A HUGE part of it is that all the textures are low-res photoscans*, making everything look like a somewhat hazy dream from your subconscious real-life memories. Secondly, for me, I used to play with my friends on GMod quite a bit, so it literally feels like some depopulated space. Thirdly, I don't think Source is an inspiration for backrooms; but both draw on the same 1990s office aesthetic (soulless, creepy, nostalgic all at once)
it`s the echo of your footsteps and the wind blowing past your ear and the knowledge that you`r alone that makes you feel vulnerable. I worked in a Bakery for 3 Years and you never feel more vulnerable then in a city at 2 am where usually you can`t place a foot infornt of another without bumping into someone and you never heard louder silence then at a place where people normally gather.
I remember when I worked at a mall, I go lost in the mall complex’s back halls after closing once and it’s the closest I’ve ever felt to being in the backrooms, just endless repeating brick corridors forever with no one around and no phone signal!
The outside world sounds terrifying, glad im chronically online so i only have to experience this in source games (and VR games, cause holy fuk does it feel exactly the same as gmod in like 2010 or whatever, like someones watching you. Doesnt help that i make horror games lmao)
Vacant streets in the dead of night can be pretty eerie. Encountering someone at those hours are even spookier. I'd take silent emptiness over a second set of footsteps, any night. Learn to love the void.
It's a term used as a generalization for collision disabled, not a source thing in any way. Same as "hitboxes" just a term that nocoders use, nothing to do with any specific engine.
I think it's the Source's mix of simple geometry and HD textures that gives it that vibe. The simple geometry allows our brains to categorize areas quickly without close inspection and thought, while the HD textures support the illusion of surfaces being "real". I also think the HD textures combined with very clean visuals (no filters, particles, blurring effects, everything is crisp and purposeful like intended) gives areas a very "this was set up to look like this" feel. Almost like every space is a Portal Test Chamber.. because you are being watched. Everything is a test. We saw what you did on that Toshiba laptop. We saw what happened to that cat.
I usually don't leave comments but I felt so connected with this video, i remember feeling the exact same way messing around in gmod when i was younger, that weird paranoia, it always made me so uncomfortable. Really great video, so glad it showed up in my recommended, you definitely deserve heaps more recognition!
Gmod and other Source Engine games can easily be someone's first experience with what the internet likes to call "liminal spaces", and that's if your exposure to them isn't The Backrooms or one of it's umpteen kabillion spin-offs and derivatives.
for me I almost never feel creeped out or uneasy when playing games like half life 2, because all the ambiance actually makes sense along with the dark and grimey environments, but the second I boot up gmod I start constantly looking over my shoulder
Worth noting that someone who has never played a source game gets nothing creepy from that, to be honest i don't get that feeling, quite the opposite, its calming, quiet and empty.
Portal's levels after escaping the testing track always made me feel uneasy. It doesn't help that there's always long hallways or corners before a loading screen. It always made me think something was going to pop up on my screen as soon as I turned the corner. I don't think it's a feeling that I've ever shaken and games in liminal spaces always makes that part of my brain tingle and makes me a bit anxious.
Yep. Source's otherworldliness was creepy but strangely alluring as well. It's what got me into gamedev. I suspect there's a magic sweetspot of baked ambient occlusion, far-off stinger sounds, and flat repeating textures that make a space feel liminal.
I always credited that unsettling feeling to sound design more than anything else, more specificallly the sound engine reverbation effects to emulate sounds bouncing and echoing off the space around you. It's just that *everything* sounds like its recorded in an empty, open back alley, with a sort of cold, short and harsh plate reverb, even if you're not in that environment. The early part of HL2 easily comes to mind, in the dead and dreadful City17. It works really well there, but it's kept throughout the whole game and in nearly all games using the same tech. Our brains know what sounds should sound like in different environments, and because the reverbation and echo effects themselves are quite real sounding in that engine, it's basically the uncanny valley effect brought on via sounds.
2:46 Jesus christ dude you brought back the oldschool jumpscare PTSD i've almost forgot i had Every time i see a fuckin' road and green hills under that sort of lighting my brain is just deeply unnerved I knew that jumpscare was coming just because i recognized the fuckin' vibe Also, i think you hit the nail on the head with the source engine's magical "realistic" feeling, the atmosphere And also the uncanny valley thing, i was theorizing that being why it's unnerving up until you brought it up lol Places in the source engine seem realistic, but there's very clearly something off, and in some cases also a few things missing (most notably, people) Last bit, although i can definitely understand and have sometimes felt the vibe most people feel Often times i just find myself being too comfortable to be disturbed by the silence lol (infact upon further reflection, i seem to be content with being alone even irl) Guess that's why i manage over 4000 hours with a strong portion of it just being from playing solo
I really thought I was alone who has these types of feelings when playing any valve game. I adore valve projects, but this melancholy gets to my bones when I’m playing alone, and eventually it starts freaking me out. I’m glad to know that many people actually have the same experience.
Pre-rendered ray tracing is the leading reason for Source still having a more photo realistic look than the decades of games that came after its arrival. Leave that hammer editor rendering a map overnight, and it can come up looking realer than real.
Your insight about the backrooms is spot on, I always got a Source vibe out of this one. Also, I clearly remember playing the original Gary's Mod (when it was still a mod) wandering around and messing around in de_dust2 (where else), then suddenly being extremely creeped out by the whole thing and never playing it again.
I recently rewatched the first Kane Pixels Backroom video, and despite knowing when the jump scares happen, they still got me. I even felt myself reflexively tensing up when you showed that footage in this video. While I haven't messed around with Gmod, I can understand that unsettling feeling you've described.
@@theRPGmaster Yeah, I understand what you mean. I'm still in the latter camp though. Even without a monster, the thought of starving to death amongst endless yellow, weird geometry and constant buzzing sounds really horrifying to me nonetheless.
I thought your visual examples and sound effects to help describe what you're talking about really helped me truly see how creepy being alone can be In a videogame world.
