Stories about ghosts, demons, ancient curses and parallel realities are typical foundations for chilling plots used in many horror games. Otherworldly phenomena can be frightening, but looking back at the reality in which we live, it’s easy to come to the idea that mysticism isn’t necessarily the basis of a scary story, and even providers creating simple games for National Casino Australia know about this rule. The events of real life are more frightening, so some horror game developers are turning to the reality around us, trying to create really scary projects.
The Town of Light
Medical practices in psychiatric hospitals in Italy in the first half of the 20th century were a frighteningly violent spectacle. Insulin-coma and electroconvulsive therapy, harmful brain surgeries, up to and including lobotomies, were inhumane ways of dealing with mental disorders, leading to disabilities and deaths of patients. As a massive monument to the crimes of the aestheticians of the last century are the ruins of Voltaire’s psychiatric hospital in Tuscany, Italy. The massive asylum became the “home” for 6,000,000 patients and was called “the place from which there is no return. Not surprisingly, such an odious location served as the basis for The Town of Light.
Stairs
Sometimes instead of using real locations, game developers take documentary stories as the foundation of the story, changing the names of the characters, the location, but in many details remaining faithful to the source material. That’s what GreyLight Entertainment, a fledgling studio, decided to do in 2016 with their game Stairs. As sources of inspiration, the developers turned to rather famous and shocking events from American history. For example, we can remember the maniac Ed Geen and the tragic events of the Donner Party, when in the XIX century a group of American settlers was cut off from civilization and desperate people started to cannibalize.
Five Nights at Freddy’s
The story, where the mysterious murderers are animal-like animateur dolls that come to life at night, is simply impossible to take seriously, but the game’s creator Scott Cawthon during the development of Five Nights at Freddy’s looked up some elements of the horror in real life. The image of the pizzeria, where the main character works, is taken from the once acting American pizzerias ShowBiz Pizza Place and Chuck E. Cheese’s, enticing people with scary-looking animatronics. The game’s story, albeit in a slightly altered form, also features a mass murder at Chuck E. Cheese’s.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
As one of the most notorious maniacs in U.S. history, Ed Geen has created a phenomenon around himself that is still alive in media space today. An unsociable urban weirdo who lived secluded in a small farmhouse, he became famous as a murderer and necrophiliac who sewed clothes from the skin of dead people. As a result, Ed Geen was committed to a psychiatric hospital, where he died decades later.