I was just reading Shannon Appelcline's article about horror-themed board games over on BoardgameNews, and I had a few thoughts.  His basic premise was that the point of "horror" as a genre of fiction is to scare people.  He then correctly noted that there are no current horror-themed games that actually succeed at producing real fear in its players.  The conclusion of the article, which I think that I share, is that it may actually be possible for a game to accomplish this goal, but there are a lot of obstacles to making it happen.  So let me take this and run with it a bit.

The key to generating real "horror" has got to be making the players identify in a real way with some part of the game.  Whether it's with their character or with the state of the game in general, people need to have some real connection with what's going on in order to feel real emotions about it.  There also has to be a real effort to establish a particular mood in the game, as well as then some unexpected event which will produce the fear response.  

When I think about games that generate some true feeling in me, two types of games come to mind.  The first are games including some sort of civilization building and negotiation between players, and more specifically, I'm thinking of my experiences with Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition.  The scope and depth of that game really immerses its players in the action, and when you participate in negotiating alliances or short-term deals, there is a real sense of excitement and anticipation, hoping that the other side can be trusted.  Players identify with their race and its goals in the game, and the time and energy investment required by the game helps everyone to commit to the action.  When something unexpected happens, like your ally stabbing you in the back, I (as I think others do) have a genuine emotional reaction (that terrible sinking feeling).  There could be some potential here for making a transition to horror, but I imagine that it'd be difficult to manufacture these sort of situations which happen naturally in these sorts of games.

The other main type of game which produces a real emotional reaction for me are cooperative games.  Specifically, Shadows Over Camelot and Pandemic do a great job of generating a feeling of tension and impending doom for me at times.  In both, your attachment to the goals of the game are what draw you in, and then the mechanics of the game itself working against the group build and extend the tension as failure seems to loom.  In Shadows, you then also have the paranoia over whether there is a traitor and who it could be added to the mix (which is similar to the feelings from player betrayal with negotiation games).  While this tension is great for setting the mood or for a suspense/thriller type of game, it is still missing the element of surprise that is needed for real fear.  

Just to touch on a little more about setting the mood for the game, Flying Frog Productions in particular has gone the extra step of including a soundtrack CD in its flagship games, Last Night onEarth and A Touch of Evil.  The only issue with them is a general disagreement whether the music included actually set the right tone for the games.  That, and the fact that some people are distracted from the game by having a soundtrack playing.

But then, there has also been another recent innovation in using a soundtrack with a game, and that comes in the new Essen release Space Alert.  I have yet to actually see or play the game, but I understand that it comes with 2 CD's worth of "soundtracks".  The cool thing about these is that they don't just set the mood for the game or serve only as a timer, they also play a part in the game itself, announcing when certain threats will appear or when a certain event will occur.  

This combination of real-time play combined with potentially surprising events or announcements probably has the most potantial for generating real fear in a group of players.  It could even be taken a step farther to use a DVD instead of a CD, and the randomizing functions of the player could be utilized to increase replayability.  Personally, I think that it could be a real revolution in horror board games, and I hope that someone else realizes this and gets to work!  What do you think?