4:54 "The games don't look particularly good, especially older ones" BRUH Half Life 2 was a huge graphical leap at the time, Left 4 Dead series, Portal series, and CSGO, the last high profile Source Games to be released with the engine, also hold up pretty well. It's just Valve chose being "minimalistic" compared to its contemporaries, during the PS3X360 era. No bombastic set pieces set in a huge city, instead there's small (in comparison) skirmishes or lonely journey.
That comment was more in relation to current standards rather than at the time tbh! But I completely agree on your later point as I mentioned in the video, they lack the big set pieces that games like Horizon and last of us have!(:
I have sort of a counter-intuitive example of the opposite kind of effect happening (to me at least) in an otherwise really scary game - Amnesia: The Dark Descent. I don't think anyone would agree with me that the game feels "cozy" in any way, but after playing it many times, watching it many times, developing maps for it and running around testing things, as long as I have a clear idea of what to expect in the level, it just feels super cozy to me. :D I get immersed and feel as if I was in my own house/castle protected from all the dangers of the world, probably in a similarly counter-intuitive way how people feel cozy during thunder outside.
imagine having short term memory loss or dementia or something, placing a ragdoll for something, walking away from it to explore, forgetting it was there, and then coming back and freaking out because there's a random ragdoll on your "empty" map
@@CharlieAndLukeive always found it funny that maps suddenly lose ALL of their horror the second it becomes intentional spooks, like the 'haunted' gmod maps that add spooky shadow people in dark corners sometimes. Genuinely when i played these with my friend i had to artificially create paranormal unexplainable events to make them feel remotely freaked out. I recommend doing this btw, its like giving them their own personal "i saw herobrine!" moment, and even if you know its fake, its worth it for them lol
The most unsettling is easily subnautica, meme reddity wording aside, i went in thinking minecraft but water, blindsided by the saturated colors and the cartoony looking character model, i was hit with a flavor of dread i have never tasted in my life, first of: the vastness of the areas alongside with the lack of a map, and no i didn't googled a map for the game, then the fact that you got no efficient means of defense, all you gotta do is observe creatures and learn their paths and behavior, which brings the third problem, visibility, the lower i went the harder it got to see things from mildly far, but boy oh boy, you sure can hear them, you don't know what it is, it might be coming towards you, you don't know. One time i parked my big sub a little away from the place the sandsharks and leviathans proul, it was a cliff near mineral deposits on a sand field, i went on mining inside my not very good at floating mech, better yet, i was playing with a defective keyboard, the wire had a bad contact, meaning must avoid touching it, after grabing all the ore i needed i went back to the main sub, hit space to float towards the opening to dock my mech, touched the wire the keyboard went dark , i kept trying to get it to work again by messing with the wire, meanwhile my mech plunged into the abyss and there wasn't much i could do but watch as the pressure caused damage, the thing is, there was no floor, i just kept falling into nothingness pretty sure i heard something moving in the water but it was off my field of view, i eventually reloaded the previous save, but the experience was burnt in my mind, it kept haunting my long after i stopped playing the game.
This is a phenomenal video and when I saw you only had 478 subs I was genuinely astonished... idk if you plan on making a career out of RUclips but keep making stuff like this and you definitely will.
Thank you much!! (: it’s very much a passion project right now but if one day we can make this sort of thing full time then that’d be a dream! Appreciate the kind words!!
The original FEAR hit similar notes, it's very repetitive, backroom-like level design, fairly high quality props (all the danger/keep out signs etc.) but mushy and undefined furniture together with the very sharp, very harsh lighting gives you these vibes of familiarity yet if you get close to something it's a mirage, sand through your hands, and disappears. (The actual horror elements of FEAR on the other hand mostly impress 12 year olds, it certainly impressed me back then - true dread for an adult is navigating endless office and liminal spaces).
Strange because the office environments of the first FEAR game absent the enemies always gave me the same feeling I had from Action Quake 2 maps, that they were absent of threat or anything ominous at all. I still remember that one part in the first fear game when you're on the trail of that hacker and you have to cross from one rooftop to another, and I always felt like I could sit there and meditate in the partially lit dead calm of it all.
Metroid Prime 2 echoes. The interplay between the light and dark. The inky black sludge that made monsters MONSTERS. That ink black sludge is alive. It doesn't like me, it wants me dead. I've honestly never felt very disturbed when playing source engine games. But now that I think about it I think I just managed to ignore it. I've seen things so much scarier in my life. I think I just didn't notice, until now.
@@CharlieAndLuke Primes one and two are some of the best games I've ever played. 3 was an experiment that didn't go so well. It did however make the best possible motion controls out of the wii.
". . . so understated, with such ordinary-looking environments . . ." *cut to jumping on inexplicably floating rocks to cross a vat of something so radioactively toxic that it literally glows neon green*
I first stumbled upon Gmod in 2009, then first played it in 2010 as my first Steam purchase. I have vague memories from 2011 using the toybox (when that was still around) and using the Gnome mod which scared the shit out of me when I was little. I think that left a haunting feeling for that whole year.
Source games almost feel like their mocking you; so many games make an eerie atmosphere with spooky songs and sudden sounds so that a jumpscare feels so much more impactful. Source will build a deadly quiet atmosphere with soft distant sonds and just leave you there, on the edge of your seat for ages. If something scary or shocking does happen (For example, GLaDOS's first attempt to kill you in Portal, the Mariella Ending in The Stanley Parable,) it will fade in, pushing you slowly, right onto the very, very edge of your seat. It never jumpscares or does anything sudden like so many other games. That's what makes it's horror so addictive.
I’m convinced this is a zoomer phenomenon. When it was new we didn’t think it was creepy at all. It’s because of backrooms and liminal horror that people invented Gmod being creepy
I'm obsessed with the "liminal" aesthetic, have been for years before I heard about it online (yes, you can experience "liminal spaces" in real life). I can't express how happy I am that people are talking about it now, and some seem to enjoy it in the same way I do. Source games definitely have that vibe. Thank you, perfect video. Subscribed. Please make more content touching on theses themes, if you can. No pressure. P.S. I'm a software developer myself, as a passion project I'm trying to recreate this "vibe" with modern rendering techniques, it has a lot to do with lighting.
