3D geometry instead of wood, drywall and steel studs. It is a great idea to carry a small pocket size notebook with you so you can jot down ideas. Alhtough designing and creating the story for the game is time consuming; time is on your side. Sometimes you wake up in the middle of night with an idea, so it is best to have a tablet and pen always handy. H.R. Giger did this - one result was the design for the 'Alien' creature. I can say I have been in the least 'inspired' by vivid nightmares and 'night terrors' as well.

What the Pros Do

George Lucas kept a notebook handy while working on American Graffiti, one story is that in the film editing room he asked: "Hand me R2D2…," (which in filmmaker's lingo would be Reel-2, Dialog 2), he liked the way that sounded and he jotted that down, and well… we all know where that ended up. It was said that Star Wars was pieced together this way over a 5 year period. Let us keep in mind most of the great ones take longer. Time is on your side if you can afford to wait, that is. Gone With The Wind and Tom Sawyer both took over 5 years to write as well.

On the game side, Half-Life was also a longer undertaking. In 1997 I caught an early demo of the game (1997 E3, Atlanta GA.) and was not at all impressed. It was being done with the Quake1 engine, and as we know the story, this design was stripped down and redone entirely and then using the more updated Quake engine. On the other side, Klingon Honor Guard was completed in 6 months, and it shows, as it was poorly designed. The point is, a good game design takes time. And yet we are all in a hurry to get a team and a game engine license and start building.

So in this 'House of Horrors' project, some ideas were in my mind from long ago, and not simply last minute brain-storms. Though brain-storming among a team of people is priceless, of course, and can cut down on story and design development times, producing better designed games. Though the story and design on my game Unholy was already completed, it was not written in stone, so I asked my team to tell me of their favorite horror movie scenes, characters and other ideas. I feel you can never have too many entries in the notebooks you can use, because some ideas simply won't work or seemed great at the time, but actually are not. After narrowing these down, you'll find it was a good thing you started gathering so many ideas - because 75 percent of them will probably not make it to your first game. You want the best you can come up with, and you can't simply design and write for 1 month and expect it to be as good as what you produce of the course of a year's work.

Applying the design

The live attraction had limited space so that is not something you have to worry about in game development. Designing a floor plan maze was a matter of maximizing the space in addition to designing the experience. The final tour took between 15 & 22 minutes, and that was good since we wanted it be a long enough trip from start to finish in the final design. In a game we know that the maze has a logical path, and we will have to slow down the player from walking through. This is much of what we have to deal with in this 'house of horrors' we had.

A Prop I built was a motion sensor activated coffin that lit up, smoked and shook when onlookers passed by. Don't you hate it when the rope breaks?

The Sound Effects

I had engineered a more traditional haunted house sound track with hellish voices, thunder and rain, and with a backdrop of mood (sustained tone) music. I wired the sound system in and we walked through the house in the dark with a flashlight - once in utter silence, and the second time with the SFX running. L-PADs (external volume control for each speaker) adjusted the volume on speakers to better fit the area. And when it was at the correct level we left it as it was and marked with white paint the settings on the amplifier knobs and L-PADs for default.

The results may be obvious but the sound effects added to the effect. Odd, how we relate to a Hollywood rendition of a haunted house, more so than a real scene would be, with no music and likely no rain heard outside. But the fact is the hellish SFX added to the mood and made it a better experience. This is my case for well-done ambient sound effects and music. I remember jumping when a crash of lighting sounded off. The Hi-Fi really made it Crash.

The Lights

Each scene was laid out in the floor plan. After this was built, we went around with a big box of light bulbs with different wattages, colors and types - adjusting each scene to the right lighting and later placing in the fog machines, since the fog effect needed to work properly with the lighting. (Can't see Fog in a darkened room.) We worked on this for two nights until at least 2 a.m., and it paid off! Darkness was the easiest way to remove the feeling of security and to slow people down in the walk. Then, well-cued lights can light a scene when they walk by, sometimes with a motion sensor. And mood lighting - sometimes flashing, shimmering, or triggered, was essential. The way we got a handle on this was to walk through the maze with all props and scenes set up. The goal was to make it so very creepy before adding any actors.

