Continuing from yesterday’s comparison of Clocktower and Haunting Ground….

The main source of fear in this setup arises from the presence of a stalker – that seemingly omniscient force of death just a step away. This presence is always there waiting in the wings. Knowing that it’s there is a major motivating force that keeps the player moving.

Tension is also generated by the ambient environment. This environment is always working against the protagonist in some way. It bars access to the safeties of escape with weather and terrain. Sanctuaries, if they exist, are generally rare. There are times when an antagonist breaches this hallowed ground such as discovering the heroine cowering under a bed.

In Haunting Ground the ability to fight back and eventually drive away your stalker makes every hiding place 100% expendable. Indeed fighting is more profitable as each time a stalker is knocked unconcious you can loot items from them. There are damage limits to prevent this from being exploited indefinitely. The fastest way to lose any stalker, as demonstrated by louischou, is to knock the stalker down then quickly run out an open door and hide behind it so that the stalker doesn’t see Fiona as they tear out after her. Abusing hiding places causes that stalker to catch on.

Conversely in Clock Tower: The First Fear Jennifer has limited means of fighting back. Aside from a can of insecticide she can toss in Bobby’s face her only means of defense is to knock him down. This is never certain as it requires button mashing during PANIC MODE and if her health is extremely low she might just collapse and become frozen with fear. Evasion is always preferred until Jennifer finds a way to shake Bobby.

There are a few guaranteed methods of throwing him off the trail that will work every time but also some that can backfire horribly. I mentioned above that Jennifer can throw a can of insecticide at Bobby but that can prove fatal to our heroine if her health is low enough that she is unable to escape from the poisonous cloud of her own creation. Another great example is Jennifer locking herself in a bathroom. There is roughly a 50/50 chance Bobby will break the door down and kill her anyway (there is no chance to escape if this happens). It boils down to a question of “Does he think she went into that room?” The unpredictability of this particular hiding spot helps reinforce Bobby’s demented nature.

This leads to an interesting difference between Clock Tower’s first and second games and Haunting Grounds. This is because of differences in technology. The earlier systems are limited in how much information can be in memory at once. This lead to buildings being broken down into rooms loaded separately. The stalker AI is similarly restricted – it’s basically ON or OFF with some environmental variables based upon the loaded room. Only loading one room at a time necessitates that Bobby and Dan rubberband to their victim’s current location usually by walking in through the very door the heroine just used. This pursuit does not end until an OFF trigger is activated.

In Haunting Ground there are no loading times between rooms. The Playstation 2 is capable of holding more items in memory allowing for some seamless preloading. Every mobile AI entity has an awareness radius around it indicating what it does and does not see. This radius need not be a perfect sphere – indeed that would ruin legitimate and logical hiding tactics. Awareness is patterened after line of sight. By drawing a straight line between a stalker and Fiona a player can guess if they are seen or not. If this line is broken by an object then Fiona can be hidden even when it seems completely illogical that this would work.

this will continue in tomorrow’s post …