I'm trying to achieve the same aesthetic in my own engine, using modern rendering techniques. That's not quite the same as game development though. Maybe one day someone will use it to make a game like that, or maybe I will actually do it myself, after I retire! Way too busy at the moment 😅
I think the ambient sounds used in a lot of Source games is probably the biggest reason they feel more unsettling when alone than another game like say forge in Halo, at least personally speaking. A lot of Source games still used ambient sound effects for their maps from Half Life 2 (since it was the game the engine was made for originally), especially Gmod, which pretty simply puts an intention to the creepiness. HL2’s an Orwellian dystopia where aliens took over earth and crack down on humanity to the point the last generation of humans can no longer reproduce and live in slums where they’re relocated and raided constantly. When you use the sounds of City 17 in the background of any generic city map, it suddenly gets way more tense just walking around even if you haven’t played HL2 because of how effector they captured that atmosphere. It’s not the only aspect of the engine that makes it work great for creating unsettling environments, but it is definitely a large part of it.
I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU MEAN!!! Source Engine always creeps me out, I still can't finish the original Half-life even 'til this day with numerous tries.
I never got the “source is scary alone” meme. I guess maybe it’s just me cuz I started modding source games as soon as I started playing in 2012. So being aware of all the tricks of the source engine has to offer
392 SUBSCRIBERS, FOR A VIDEO LIKE THIS?????????? this video looks like it was made by a popular youtuber, BUT 392 SUBS? this video is so well done i seriously hope you get more subscribers
amazing vid, im sure this channel's gonna get popular soon. Also its so relateable too lol, when i played minecraft and gmod as a kid i was always just on edge about everything because the games were so empty and that drove me insane
whenever i get on gmod and play on the construct map it just unsettles me because of the dark room. i get this feeling that something is in there even though there isn't. so always i have to check by placing lights in the room or to nuke the room with a cluster nuke just to make sure there is nothing.
i was playing gmod one day and i was on the main menu and it was male 07 with bright ass eyes and it did that little transition thing when it swaps between backgrounds and i swear on my life that fucker looked directly at me and i just walked away
Got this vid in my reccomendation and I did'nt watch till now. Honestly for a guy with 281 subs this was very well made. Also I think what makes GMOD creepy is the fact that not only are you alone but the ambiance in the background is suppose to make everything feel alive but it just isn't. Basically what I'm trying to say is that you hear all these sounds but there is nothing to put the sound to. You hear cars, talking, sirens, birds, car horns. Yet you don't see any of it physically and I think that more than anything makes it feel creepy. It sounds like there is life but there just isn't. SORRY if this comment was poorly written as my sleep schedule isn't great and I'm writing this tired as hell rn. Either way great video and I'll be looking forward to future content. Hope you have a good day.
To me Source games feel like lucid dreams that go on for a little too long, like to the point you start wondering if you're not in a coma. They feel real in a way a Caravaggio painting feels real. You look at it for a moment or two and it looks great, it makes perfect physical sense, but then you examine it for a little longer and you start to question your own perception of things, not just in the painting, but all around you. You can't put a finger on it, but it just seems eerie.
I would say two of the most unsettling gaming experiences I've had are The Stanley Parable and The Talos Principle. Everyone should just play them without knowing anything about them. Just experience them.
Minecraft and Gmod are different from the other Sandbox due to the excessive loneliness Minecraft is a mix of a despair and creepy loneliness as the music (along with the genuinely peaceful and colorful-ness of the game) makes the situation seem sad but sometimes stuff like cave sounds or mobs can keep you on your toes While Gmod is basically everything you just talked about
Now that you mention it, Scrap Mechanic or Slime Rancher was the first game I’ve ever installed on Steam, but ever since my dad upgraded my computer, literally everything was lost and I had to install anew. I forgot what the first game I installed on Steam a second time was… TF2 maybe…
I actually recall covering my Webcam on my old laptop whenever I would play gmod as a kid. Such a random thing. I personally believe a big part of it is the textures and the lack of ai or npcs. These textures were mostly made for half-life. Seeing that in such a light hearted game is weird.
That is the same feeling I had when I first tried Portal 2 (skipped Portal 1 first). I felt mentally exhausted after like half an hour of gameplay, I really had to take some time doing something else periodically, and I couldn't really explain why to myself. As much as the story was exciting, I couldn't do it in one sitting, it really drained me every time I played it.
I honestly can't say I relate to this at all-- I always think posts like these are just some elaborate joke people make. Maybe that's just because of my experience in game dev (particularly with the source / quake engine), but I really don't understand why an empty source map feels scary to people like this, to me it's just a bunch of ambient noises and textures on some geometry That said though your video was really well made! congrats :)
As a youngster compared to a lot of gmod players (16) I’m so glad that Im not alone in thinking that something about this games atmosphere is off. I’ve been playing for about a year but whenever I’m alone in gmbigcity, goofing off and torturing combine, I feel like I’m not alone, i wonder what makes the sounds I hear, the trains wheels screeching, the beep of a alarm. Idk but it’s a silly billy of a game.
When I was a kid I could not even finish half life 2 cause of zombies and headcrabs. But later when I was messing in solo gmod i was always playing some loud random music tracks and never felt this jumpscare imminent feeling.
I've had this with Garry's Mod but also with the PC version of Spiderman 2 as a kid. There were npcs on the ground and in missions but often there were moments where it was just you on rooftops. Also there was a Mysterio level where the whole city was taken up into the air and space and all the npcs were gone. That unlocked a new feeling in me as a kid :"D
Interesting video. Personally I don't remember being creeped out during Beginner's Guide, but The Stanley Parable is fucking terrifying in parts (especially the Skip Button ending from Ultra Deluxe). Unnatural silence in games like Source-games or Minecraft, to name another example, used to fill me with this palpable, inescapable dread. I haven't felt that feeling in a while, and I'm pretty glad for that lol
Titanfall and Titanfall 2 is made with the Source engine as well and you can actually notice that creepy feeling too if you load up a map like Angel City in a private match and roam it by yourself.