This is a good choice for your game as well. I can cite the example of Thief 3: Deadly Shadows "The Cradle" game level, as I will bring up throughout the article, simply because it is a great horror game level. I played it in the dark and it was a great stand alone level before one monster showed and I had no idea what to expect around the corner. I thought "Well done! Finally, someone got it right!" At least to my philosophy of truly entertaining horror.

Now I want to stop here because the steps to this point, I think, are the most crucial. The others have to do with actor placement and their ability to effectively scare.

Freddy Lives: An experiment in psychological terror

The following story shows how you can effectively scare people if you remove their sense of security. Although most all who toured our Haunted attraction are aware that it is merely an 'exhibit' and the live actors can't even physically touch them as they pass by. Good actors can act aggressive as though they will inflict harm effectively, but many know there are boundaries that they can not cross between themselves and all who pay to tour the maze. I remember seeing the guys acting all cool around their friends especially if some of them are girls and I thought I would find a way to make them soil their shorts. First I got into costume, and then I would crouch down in the pathway, and when they got close I would pop up and trigger a light. A snapshot of even the biggest guys from the flashing light was seared into my mind. They had looks of terror, jaws dropped widely like a screaming fan at a rock concert. Yes, it worked, but it gets even better!

To make it better, we bought an expensive Freddy Krueger Costume, complete with the dirty green and red sweater and glove with finger knives. My thought was what if we stage a scene where Freddy kills one or more in the group of paying visitors? The 'patrons' would be hired actors, who would get in line with the other like paying customers. And at some point Freddy pops out and kills them. Then when the death scene is done they change shirts and get back in line after cutting and ducking through secret doors. The thought maybe more of an Actor gone insane than to think it was really Freddy.

I would pop up and walk up to these actors while people behind them reluctantly watch waiting to pass.

Actor victim: "Hi Freddy…Ha ha! You can't touch me"
I would grab them by their shirt
Actor victim: "Hey Freddy, Freddy man, you know the rules, you're not suppose to…"
I would say "FU*K the rules" And pretend to send the actor in hemorrhages as I drove my finger knives into his stomach. The actor did good to fall to the ground and shake, as he busted a blood balloon. Often I would have a friend with him, a Gal, who would get slaughtered too.
The result: They couldn't hold their bladders, it was wet all over the hallways, one girl ran into a wall unconscious, a 16 year old teen (About 250 pounds 5'11"), Actually collapsed and begged me not to kill him as he cried. (Yeah I'm a mean guy huh?)
What we learn from this is how you can manipulate your player and get inside their head enough to even scare the big guys. It can be done.
Great actors help to "Ice the Cake" in the design. Model your characters well and give them realistic AI for 'great acting' of their own.

Remember: You are the director

We can take a page from Hollywood movies and use some of that in our games. The scripted events, along with the sound, setting, each can be literally scripted like a movie. (But not precisely used as a game level script of course.) Call that 'Freddy' Scene a scripted event. In Half-Life they scripted Scientists getting wasted by Aliens, being pulled through vents, and shot by grunts. The director can make or break a film, as you, the game designer, can your project. It is remarkable how you can shoot a good low-budget film effectively scary as long as you have good acting, good directing, and a good script. These three things go hand-in-hand.
As it relates to game development, say good actors are 3D actors with great voice-over work, sound effects, A.I., and modelling.

In typical first person single player levels, you are held to a logical path, and triggers can activate sounds, special effects, monster spawns and other events - and in certain time sequences. This is much like a director's task. Because these things are not precisely written in the story, the director has part of his own vision as the level designer. So, you could virtually write a movie-like script to tell your game story better and have it more precisely documented. Of course 'cut-scenes' can carry the story through dialog and keep the tale rolling through. Bottom line may be to say to learn from your favorite horror movie scenes that are not based as much on what you see, but what you would experience as the person in peril on the big screen. Look at some movies scripts; the way each scene is formatted and noted.

