Why is it so creepy?

[alienbiarcher]

Honestly, if one day I just started playing the game again, only to find out that it is now a horror game by finally getting kidnapped in the middle of the night, while I'm trying to paint the walls in the living room - I wouldn't be surprised.

There's an absolutely creepy atmosphere of this suburban area without any people, cars, or really anything - kind of post-apocalyptic, in the worst way possible. Every house has some sort of weird secret - some more straight-forward (like the house where someone was obviously murdered, considering blood scattered all over the place, plus that creepy little room behind the stairs with a single flipping chair and nothing else), some just cryptic messages about a house that everyone immedietly sells after buying, without even finishing renovating it, by some reason.

One of the most fun things to do is reading the info about the house you just sold, only to find out what kind of creepy secret this one has, because all of them do. Plus, that DLC with people actually prepearing for apocalypse, which some people in real life obviously do too, but I somehow believe that in this universe, they can be 110% right.

Also, an off-topic question - how'd you think they decided on "Starry Night" to be in that hidden room in one of the houses? Don't get me wrong, it was a very nice surprise for a Van Gogh fan such as myself, but still - it's not the most expensive or famous painting in the world. Why not Mona Lisa, or something like that? Also made me think, if one of the previous owners of the house stole it from the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. And if they did, then does the museum have a fake one now? Do they have one at all? Or, perhaps the owner of the house had the original all along, and MoMA somehow ended up with a fake one. With how many little question inducing details and fun things they add into the game, I wish we could have a chance to actually explore them. That'd be a fun little thing to do.

Either way, I'm just honestly very curious if the developers get off on that sort of creepy details thing, or if it comes more accidental. Is anybody else ever actually genuinely creeped out, while playing the game? Either way, I think the devs are going in the right direction with "Body of Evidence", because - if this is creepy - I don't know how that one will be. They could try to make a proper horror, though - one of those subtle ones with less jump scares and more tension. They'd do good.

[cocoayoc]

i'm not a renovator IRL but in my opinion, it feels creepy simply because you're in a house all alone and it usually is a big mess.

[Iamthirdbird]

As much as this game is calming to me.... I agree completely and absolutely. They could make a whole spinoff game about the mafia house. The fact that there are bloody footprints leading to a bush I honestly thought I was about to find a dead body. Its like a horror game! When I was playing it with my little brothers and we walked into the house forgetting to check the description we jumped a little. And felt incredibly scared walking towards the bush. I think this becoming a horror type game would be really fun!

[alienbiarcher]

Originally posted by Riedy:

I really like the dark humor some houses have. I guess it could be less creepy if we'd just spawn inside the house and did our thing, but where's the fun in that? The game definitely has enough performance issues already, we don't need to add anymore unnecessary movement to it atm.

That is true. I wasn't trying to call for action or anything, though. I can't even imagine how they'd combine something like that with what the game's really about. This post is more of a "in a better world..." rant than anything.

[alienbiarcher]

Originally posted by Iamthirdbird:

As much as this game is calming to me.... I agree completely and absolutely. They could make a whole spinoff game about the mafia house. The fact that there are bloody footprints leading to a bush I honestly thought I was about to find a dead body. Its like a horror game! When I was playing it with my little brothers and we walked into the house forgetting to check the description we jumped a little. And felt incredibly scared walking towards the bush. I think this becoming a horror type game would be really fun!

Honestly, the little room with just a single chair inside of it creeped me out even more. And, what's worse - since we only find out about the house's connection to mafia after selling it, and since it looks like a simple family home, I was originally imagining more of an abusive family type of situation. Father eventually killing mother, and the room is where he "punished" his kids. Let's hope that room's actually for whoever the mafia kidnaps. Not that I don't feel bad for those people either, but at least they aren't children. Most of the time anyway...

The point is, though, these little things in every house - be they just outright creepy, like the mafia house, or simply interesting, like Van Gogh's "Starry Night" - make your imagination run wild.

What would be an interesting idea, though, is if they just wrote like actual little stories about each house, just elaborating on what we already have. And, to make it more fun, perhaps the player could only access those stories, if they sold enough houses. So, you sell quite some houses, you become more popular in the business, and then whoever sells you the house tells you its story, since you're an "important" person now. And, you'd have to play the game multiple times in order to access all the stories, since you can't access the stories of the houses you already sold before becoming a "popular house flipper person" or whatever. Plus, in a new playthrough it'll also be interesting to renovate the house that you already know the whole backstory to. That could add to the replay value of the game, since right now there aren't a lot of reasons to play it again after you've finished it.