Good video, but please credit the music you used. I wanted to find a couple of the songs in the background that I heard, but cannot because they are uncredited.
I have to wonder what you would think of the work of Looking Glass Studios. A lot of Valve's design philosophy was inspired by them. They were one of the pioneers of the "unbroken narrative" experience: that being that control is never taken away from the player. Like Valve, they rely on scripted sequences to relay information to the player. One of the critiques leveled most often at Looking Glass was that their games often felt like real worlds in and of themselves. This was especially notable in Ultima: Underworld 1 and 2, and System Shock 1. All Three of these games have lately grown a reputation for having a liminal space feeling, like Source Engine games.
Liminal space is also described as a transient area, one which you are intended to traverse but not linger in. Hallways are the typical example. Many of the examples you've shown are those types of areas. Subconsciously you know that you're not supposed to stay there, yet are forced to. This itself is unsettling. Stripping these areas of all objects just amplifies this effect. Probably because with no features present, there's nothing to balance that feeling that you should go, since there's nothing there to cause you to want to stay. Even the large open courtyard is an example. Without features, trees or plants, it feels like someplace you need to get through without any draw of it's own.
8:03 Probably 'Cry Of Fear'. As a kid, I would've had to go with 'Doom 3'. If it was real, and I *did* play it, I would ultimately go with the 'Lacey' lost media games.
I remember being unsettled when I played through the Ravenholm chapter in HL2 or just feeling like someone or someTHING is watching me when I play Gmod in singleplayer
never had that with the source enginge but in HL1... this atmosphere just creeps into my mind and i carry this feeling into the real world for a few hours after playing F for Marvin
Since the base maps in garry's mod are primarily based on multiplayer maps, those maps were never meant to be played alone, you can really FEEL it. Every bone in your body tells you that it's wrong to be alone in that space, therefore, you must not be alone. And that creeps you out. Same goes for most liminal spaces. Those were spaces MEANT to be full of people. It's wrong for it to be empty. So it must not be empty. The people meant to populate the room must be hiding from you...
im prettty sure its called "daylight horrors" or afternoon phantoms or something like that i get the same feeling when im in a sunny fafternoon feild, where i can see everything something just creeeps into my mind
seen a few videos about this now, all within the last month or two - you guys are just getting yourselves all worked up over nothing lol, worse than a bunch of little girls having a sleepover and scaring themselves
I can’t recall where, but I’ve heard someone mention how because Source was originally developed for Half-life 2, a dystopian game, the engine naturally has a feeling of uneasiness to it. 👁️🗨️
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
A HUGE part of it is that all the textures are low-res photoscans*, making everything look like a somewhat hazy dream from your subconscious real-life memories.
Secondly, for me, I used to play with my friends on GMod quite a bit, so it literally feels like some depopulated space.
Thirdly, I don't think Source is an inspiration for backrooms; but both draw on the same 1990s office aesthetic (soulless, creepy, nostalgic all at once)
it`s the echo of your footsteps and the wind blowing past your ear and the knowledge that you`r alone that makes you feel vulnerable.
I worked in a Bakery for 3 Years and you never feel more vulnerable then in a city at 2 am where usually you can`t place a foot infornt of another without bumping into someone and you never heard louder silence then at a place where people normally gather.
I remember when I worked at a mall, I go lost in the mall complex’s back halls after closing once and it’s the closest I’ve ever felt to being in the backrooms, just endless repeating brick corridors forever with no one around and no phone signal!
The outside world sounds terrifying, glad im chronically online so i only have to experience this in source games (and VR games, cause holy fuk does it feel exactly the same as gmod in like 2010 or whatever, like someones watching you. Doesnt help that i make horror games lmao)
Vacant streets in the dead of night can be pretty eerie.
Encountering someone at those hours are even spookier.
I'd take silent emptiness over a second set of footsteps, any night.
Learn to love the void.
To underscore your idea that the backrooms were inspired by Source, the original 4chan post literally mentions it being reached via "noclip".
That’s an excellent point! I completely forgot that noclip was a source command! Awesome spot!
@@CharlieAndLukewait, noclip originated from the source engine?!
Man... i thiught that was an OLD game term😅😅
Cool learn! Thanks guys!
It's a term used as a generalization for collision disabled, not a source thing in any way.
Same as "hitboxes" just a term that nocoders use, nothing to do with any specific engine.
wait until this guy learns noclip existed before the source engine...
I honestly forgot Noclip was a source thing
I think it's the Source's mix of simple geometry and HD textures that gives it that vibe. The simple geometry allows our brains to categorize areas quickly without close inspection and thought, while the HD textures support the illusion of surfaces being "real". I also think the HD textures combined with very clean visuals (no filters, particles, blurring effects, everything is crisp and purposeful like intended) gives areas a very "this was set up to look like this" feel. Almost like every space is a Portal Test Chamber.. because you are being watched. Everything is a test. We saw what you did on that Toshiba laptop. We saw what happened to that cat.
Wait…what cat?
Good point about the visuals - rooms in source do have a certain "put there intentionally" vibe.
You don't need to know.@@deviateedits
Empty source engine maps feel like you got sucked into another dimension but you can still faintly hear traces of the other side
Oh my god why didn’t I say that in the script!? Lmao, that’s what it is, you’re stuck between dimensions!
@@CharlieAndLukePretty much the definition of “liminal space”.
I usually don't leave comments but I felt so connected with this video, i remember feeling the exact same way messing around in gmod when i was younger, that weird paranoia, it always made me so uncomfortable. Really great video, so glad it showed up in my recommended, you definitely deserve heaps more recognition!
That means so much!!! Thanks for watching, we’re glad this resonated for you!(:
Had that same feeling. Whenever i played minecraft i HAD to stay in the air cuz i didnt feel safe on the ground, even in creative mode
Oh my god minecraft definitely has similar vibes!