Now to go over some concepts to add to a great 'fear factor' for your horror title game levels:

Elements to use

1. Surprise

You can take this one from Hollywood movies and you read how it works in the haunted attraction mini-story described in the beginning. Whether you like it or not, designing a first person shooter (FPS) is much like a Hollywood movie by story, cut scenes, level design, and game play as it relates to scripted action sequences. The Jack-in-the-box: Getting the player un-nerved from surprises can aid to the effectiveness of the entertainment value in the least. Moreover, with the player edgy and jittery, you begin to have that player in the palm of your hand. You could say this goes back to childhood, the 'Jack-in-the-box' scared us all even though we knew is was to pop up after the song reached that point as you turned the handle. The most basic thing about human nature is learned from this. Anticipation greatly enhances surprise. So does catching them off-guard, as with an unexpected event occurring such as a loud noise. Mostly because at that time we are feeling secure and relaxed. Like at a restaurant, if suddenly a tray of glass dishes crashes to the floor. How high would you jump? A script movie scene or game scene playing on anticipation of an event, especially an unknown event can do the same. Often I play a game and it simply doesn't place monsters in effectively strategic places to greatly enhance the fear factor. A closet door is opened and empty, no monster waiting in silence waiting to strike in a well-timed manner. Sometimes a monster is waiting in the closet so you know it is there. Many times I play these games and think if there were to be a monster there, in that opened elevator or around that corner in the darkness I would have jumped out of my skin. And sizing the whole game up, I realize this was not done on purpose as a design strategy; they simply didn't capitalize on the true potential of the scene. Avoid this! With publisher pushing for deadlines and more emphasis on per-pixel lighting realism these days we may see less of the great designs replaced by 'eye candy'.

2. Beta test!

Yes, this can help your 'psychological experiments' on your target audience. With beta testing it is more than simple bug testing: after working with your title for a while you lose you perception of its real effectiveness as an entertaining game. You have been 'de-sensitized' by wearing it all out, making you 'numb' when trying to think from a player perspective. What you need is a fresh pair of eyes. Someone who doesn't know the game so well. They will experience it for the first time. In all, you are experimenting as I did with the Freddy Lives scene, you may want to test the effectiveness of your psychological experiments and get feedback after that. After all, you are making the game for them, not you!

3. Place monsters in the right places

As I said in #1 - surprise, space them out, and don't follow that John Carmack method of hundreds of monsters. This may have worked for Serious Sam, which is almost a genre in itself that we should call a "Shooting Gallery". But along with engine strain on frame rates, most often it isn't all that entertaining. I find it tiresome, and most of us will. Well-placed monsters will 'surprise' the player, cater to the story, add the atmosphere, etc. This can be a topic of any game theme, not just horror, because there are many tips that can be offered here. (To be covered in another article)

4. Don't over-do it

My golden rule for all of game development. Follow that "all things in moderation", even the usage of a "find the key" element in your game, should be used and not ignored simply because it has been done to death in other games. In moderation all of these things have a place. Just do it in moderation.

5. Script the action; don't rely so much on A.I. alone

Get things fired by multiple triggers, so they launch the terror onto the player precisely. You can also increase playability by making some things randomly occur, so each time they will experience something different overall. One could walk into a room and several events could be time to mimic real 'poltergeist'. As I did in the Saint Anthony's monastery level, the player walks into a room, the three window shutters all slam shut. The dresser begins to open and close the draws, a wall picture spins, the bed shakes. If you try to go to the door a couch slides to the door blocking it. Not all occur at the same, and it was a trick to get it all quiet again at nearly the same time.

6. Noises and mishaps

Here is what I did. I had wood planks fall over and bang loudly, or a door slammed behind you after you enter a room. A sudden strike of lighting, or a tree branch breaking off. Accompany these with great sounds. Keep the player jumpy, but don't over-do it and make them deaf.

7. Silence is a killer

The anticipation of being surprised is a good tension builder. Old directors would play an alley scene where the silence is disturbed by a cat knocking over a trash can. Back then we jumped in our theatre seats, simply because the combination of the eerie silence and the sustained music note, and anticipation of something bad lurking. We were played right into their hands. Silence plays like the jack-in-the-box as if it was going to randomly pop-up, not on cue to the music. But be sure to precursor it with something to create suspicion that something or someone may be in there. It helps to intensify the scene. You can write this like a movie script into your game. The reason is because triggers can be placed just so to make the action occur and this can be documented like a choreography. It is very quiet in the Thief 3 - "The Shale bridge Cradle" level. So you can hear noises that could be a person, monster or a domestic animal. Something is moving and you hear the crackle through ceiling plaster on the floor, then again all is quiet. You would look around and nothing would be there. In all honesty this game level may be the closest to a real haunted house experience I have ever had. But a great example of killer silence, if I were to suggest, could have been if an old cabinet fell over, or something that would loudly have broke the silence. I would have perhaps died of a heart attack.