[Iamthirdbird]

Originally posted by flanelfil:

Originally posted by Iamthirdbird:

As much as this game is calming to me.... I agree completely and absolutely. They could make a whole spinoff game about the mafia house. The fact that there are bloody footprints leading to a bush I honestly thought I was about to find a dead body. Its like a horror game! When I was playing it with my little brothers and we walked into the house forgetting to check the description we jumped a little. And felt incredibly scared walking towards the bush. I think this becoming a horror type game would be really fun!

Honestly, the little room with just a single chair inside of it creeped me out even more. And, what's worse - since we only find out about the house's connection to mafia after selling it, and since it looks like a simple family home, I was originally imagining more of an abusive family type of situation. Father eventually killing mother, and the room is where he "punished" his kids. Let's hope that room's actually for whoever the mafia kidnaps. Not that I don't feel bad for those people either, but at least they aren't children. Most of the time anyway...

The point is, though, these little things in every house - be they just outright creepy, like the mafia house, or simply interesting, like Van Gogh's "Starry Night" - make your imagination run wild.

What would be an interesting idea, though, is if they just wrote like actual little stories about each house, just elaborating on what we already have. And, to make it more fun, perhaps the player could only access those stories, if they sold enough houses. So, you sell quite some houses, you become more popular in the business, and then whoever sells you the house tells you its story, since you're an "important" person now. And, you'd have to play the game multiple times in order to access all the stories, since you can't access the stories of the houses you already sold before becoming a "popular house flipper person" or whatever. Plus, in a new playthrough it'll also be interesting to renovate the house that you already know the whole backstory to. That could add to the replay value of the game, since right now there aren't a lot of reasons to play it again after you've finished it.

You are so right!

[Iamthirdbird]

And the fact that they used starry night. This painting is up to your imagination, but there is generally two ways of seeing this painting. 1 the black shape could be a bush outside. or 2 the black shape is the hair of someone who jumped out of the building. Its quite a dark painting, also considering where Van Gogh was mentally when he painted it. He was going through a pretty dark time. He was in a mental facility when he painted it.... So why did they use such a dark painting?

[alienbiarcher]

Originally posted by Iamthirdbird:

And the fact that they used starry night. This painting is up to your imagination, but there is generally two ways of seeing this painting. 1 the black shape could be a bush outside. or 2 the black shape is the hair of someone who jumped out of the building. Its quite a dark painting, also considering where Van Gogh was mentally when he painted it. He was going through a pretty dark time. He was in a mental facility when he painted it.... So why did they use such a dark painting?

If you decided to bring it up. As a person, who recently reread a 1000 page Van Gogh biography, and not for the first time. Vincent has been depressed and self-harming his entire life, without exaggeration. He signed into the mental facility himself, after he had yet another maniacal episode, knowing that he needed help. During those minaical episodes he had enormous problems with drawing anything, and he wasn't acting like himself at all.

It was, in my opinion, and in opinion of many people, who either study Vincent, care about him deeply - or both, one of the best decisions of his entire life, right next to the decision of becoming a painter in the first place. It's not bad that he was in a mental facility at the time, it was good. I am not saying it was ideal, since he was surrouned by lots and lots of different people with other "more serious" issues that he didn't understand himself, and that, along with the general feeling of any hospital-type facility was undoubtedly overwhelming him, but it was nowhere near as bad as when he was untreated alone with his own mind, without any help at all.

The reason why one of the greatest paintings of all time, and many of the most popular Van Gogh's paintings came from the time, when he was staying in that mental hospital, is because he got proper help there. Even if you just look at the paintings of the hospital itself, or of someone Vincent met there, you'll find how bright, nice, happy and "soft" they all are.

"Starry Night" is not dark at all. I've never heard of your intrepretation before, though I'm sure Vincent wouldn't mind you seeing whatever you want on that painting. Though, he most likely wouldn't be able to entirely wrap his head around the idea of it, since - at the time - all buildings weren't high enough to die from jumping off of them, especially those that were in Arles - a rather small village that you can see on the painting. Still, most people, who've been studying Van Gogh say that the black thing is most likely a church. For reference, Vincent was a deeply religious person, who carried the ideas from the Bible with him throughout his whole life, and even had a period, when he was absolutely obsessed with it and tried to become a priest. The painting itself represents hope. Vincent, who was finally in his best head space not even in years, but in decades, drew it thinking that even in darkest nights, you can still find the light. Hence, "Starry Night". The sky might be dark, and the church might be spiral and confusing, but there are many beautiful starts above it all, and they light up the village, the sky, the path, and life as a whole.

That being said, such misconceptions of Van Gogh's life are not rare, so perhaps the developers had the same idea as you did in mind. So, perhaps they did use that painting in reference to - in their mind - something dark. Or, maybe they chose it in reference to Vincent as a person, whose life was undoubtedly very dark and tragic as well. Either way, you made me think that even by choosing that painting, they still tried to make the whole vibe of the game creepier - for one reason or the other. That's an interesting idea indeed.