Exact same experience, felt like *something* was gonna rush at me
Depends on type i suggest building in biome junctions where the eery aura is less felt
69L
had that with pocket edition and xbox 360 edition. dont feel that on the newer ones though.
Gmod and other Source Engine games can easily be someone's first experience with what the internet likes to call "liminal spaces", and that's if your exposure to them isn't The Backrooms or one of it's umpteen kabillion spin-offs and derivatives.
Yeah, I became fascinated by those places in real life. That was way before I heard about the term online, I didn't think there was a name for it.
for me I almost never feel creeped out or uneasy when playing games like half life 2, because all the ambiance actually makes sense along with the dark and grimey environments, but the second I boot up gmod I start constantly looking over my shoulder
Worth noting that someone who has never played a source game gets nothing creepy from that, to be honest i don't get that feeling, quite the opposite, its calming, quiet and empty.
I've never really found any Source maps particularly creepy or unnerving.
Portal's levels after escaping the testing track always made me feel uneasy. It doesn't help that there's always long hallways or corners before a loading screen. It always made me think something was going to pop up on my screen as soon as I turned the corner. I don't think it's a feeling that I've ever shaken and games in liminal spaces always makes that part of my brain tingle and makes me a bit anxious.
Yep. Source's otherworldliness was creepy but strangely alluring as well. It's what got me into gamedev. I suspect there's a magic sweetspot of baked ambient occlusion, far-off stinger sounds, and flat repeating textures that make a space feel liminal.
I always credited that unsettling feeling to sound design more than anything else, more specificallly the sound engine reverbation effects to emulate sounds bouncing and echoing off the space around you. It's just that *everything* sounds like its recorded in an empty, open back alley, with a sort of cold, short and harsh plate reverb, even if you're not in that environment. The early part of HL2 easily comes to mind, in the dead and dreadful City17. It works really well there, but it's kept throughout the whole game and in nearly all games using the same tech. Our brains know what sounds should sound like in different environments, and because the reverbation and echo effects themselves are quite real sounding in that engine, it's basically the uncanny valley effect brought on via sounds.
I've never found it creepy all the years, kind of relaxing and wholesome instead, I dont know why
Same, liminal spaces are creepy to some. I've always loved that feeling (for 15+ years now).
I found the engine always very clean and tidy.
Just basic stuff, easy geometry and straight-forward level design.
It’s become creepy over time for me. I think nostalgia and the feeling I should be messing around with my friend adds to it when I’m alone
Same. It's the most relaxing and interesting place to get lost in.
wait why am i watching this i dont have gmod
Because you’re cool that’s why
doesnt matter, its still a rlly good video
gmod isn't the only game that uses source
2:46
Jesus christ dude you brought back the oldschool jumpscare PTSD i've almost forgot i had
Every time i see a fuckin' road and green hills under that sort of lighting my brain is just deeply unnerved
I knew that jumpscare was coming just because i recognized the fuckin' vibe
Also, i think you hit the nail on the head with the source engine's magical "realistic" feeling, the atmosphere
And also the uncanny valley thing, i was theorizing that being why it's unnerving up until you brought it up lol
Places in the source engine seem realistic, but there's very clearly something off, and in some cases also a few things missing (most notably, people)
Last bit, although i can definitely understand and have sometimes felt the vibe most people feel
Often times i just find myself being too comfortable to be disturbed by the silence lol (infact upon further reflection, i seem to be content with being alone even irl)
Guess that's why i manage over 4000 hours with a strong portion of it just being from playing solo
I really thought I was alone who has these types of feelings when playing any valve game. I adore valve projects, but this melancholy gets to my bones when I’m playing alone, and eventually it starts freaking me out.
I’m glad to know that many people actually have the same experience.
Pre-rendered ray tracing is the leading reason for Source still having a more photo realistic look than the decades of games that came after its arrival.
Leave that hammer editor rendering a map overnight, and it can come up looking realer than real.
This. It's a major contributor to the uncanny, "liminal" feeling. It seems that most people overlook the impact of lighting.
Your insight about the backrooms is spot on, I always got a Source vibe out of this one. Also, I clearly remember playing the original Gary's Mod (when it was still a mod) wandering around and messing around in de_dust2 (where else), then suddenly being extremely creeped out by the whole thing and never playing it again.
I recently rewatched the first Kane Pixels Backroom video, and despite knowing when the jump scares happen, they still got me. I even felt myself reflexively tensing up when you showed that footage in this video. While I haven't messed around with Gmod, I can understand that unsettling feeling you've described.
But without the monster, the backrooms seems like such a relaxing place to me. Do you get what I mean? Some do, but others just find it unnerving.
@@theRPGmaster Yeah, I understand what you mean. I'm still in the latter camp though. Even without a monster, the thought of starving to death amongst endless yellow, weird geometry and constant buzzing sounds really horrifying to me nonetheless.
To answer the thumbnail: Because claiming everything is creepy is trendy these days. Next question.
I thought your visual examples and sound effects to help describe what you're talking about really helped me truly see how creepy being alone can be In a videogame world.
thats very nice of you to say! thanks!(:
One of my favorite genres of video, "Why is Source creepy?"
taking a cue from P.T. All source games have a disembodied Gabe Newell, just out of sight. Forever stalking the player 😱😂
No one:
Zoomers: THE DARK HISTORY OF BARNEY THE DINOSAUR
4:54 "The games don't look particularly good, especially older ones"
BRUH Half Life 2 was a huge graphical leap at the time, Left 4 Dead series, Portal series, and CSGO, the last high profile Source Games to be released with the engine, also hold up pretty well.
It's just Valve chose being "minimalistic" compared to its contemporaries, during the PS3X360 era.
No bombastic set pieces set in a huge city, instead there's small (in comparison) skirmishes or lonely journey.