8. Music enhances

Lately music is used to aid in the surprise like the girl's boyfriend popping his face in her bedroom window (the movie 'Scream' and others). The action was timed with an Orchestra hit, and if not for the music, this would be not as effective. The scene was set to keep the movie audience a bit edgy, just as we formulate, first in making you think something may happen as she looks out the window. Then enhancing the otherwise harmless surprise with that orchestra hit. Damn! Gets me every time. Well it used to. Now I know when to expect it because of the camera shot. This can be used to aid in games again here. Imagine if you look out a window, suddenly a monster slaps his hands on the glass and growls loudly? Even doors slamming shut by themselves can be more effective in a scene with a well timed music score. John Carpenter was king of the horror movies for a time. And he composed much of the music you hear. I cite this as an example of how simple music can be used. Think of that Jaws is coming music run. Or in The Thing from 1982, the simple yet haunting music from the end of Halloween. Ambient music was used well in Thief: The dark project. Just a sustained tone. I used this in our haunted house project. People identify their experiences with movies and in all honesty in a haunted house attraction there were more on nerve with the right ambient tones and music than in silence. Think about trying to get music to match the scene - don't do grunge, metal or rap; unless it is an intro or intro cut-scene music perhaps. Try to integrate with the theme and scene in the game not simply portray yourself as Hip, or promote a local garage band. The fact is, this type of thing cheapens the game feel, as it can with movies. It takes more careful thought to compose music that doesn't take away from the game's feeling and yet adds to the atmosphere. So I say again, avoid pop rock and anything that is not more of a sound track for best results. An exception is if you want to trigger action music when you come across a boss or major battle point in the game. Just be sure you run the music again, when the game is in play. Have this beta tested.

9. Just when you thought it was safe...

So this can precede a surprise, but it is most effective to place the event just in the place where the player breaths a sigh of relief thinking the alley is safe, and maybe goes to exit the alley to the city street only to have the killer right there. Get them to let their guard down. In other words, "Turn around and get up girl - Michael Myers is not dead…".

10. Fear is in what you experience and not what you see

Don't rely on gore, or the design and animations of your monster models. Point is, how well would the gameplay be without the latest technology? Say to use the first Quake engine. Our standards go up, but the fear factor is the same. You could effectively scare with Quake1 technology as well as with Doom3 technology, unless you are relying on the actor model appearances; or per-pixel lighting. Let the monster's appearance be the icing on the cake, not the cake itself, don't make the Hollywood mistake in building around elaborate monster designs and gore (more on gore below). Keep the story well-driven.

11. Tragic Comic

Keep it pure horror, no Jar-Jar characters, or Bruce Campbell one liners. Writers/directors sometimes put in these things to take away from the fact that the movie is already laughable because of the tawdry special effects or cheap rubber monster costumes. Don't lighten up the fear factor with a sudden shot of humor. Keep them in the 'zone'; don't let any positive emotions act like cream that dilutes your black coffee. The good comics don't need profanity to be funny, and a good horror flick doesn't need a lot of gore or monsters to be a great movie. Think of your experience with the Blair Witch project, the first time you saw it.

12. Security

Or a lack thereof, often you can simply create a worst-case scenario in a setting that in life makes one feel a bit insecure. Empty underground parking lots, sewers, walking down a gravel country road at night surrounded by over-grown weeds; then the player happens to be upon on of those old 'rickety' covered wood bridges. Capitalize on those places that make us feel in the least 'insecure'. Let us call it Murphy's Law of games. If anything can go wrong, consider if you want to create the scenario to go wrong. So every time we step onto a flight of stairs in an old house, they could very well collapse, as a ladder rung can break and drop you into a pool of wailing zombie below. An elevator could drop. A monster can be in a closet.

13. Unnatural is creepy

Maybe that is why it's called paranormal. When we see some things that look very much unnatural we often get the creeps. It removes our sense of security as it is also described in tip #10 above. Some movie examples are The Director's cut of The Exorcist, Regan crawling down the stairs bent over on her backside like a spider. Movies like Stir of Echoes capitalize on the erratic ghost moments as did The Ring when that evil girl with the wet long hair covered face came out of the TV, we all jumped when she materialized in front of that guy suddenly closer to him causing him to fall over furniture. They get the effect by filming the actor slowly moving across the floor, maybe taking 2 minutes to move 10 feet. Then they play the film back in a faster speed. The result is an unnatural movement. Dropping out frames, sometimes in larger chunks give a feeling of de-materializing and re-appearing a bit further. And adds more to the un-natural ghost like moments.) Gliding across a floor surface is also very creepy, from normal walking. Creatures that stretch open their mouths un-naturally large, also is effective. The more bizarre, the better can be said to a point. But again "with moderation". Red, solid white, and cat eyes fit the bill also. These are all un-natural things.

