Overview

This book focuses on the history of psychological horror games (1990s to present) in terms of,

• How principles of psychology have been applied to video game development and design.

• The origin of the psychological horror genre.

• How psychological horror games have matured the video game medium (I wrote a personal blog post on this recently, here).

• Insight into the design and development of flagship psychological horror titles.

• The future of psychological horror.

It was the summer of 1996.

Wannabe by the Spice Girls was top of the UK charts, a 99 flake ice cream actually cost 99 pence and the sun was shining! Me, your regular young lady of the 90s… Was sat inside… In the dark… playing Resident Evil. And that zombie infested mansion, changed EVERYTHING.

Fast forward fifteen years (ouch!) and I am studying a Masters in Computer Game Software Development. Thing is, I still haven’t let Resident Evil die. In fact - With the then imminent release of Resident Evil VII in Virtual Reality - My dissertation was focused on how the mechanics of Virtual Reality can leverage a Horror game experience.

Relevant Experience

Details of my publications and talks can be found here.

I’d recommend Horror Games & VR: A New Level Of Terror Or A Dead End? as an indicator of the tone of my writing.

A career highlight of mine was the opportunity to talk at the prestigious Game Developers Conference 2017, in San Francisco.

Details of my professional experience can be found on my CV.