That comment was more in relation to current standards rather than at the time tbh! But I completely agree on your later point as I mentioned in the video, they lack the big set pieces that games like Horizon and last of us have!(:
Nier and Minecraft(SP) do this feeling pretty well also. Alone, empty, world
“Source engine scary” mfs when i tell them to make an NPC war in gmod
4:53 No, The Games On Source Look Way Better Than Any Game Released Since 2016.
by panic! and the disco
I have sort of a counter-intuitive example of the opposite kind of effect happening (to me at least) in an otherwise really scary game - Amnesia: The Dark Descent. I don't think anyone would agree with me that the game feels "cozy" in any way, but after playing it many times, watching it many times, developing maps for it and running around testing things, as long as I have a clear idea of what to expect in the level, it just feels super cozy to me. :D I get immersed and feel as if I was in my own house/castle protected from all the dangers of the world, probably in a similarly counter-intuitive way how people feel cozy during thunder outside.
imagine having short term memory loss or dementia or something, placing a ragdoll for something, walking away from it to explore, forgetting it was there, and then coming back and freaking out because there's a random ragdoll on your "empty" map
This is a pretty good video! I always play Garry’s Mod alone and I feel on edge when doing so.
Be sure to watch out for the demons lurking in the corners of the map👀
@@CharlieAndLukeive always found it funny that maps suddenly lose ALL of their horror the second it becomes intentional spooks, like the 'haunted' gmod maps that add spooky shadow people in dark corners sometimes. Genuinely when i played these with my friend i had to artificially create paranormal unexplainable events to make them feel remotely freaked out. I recommend doing this btw, its like giving them their own personal "i saw herobrine!" moment, and even if you know its fake, its worth it for them lol
The most unsettling is easily subnautica, meme reddity wording aside, i went in thinking minecraft but water, blindsided by the saturated colors and the cartoony looking character model, i was hit with a flavor of dread i have never tasted in my life, first of: the vastness of the areas alongside with the lack of a map, and no i didn't googled a map for the game, then the fact that you got no efficient means of defense, all you gotta do is observe creatures and learn their paths and behavior, which brings the third problem, visibility, the lower i went the harder it got to see things from mildly far, but boy oh boy, you sure can hear them, you don't know what it is, it might be coming towards you, you don't know.
One time i parked my big sub a little away from the place the sandsharks and leviathans proul, it was a cliff near mineral deposits on a sand field, i went on mining inside my not very good at floating mech, better yet, i was playing with a defective keyboard, the wire had a bad contact, meaning must avoid touching it, after grabing all the ore i needed i went back to the main sub, hit space to float towards the opening to dock my mech, touched the wire the keyboard went dark , i kept trying to get it to work again by messing with the wire, meanwhile my mech plunged into the abyss and there wasn't much i could do but watch as the pressure caused damage, the thing is, there was no floor, i just kept falling into nothingness pretty sure i heard something moving in the water but it was off my field of view, i eventually reloaded the previous save, but the experience was burnt in my mind, it kept haunting my long after i stopped playing the game.
This is a phenomenal video and when I saw you only had 478 subs I was genuinely astonished... idk if you plan on making a career out of RUclips but keep making stuff like this and you definitely will.
Thank you much!! (: it’s very much a passion project right now but if one day we can make this sort of thing full time then that’d be a dream! Appreciate the kind words!!
The original FEAR hit similar notes, it's very repetitive, backroom-like level design, fairly high quality props (all the danger/keep out signs etc.) but mushy and undefined furniture together with the very sharp, very harsh lighting gives you these vibes of familiarity yet if you get close to something it's a mirage, sand through your hands, and disappears. (The actual horror elements of FEAR on the other hand mostly impress 12 year olds, it certainly impressed me back then - true dread for an adult is navigating endless office and liminal spaces).
Strange because the office environments of the first FEAR game absent the enemies always gave me the same feeling I had from Action Quake 2 maps, that they were absent of threat or anything ominous at all. I still remember that one part in the first fear game when you're on the trail of that hacker and you have to cross from one rooftop to another, and I always felt like I could sit there and meditate in the partially lit dead calm of it all.
Yeah I remember that :) and what about delirium of Max Payne 2 ;)
If you lived in eastern Europe all your life, you wouldnt feel any dread.
6:48 I know this underpass, it's in my hometown, Kassel, Germany.
Metroid Prime 2 echoes. The interplay between the light and dark. The inky black sludge that made monsters MONSTERS. That ink black sludge is alive. It doesn't like me, it wants me dead.
I've honestly never felt very disturbed when playing source engine games. But now that I think about it I think I just managed to ignore it. I've seen things so much scarier in my life. I think I just didn't notice, until now.
I really should go and finish the prime series I’ve still only played prime 1! Thanks for the comment!(:
@@CharlieAndLuke Primes one and two are some of the best games I've ever played. 3 was an experiment that didn't go so well. It did however make the best possible motion controls out of the wii.
the creepiness goes away when you get into mapping as you know how everything works basically
I like how the short clips you use like the beginners guide dev saying a quote, never overstays its welcome. Great pacing throughout the whole video 👏
Thank you for the kind feedback!(: we’re glad you’re a fan of the style!!
This is what drives the Backrooms concept.
". . . so understated, with such ordinary-looking environments . . ." *cut to jumping on inexplicably floating rocks to cross a vat of something so radioactively toxic that it literally glows neon green*
We’ve been waiting for someone to point that out from day one😭
I first stumbled upon Gmod in 2009, then first played it in 2010 as my first Steam purchase. I have vague memories from 2011 using the toybox (when that was still around) and using the Gnome mod which scared the shit out of me when I was little. I think that left a haunting feeling for that whole year.
Source games almost feel like their mocking you; so many games make an eerie atmosphere with spooky songs and sudden sounds so that a jumpscare feels so much more impactful.
Source will build a deadly quiet atmosphere with soft distant sonds and just leave you there, on the edge of your seat for ages. If something scary or shocking does happen (For example, GLaDOS's first attempt to kill you in Portal, the Mariella Ending in The Stanley Parable,) it will fade in, pushing you slowly, right onto the very, very edge of your seat.
It never jumpscares or does anything sudden like so many other games.
That's what makes it's horror so addictive.