14. Gore: ol' blood 'n' Guts

In movies I think we know gore is added to make up for a lack of story. As some run away with special effects, ignoring a story as well. Lets face it, far too often, gore is not used or done in moderation, and 'over done', losing it's effectiveness and the player is de-sensitized. Blowing monsters into bloody gibs with a shotgun is entertaining yes. But when a second shot gun blast turns the whole body into only 10 pounds and 5 pieces of hamburger, it is in the realm of laughable. First what I suggest is more morbid, and that is to make it more realistic. When it is done make it realistic. Model bones, with meat, partial skulls. Not just fresh bloody pulp. Have realistic body parts carefully modeled and spawn randomly. Then when it does occur it will be worth the wait. Second, make it random and don't over do it. Make the player work for it. Gore, I think, is to horror movies as profanity is to comedy. When you are lacking in real skill you add it in as spice. These more realistic gibs should be spawned from powerful weapons and explosives. Have shotguns, for example, simply blow off body parts as with other lesser-powered weapons.

15. Fear itself

Let us explore this without using gore, and surprise. That is good ol' fear. What scares us, the monster or the weapon he is holding? The fear of the monster jumping out can be greater as described partly because you are not in personal danger playing the game. Turn out the lights and play some of the games you consider to be in the least creepy like Thief 3: Deadly Shadows, Clive Barker's Undying, and others. What we're looking for is the hair to stand up on the back of your neck. We want the player after playing the game to think twice about their personal safety even while they walk through their own darken house at 3 a.m. Not just a fear of a stranger lurking in their closet with a rusty ice pick, but demonic shadows that may jump out of the darkness at you as you go to climb the stairs. A fear that an old hag may lunge through the shower curtain behind as they try to pee straight into the john. We as the game developers as well as in the movies have the power to install a certain paranoia. After Alfred Hitchcock's original show of "Psycho", no woman who saw that back in the late 50's could take a shower without that thought at least crossing their mind when they bathe. Play on their fears: We feel unsafe in the darkness more so because we can't see as well. In the shower we feel vulnerable and naked. In bed asleep the feeling is the same. As I stated in tip #12, any place a thought of feeling unsafe or insecure can be taken advantage of. After all, they are in the palm of your hands, in that instance, you can pull the strings to get them to jump! In Half-Life we saw an elevator drop as well tried to access it, sending another geeky professor to his death. We wondered each time if we would be the next victim as we entered an elevator. It is funny how developers relied so much on "find the key" to slow the player down from simply taking a straight path 'tour' of the game. We can add these pitfalls/perils/mishaps with elements to help add to the games fright factor.

16. Make the monster more than "creepy"

With the advent of programmable GPUs via shaders since DirectX 8, we can model so much more because of effects like per-pixel lighting, shadows that weren't possible before. One can model an H.R. Giger classic alien, complete with the second mandibles and drool, very true to the original movie appearance. Make it very creepy, and make it aggressive. Then I find myself running from it making 'three stooges' sounds as I sit in my chair. It is a great thing we are getting where the model, animation and sound effects alone can truly make the scene scary. Make the Environments "creepy"; some of this design was from memories of my aunt Nettie's house. Of course I aged it more, as shown in images below. But now we will go over what is in the scene to make it more of a horror-worthy setting.

17. Effects, smoke, and lights

Watching an older Freddy movie, I am again reminded how these horror movies find way to add steam/smoke and erratic flashing lights to the scene. Hey, if it works right? This works well in haunted house attractions and movies. Nothing like dim lamps struggling to maintain incandescent lighting from poor wiring and power sources. In Thief 3: Deadly Shadows - "shalebridge cradle" level, this is a place that was an orphanage then an insane asylum. Flashing lights are used well there. So dim or unstable lighting can be used to enhance the scene. Smoke and Fog are great for atmosphere. This is self-explanatory, but there is nothing like fog in a graveyard at night.