[Hello Operator?]

literally had this same thought while cleaning a window at night. the jump scare anticipation is real.

[Iamthirdbird]

Originally posted by flanelfil:

Originally posted by Iamthirdbird:

And the fact that they used starry night. This painting is up to your imagination, but there is generally two ways of seeing this painting. 1 the black shape could be a bush outside. or 2 the black shape is the hair of someone who jumped out of the building. Its quite a dark painting, also considering where Van Gogh was mentally when he painted it. He was going through a pretty dark time. He was in a mental facility when he painted it.... So why did they use such a dark painting?

If you decided to bring it up. As a person, who recently reread a 1000 page Van Gogh biography, and not for the first time. Vincent has been depressed and self-harming his entire life, without exaggeration. He signed into the mental facility himself, after he had yet another maniacal episode, knowing that he needed help. During those minaical episodes he had enormous problems with drawing anything, and he wasn't acting like himself at all.

It was, in my opinion, and in opinion of many people, who either study Vincent, care about him deeply - or both, one of the best decisions of his entire life, right next to the decision of becoming a painter in the first place. It's not bad that he was in a mental facility at the time, it was good. I am not saying it was ideal, since he was surrouned by lots and lots of different people with other "more serious" issues that he didn't understand himself, and that, along with the general feeling of any hospital-type facility was undoubtedly overwhelming him, but it was nowhere near as bad as when he was untreated alone with his own mind, without any help at all.

The reason why one of the greatest paintings of all time, and many of the most popular Van Gogh's paintings came from the time, when he was staying in that mental hospital, is because he got proper help there. Even if you just look at the paintings of the hospital itself, or of someone Vincent met there, you'll find how bright, nice, happy and "soft" they all are.

"Starry Night" is not dark at all. I've never heard of your intrepretation before, though I'm sure Vincent wouldn't mind you seeing whatever you want on that painting. Though, he most likely wouldn't be able to entirely wrap his head around the idea of it, since - at the time - all buildings weren't high enough to die from jumping off of them, especially those that were in Arles - a rather small village that you can see on the painting. Still, most people, who've been studying Van Gogh say that the black thing is most likely a church. For reference, Vincent was a deeply religious person, who carried the ideas from the Bible with him throughout his whole life, and even had a period, when he was absolutely obsessed with it and tried to become a priest. The painting itself represents hope. Vincent, who was finally in his best head space not even in years, but in decades, drew it thinking that even in darkest nights, you can still find the light. Hence, "Starry Night". The sky might be dark, and the church might be spiral and confusing, but there are many beautiful starts above it all, and they light up the village, the sky, the path, and life as a whole.

That being said, such misconceptions of Van Gogh's life are not rare, so perhaps the developers had the same idea as you did in mind. So, perhaps they did use that painting in reference to - in their mind - something dark. Or, maybe they chose it in reference to Vincent as a person, whose life was undoubtedly very dark and tragic as well. Either way, you made me think that even by choosing that painting, they still tried to make the whole vibe of the game creepier - for one reason or the other. That's an interesting idea indeed.

Im not a huge fan of art myself, so it was probably just something an art teacher told me and I forgot about it. Sorry for my misconception of his life.

[Phade]

I think a fantastic halloween update would be house flipping a bunch of haunted houses.

[cocoayoc]

Originally posted by Phade:

I think a fantastic halloween update would be house flipping a bunch of haunted houses.

that'd be great, you should put it in suggestions forum

[VersaiVex]

I thought I was the only jumpy one playing this lol. I always tend to keep looking around the house even though, obviously I'm alone. I avoid looking at the windows just in case, ya know someone or something pops up. I also close the doors as I leave a room. I do rooms one at a time so I finish one, then close the door and move on.

[alienbiarcher]

Originally posted by VersaiVex:

I thought I was the only jumpy one playing this lol. I always tend to keep looking around the house even though, obviously I'm alone. I avoid looking at the windows just in case, ya know someone or something pops up. I also close the doors as I leave a room. I do rooms one at a time so I finish one, then close the door and move on.

I do all these things as well. I actually turned off the day/night thing, and now it's always day time in my game. Maybe it's less realistic, but also less creepy, so maybe you should do that too.

[Solarstrike]

+100 for a Halloween update or ability to buy and (try to sell) a house that is haunted. Maybe when you are working on it, strange things happen. Noises, apparitions, chairs moving, footsteps.

Also in regards to the topic of Halloween, some Halloween decorations. *Many countries of the world celebrate a Halloween of some sort.


*Reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Halloween

[Казак]

The windows at night are incredibly scary to me. I try to avoid night as much as possible. I have this werid phobia of something being in the window looking at me and iits the reason i soely buy closed blinds