The second you showed the creepy car commercial I verbally said “oh fuck off”. All of my childhood trauma came back in an instant 😂
loved this :) rlly hope this video gets more popular because its so good, great job ^w^
Thank you so much!!! That means a lot!(:
I’m convinced this is a zoomer phenomenon. When it was new we didn’t think it was creepy at all. It’s because of backrooms and liminal horror that people invented Gmod being creepy
I'm obsessed with the "liminal" aesthetic, have been for years before I heard about it online (yes, you can experience "liminal spaces" in real life).
I can't express how happy I am that people are talking about it now, and some seem to enjoy it in the same way I do. Source games definitely have that vibe.
Thank you, perfect video. Subscribed. Please make more content touching on theses themes, if you can. No pressure.
P.S. I'm a software developer myself, as a passion project I'm trying to recreate this "vibe" with modern rendering techniques, it has a lot to do with lighting.
the worst feeling is playing a server which is normally populated by yourself, then you start hearing sounds
once i heard a player respawn noise and walking and gunshot sounds, but i think it was just my head from playing on a server by myself for 2 hours
I really need a spooky liminal space game in Source
I'm trying to achieve the same aesthetic in my own engine, using modern rendering techniques. That's not quite the same as game development though. Maybe one day someone will use it to make a game like that, or maybe I will actually do it myself, after I retire! Way too busy at the moment 😅
I think the ambient sounds used in a lot of Source games is probably the biggest reason they feel more unsettling when alone than another game like say forge in Halo, at least personally speaking.
A lot of Source games still used ambient sound effects for their maps from Half Life 2 (since it was the game the engine was made for originally), especially Gmod, which pretty simply puts an intention to the creepiness. HL2’s an Orwellian dystopia where aliens took over earth and crack down on humanity to the point the last generation of humans can no longer reproduce and live in slums where they’re relocated and raided constantly. When you use the sounds of City 17 in the background of any generic city map, it suddenly gets way more tense just walking around even if you haven’t played HL2 because of how effector they captured that atmosphere.
It’s not the only aspect of the engine that makes it work great for creating unsettling environments, but it is definitely a large part of it.
I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU MEAN!!!
Source Engine always creeps me out, I still can't finish the original Half-life even 'til this day with numerous tries.
I never got the “source is scary alone” meme. I guess maybe it’s just me cuz I started modding source games as soon as I started playing in 2012. So being aware of all the tricks of the source engine has to offer
392 SUBSCRIBERS, FOR A VIDEO LIKE THIS??????????
this video looks like it was made by a popular youtuber, BUT 392 SUBS?
this video is so well done i seriously hope you get more subscribers
“Dear Esther” seems like the creepiest of them all.
Bro said the stanely parable is scary lmfaoo
Bruh I remember a video like this with the same concept
amazing vid, im sure this channel's gonna get popular soon. Also its so relateable too lol, when i played minecraft and gmod as a kid i was always just on edge about everything because the games were so empty and that drove me insane
Thanks so much for your kind words, we’re honestly kinda overwhelmed by the response we’ve gotten😅
Great vid my first steam purchase was also Gmod.
You the GOAT
Same dude
This video is so well done, i was surprised to see it was only posted yesterday and less than 1000 views.
Thank you so much!! :D
whenever i get on gmod and play on the construct map it just unsettles me because of the dark room. i get this feeling that something is in there even though there isn't. so always i have to check by placing lights in the room or to nuke the room with a cluster nuke just to make sure there is nothing.
i was playing gmod one day and i was on the main menu and it was male 07 with bright ass eyes and it did that little transition thing when it swaps between backgrounds and i swear on my life that fucker looked directly at me and i just walked away
Got this vid in my reccomendation and I did'nt watch till now. Honestly for a guy with 281 subs this was very well made. Also I think what makes GMOD creepy is the fact that not only are you alone but the ambiance in the background is suppose to make everything feel alive but it just isn't. Basically what I'm trying to say is that you hear all these sounds but there is nothing to put the sound to. You hear cars, talking, sirens, birds, car horns. Yet you don't see any of it physically and I think that more than anything makes it feel creepy. It sounds like there is life but there just isn't. SORRY if this comment was poorly written as my sleep schedule isn't great and I'm writing this tired as hell rn. Either way great video and I'll be looking forward to future content. Hope you have a good day.
To me Source games feel like lucid dreams that go on for a little too long, like to the point you start wondering if you're not in a coma. They feel real in a way a Caravaggio painting feels real. You look at it for a moment or two and it looks great, it makes perfect physical sense, but then you examine it for a little longer and you start to question your own perception of things, not just in the painting, but all around you. You can't put a finger on it, but it just seems eerie.
I would say two of the most unsettling gaming experiences I've had are The Stanley Parable and The Talos Principle. Everyone should just play them without knowing anything about them. Just experience them.
Minecraft and Gmod are different from the other Sandbox due to the excessive loneliness
Minecraft is a mix of a despair and creepy loneliness as the music (along with the genuinely peaceful and colorful-ness of the game) makes the situation seem sad but sometimes stuff like cave sounds or mobs can keep you on your toes
While Gmod is basically everything you just talked about
Now that you mention it, Scrap Mechanic or Slime Rancher was the first game I’ve ever installed on Steam, but ever since my dad upgraded my computer, literally everything was lost and I had to install anew. I forgot what the first game I installed on Steam a second time was… TF2 maybe…
Gmod is literally just existential dread simulator. Liminal space type shit. Its scary alone.
You’re so right, even the RP servers feel super uncanny and weird
@@CharlieAndLuke yea, even full RP servers with people talking still feels weird. It's like coded dread.
I actually recall covering my Webcam on my old laptop whenever I would play gmod as a kid. Such a random thing. I personally believe a big part of it is the textures and the lack of ai or npcs. These textures were mostly made for half-life. Seeing that in such a light hearted game is weird.
Same with audio too. You are so on point!
minecraft is definetly the most terrifying game i've ever played.