18. Event --> Lights out!

Don't forget "lights out", which was used well in Unreal 1 (as a sequence of lighting slowly clicked off until you stood in darkness and in the presence of a growling Skaarj). Lights going out with something dynamic apparently have caused this action is an effective way to get a 'surprise' from the player. Example:

1. Lightening crashing outside the window, it can break the glass and cause the lights to go out as this happens.
2. Power failure can be accompanied by lights blowing out with sparks, like a short circuit. The loud pop, like the example (a) lightening crash will help this to be more dramatic as well. The point here again is make things happen for a good reason, you can keep it real more than you think. Lights going off alone have so much less of an effect on the player's experience.

19. Effects --> Ambient Sounds

Stay with traditional Haunted House. I feel you can never get cliché with this. There will be a time for a silent moment. And it may be a time to place in an ambient tone. Like a High 'E' note sustained.

20. Truth is stranger than fiction

I suggest you seek out what are consider or told as true ghost stories and non-fiction paranormal experiences for inspiration. This includes your own experiences if they may fall into a realm of fear. True occurrences have more of an effective 'fear factor'. I have studied parapsychology since for over 25 years, and let me say that when you experience something supernatural, it is without question unmistakable, as I write in my book (Un-named, set hopefully for release in late 2005). The more you can get it like real haunting the better. Do some research and it will aid in model design for you horror characters, instead of mimicking the movies as all seem to do. As we have learned, demons are often seen as shadowy, cloak hooded figures, almost two dimensional. Pitch black in contrast to a dark or dim lit room. Ghostly voices often resonate in your head or whisper in your ear, not as often in echoing moans, and laughter. Conversations in rooms, where you can't make out the words, is traced to a room to be found empty and suddenly quiet upon entering. Occurrences… Well you get the picture. Visit http://www.warrens.net, get the book the demonologist, listen to the Lou Gentile show (most online streaming audio.) Some ghost stories (not verified to be true) are on ghostnet.net and others. These help you create your atmosphere and story/design for your game. Since many action adventure games are in fact event driven you can fill your list of scripted events, as the player experiences the horror in your haunted world. Use these true accounts for your games. There are still stories of the Old Hag where one awakes paralyzed and sensing they are not alone. A hideous old hag slowly emerges from the darkness. Long dirty gray stringy hair. Claws, red eyes. Sores all over its body. (Got the creeps in the least yet?) If one could only create a game with some of these (image on the right).

21. Dead things

Props for this are winter leafless trees. Burned trees work well also. The more unkempt the landscape with vines and high weeds, the better. As a teen, I explored many old farmhouses abandoned. I will never forget when walking down the winding country road to the first one I saw. The landscape had an old (yellow?) rusted tractor that sat near a rotting wood gate. An old 1940's car upside down in a near by ditch. With a few other rusted junk piece like a box spring, and a 50 gallon drum amongst 100's of old tin cans all decaying in rust. Now with the day we approached it. There was an over cast. It was amazing how this added to the feeling as we walked more down the road. Overgrown vines in the trees. Weeds lining the center of the once gravelled road. The reminders of a farm along the way all added to the scene. Upon the house, there stood two bare trees in front. Broken branches, one very close to a second story window. The old grey wood porch had hole where perhaps others have had their foot break through rotted wood.

Classic scenes like the above shot still work. Fog, dead trees, overgrown grass, a cloudy full-moon sky, are all traditional elements of a classic night of horror.

22. Very old, worn and damaged things

Anything burned or aged. Peeled paint, fire-damaged walls in a house are very creepy. As are stained floors; basically very dirty and unkempt houses. Chaos, not neat, dirty, not clean, old, not new.
An example is again in Thief 3: deadly Shadows - The Shalebridge Cradle level. Now when I build the Whintworth Mansion and Saint Anthony monastery levels. I tried to make them run down. Over grown with weeds outside as shown in the figure at the beginning of the article. Burned houses in can be just as creepy as an old run down house; they tell a story in themselves.

23. Not just old but out-dated 'styles'

That so-called "old world charm" real estate agents try to say about old houses is actually what helps it to be more creepy. Castles, lavish wall paper designs and interiors. Some of the bolder designs of wallpaper and the colors, alone almost have a story of only being hung inside an eccentric millionaires mansion.