That is the same feeling I had when I first tried Portal 2 (skipped Portal 1 first). I felt mentally exhausted after like half an hour of gameplay, I really had to take some time doing something else periodically, and I couldn't really explain why to myself. As much as the story was exciting, I couldn't do it in one sitting, it really drained me every time I played it.
I honestly can't say I relate to this at all-- I always think posts like these are just some elaborate joke people make. Maybe that's just because of my experience in game dev (particularly with the source / quake engine), but I really don't understand why an empty source map feels scary to people like this, to me it's just a bunch of ambient noises and textures on some geometry
That said though your video was really well made! congrats :)
Sounds to me like there are a some people who got their paranoia triggered by the simplicity of an outdated videogame engine.
As a youngster compared to a lot of gmod players (16) I’m so glad that Im not alone in thinking that something about this games atmosphere is off. I’ve been playing for about a year but whenever I’m alone in gmbigcity, goofing off and torturing combine, I feel like I’m not alone, i wonder what makes the sounds I hear, the trains wheels screeching, the beep of a alarm. Idk but it’s a silly billy of a game.
Seeing younger dudes having the same gaming experiences makes me feel a bit less old, lol
You missed Titanfall II. It's source engine, and yes, it has that same feeling of dread too.
When I was a kid I could not even finish half life 2 cause of zombies and headcrabs.
But later when I was messing in solo gmod i was always playing some loud random music tracks and never felt this jumpscare imminent feeling.
I've had this with Garry's Mod but also with the PC version of Spiderman 2 as a kid. There were npcs on the ground and in missions but often there were moments where it was just you on rooftops. Also there was a Mysterio level where the whole city was taken up into the air and space and all the npcs were gone. That unlocked a new feeling in me as a kid :"D
I was always convinced there was something in that room on construct. Always preferred big, flat, preferably desert maps.
Interesting video. Personally I don't remember being creeped out during Beginner's Guide, but The Stanley Parable is fucking terrifying in parts (especially the Skip Button ending from Ultra Deluxe). Unnatural silence in games like Source-games or Minecraft, to name another example, used to fill me with this palpable, inescapable dread. I haven't felt that feeling in a while, and I'm pretty glad for that lol
Titanfall and Titanfall 2 is made with the Source engine as well and you can actually notice that creepy feeling too if you load up a map like Angel City in a private match and roam it by yourself.
this video was so good, how does this channel have less than 500 subs? just subbed, looking forward for the next video
Ayeeee thank you so much!! We appreciate it!(:
going out of bounds in og modern warfare 2 gave me this feeling to the max
Awesome video man! I am definitely subscribing.
Thank you so much!!(:
hey man i just want to say this is a super well made video i applaud you
Good video, but please credit the music you used. I wanted to find a couple of the songs in the background that I heard, but cannot because they are uncredited.
I have to wonder what you would think of the work of Looking Glass Studios. A lot of Valve's design philosophy was inspired by them. They were one of the pioneers of the "unbroken narrative" experience: that being that control is never taken away from the player. Like Valve, they rely on scripted sequences to relay information to the player.
One of the critiques leveled most often at Looking Glass was that their games often felt like real worlds in and of themselves. This was especially notable in Ultima: Underworld 1 and 2, and System Shock 1. All Three of these games have lately grown a reputation for having a liminal space feeling, like Source Engine games.
Interesting! Will have to look into it for sure!! Appreciate the insightful comment!(:
The ceiling always feels too low.
Liminal space is also described as a transient area, one which you are intended to traverse but not linger in. Hallways are the typical example. Many of the examples you've shown are those types of areas. Subconsciously you know that you're not supposed to stay there, yet are forced to. This itself is unsettling. Stripping these areas of all objects just amplifies this effect. Probably because with no features present, there's nothing to balance that feeling that you should go, since there's nothing there to cause you to want to stay. Even the large open courtyard is an example. Without features, trees or plants, it feels like someplace you need to get through without any draw of it's own.
and the best match is when the workshop started getting backrooms map...its perfect, Horror maps too like the Never Lose Hope Hospital too
one part of it, its because we all have opened empty maps of the source engine and just explored them
8:03
Probably 'Cry Of Fear'.
As a kid, I would've had to go with 'Doom 3'.
If it was real, and I *did* play it, I would ultimately go with the 'Lacey' lost media games.
I remember being unsettled when I played through the Ravenholm chapter in HL2 or just feeling like someone or someTHING is watching me when I play Gmod in singleplayer
Damn your channel is really underrated, if you keep up with making Gmod/Source videos that would be great
never had that with the source enginge but in HL1... this atmosphere just creeps into my mind and i carry this feeling into the real world for a few hours after playing
F for Marvin
aye dropped a sub, your sense of pacing and editing is awesome. youtube algorithm better do its thing!
Thank you so much!!! Appreciate the support!(:
Since the base maps in garry's mod are primarily based on multiplayer maps, those maps were never meant to be played alone, you can really FEEL it. Every bone in your body tells you that it's wrong to be alone in that space, therefore, you must not be alone. And that creeps you out.
Same goes for most liminal spaces. Those were spaces MEANT to be full of people. It's wrong for it to be empty. So it must not be empty. The people meant to populate the room must be hiding from you...
im prettty sure its called "daylight horrors" or afternoon phantoms or something like that
i get the same feeling when im in a sunny fafternoon feild, where i can see everything
something just creeeps into my mind
I’ve not heard that term before but I reaaally like it! Thanks for sharing! That’s super cool!
this was a great vidoe btw!
@@CharlieAndLuke
seen a few videos about this now, all within the last month or two - you guys are just getting yourselves all worked up over nothing lol, worse than a bunch of little girls having a sleepover and scaring themselves
TRUE!!!!!!!
You’re so big and brave Dan😉
@@CharlieAndLuke there's no bravery required to walk around an empty source server lol
I can’t recall where, but I’ve heard someone mention how because Source was originally developed for Half-life 2, a dystopian game, the engine naturally has a feeling of uneasiness to it. 👁️🗨️
**cliche how do you only have 100 subscribers comment**
That’s the kind of cliche we love!(: