Just the horror of hearing your friend whisper “hey i found something come here” and turning the corner to see them laying dead on the ground with a massive monster turning to you and playing the same “hey i found something come here” and sprinting at you
Just a small note, Phasmophobia also uses absence of action, but not nearly to the degree of In Silence. Talking while a ghost is hunting will let the ghost know where you are
surprised you didnt mention that when a hunt/significant event is ongoing in phasmophobia, the radios are useless. not only because talking leads the ghost to you but because when the button is held down all thats sent to other players is static. they can still talk to you over the radio if they are in a safe position, but in your final moments you can only shout information, as using the radio would just be stagic, and hope they can hear it through walls if you know you are about to die.
If I recall correctly awhile ago they changed that, where as during a hunt it the radios used to be completely useless, last time I played they were still usable during the hunt *unless* the ghost was close to you, which might have been why it wasn't mentioned in the video.
@@Leon3789 correct but 90% of the time the ghost is close enough to you that it is static, and you dont really want to talk anyways cause that'll alert it to you
That voice clip idea was insidious. I love it. Before the game starts each player could pre-record themselves saying specific messages, and then only be able to use those to communicate in game, obviously seriously limiting the effectiveness of the voice chat, but by allowing the monster to fully use all of the players recorded clips, they become indistinguishable from the player they took over
What's interesting is something similar is already done in Team Fortress 2, where while disguised all of your voice commands appear to the enemy team as if the person you're disguised as said it. Of course, because tf2 has global voice chat, an observant player could quickly shout "spy as me" over the microphone as soon as they notice it, but when they don't it can be quite fun to use the "Help!", "Medic!" and even "Sentry ahead!" voice commands while disguised to trick them into walking right past you to deal with some other threat (that doesn't actually exist) or trick them into healing you. In fact, the "Medic!" voice command's bubble above your head loosely indicating what percentage of health your at matches your disguise, so if you disguise as a low-health player it becomes even more convincing.
I feel like maybe the game could just record whenever somebody’s mic activates and they say a certain set of keywords like “Hey” “Hello?” “Is anybody here?” etc. Phas has some speech recognition like that in it, I’m sure another spooky game could do that and then yoink those clips for the monster to use.
I LOVE this idea. But how would you balance the experience of people who take the game seriously with people who put every single one of thier voice clips with the word **BALLS** at high volume? Of course the sheer comedic value of that probably would give the game a big enough boost anyway.
Another thing that makes Proxy voice so terrifying, even in single player horror games, is that in normal horror games, you can scream in terror with no consequence. The monster cannot hear you. With Proxy chat on, even in a single player horror game, the monster can hear you, and you have to force yourself to stay quiet when you might otherwise scream. Every sound you make makes you paranoid that the monster just heard you and will be able to find you
Some single player horror games *do* utilize your mic so you actually need to stay quiet in certain points. I can't name the examples off the top of my head but they're certainly out there.
@@bobert3230 Might be better to use something thin like a knife for that, but I know that's not always an option I usually go for spelling out letters in midair since it can be done just about anywhere
I'm always delighted to see Scruffy's avatar on-screen, it's so lovely to see it interact with whatever world to better showcase what he's talking about.
@@ari638 That and he just has a really nice design, tying to the whole music thing he does. I really want to draw this little guy and put him in things, but for that last bit I should probably ask for permission first.
The VC in Phasmophobia honestly adds a lot of fear, I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone get trapped in a room or in the building as they're leaving and it turns into them frantically screaming through the walls, sometimes it can end up comical, but even more it can end up super scary. There's this particular group that played it not that long ago where they were leaving and one of the members got stuck in the house, screaming their head off as another frantically tried to shout instructions on where to hide through the wall, but as they ran from the ghost, it got fainter, and fainter... Until, outside, the screaming stopped. And when they went back inside, they found them dead at the bottom of the stairs, and it was terrifying.
Omg I love how you process the sound at 3:57 so much. Having the scary strings swell up but then distorting it so it sounds like it has a low-bitrate/compressed sounds so cool and creative, as if the player character got reduced to ghostly remains of themselves. Great video as always
I think a really nice medium between these two games is Forewarn, its essentially a phasmophobia clone but with mummies instead of ghosts. If a player gets killed by a trap, mummy, or spirit while searching a tomb, they have the choice of spectating or becoming a mummy to hunt the surviving players! The fun thing about coming back as a mummy is that the in-game mic will pitch shift your voice to make you seem more menacing. I’ve seen a couple streamers get jumpscared by their fallen teammates while playing, its a fun way to still implement proximity chat while not taking the player out of the experience!
I remember when neocranium played that game iirc, and pretty much started pole dancing right in front of his ex-teammates while calling himself a "bad mummy" That bit never fails to make me laugh
Always a joy when Scruffy uploads. So fun to learn about sound design in video games and horror especially and when it comes from Scruffy it’s even better
that voice clip idea is something another asymmetric coop survival horror (SCP Secret Laboratory) is going to implement soon as part of the voice mimicking doggy SCP's rework. people can opt out, but if they opt in, the SCP gets the last few seconds of the victims proximity chat to use as an ability, able to throw it out as a lure, or to scare players away from a certain route or room, in order to ambush the humans better. Cool concept.
@@Titanic-wo6bqThe problem is that since 90% of the SL fanbase are shitposters then they'll say some shit like "I LIKE MEN!" before they die, not saying that's a downside, hell its an upside to be roaming around playing "I LIKE MEN" over and over
I only got into Phasmo recently and it's seriously so fun. Another thing that make that game's proximity so fun is what happens when the ghost is near you while hunting. In real life it's rumored that ghosts take electric energy from items around them in order to be powerful, so when the ghost is hunting near you your items will be interfered with. Your flashlight will blink in and out, your emf reader will go off the fritz, and your wallow talkie will turn to static. Anyone in the range of the ghost can neither hear teammates output nor can their teammates hear there's. But, the other teammates can communicate over the walkie talkie as long as they're far enough away from the ghost. To me this adds another layer of fear, the fact you can hear a teammate setting off static and know they're either being chased down or killed is horrifying, especially when you consider all other teammates are in safety.
This reminds me of SCP secret lab. Namely, the dogs (SCP-939). The dogs cannot see you unless they touch you, hear your running, or use voice chat. Due to the lack of other ways of communicating however, this is an excellent way for the player to get in their own head. Mostly forcing them to adapt. Another interesting thing is that the dogs can talk to players as well, which is mostly used either for memes, or tricking a player into believing they are a human on the other side of a door.
In Silence seems really cool, and yeah I definitely think there's a lot of potential with the monster being able to distract, confuse, or scare the players with voices
Honestly sounds like some Predator shit (God, I wish someone someone would make something like that… Probably too ambitious for a lot of game devs but just thinking about it makes it seem like the coolest thing ever)
I once watched an In Silence stream where one of the players made horrifying, wailing noises while playing the Rake. So from the perspective of the other players, when they were trying to be as quiet as possible, they would hear those wails in the distance constantly. It was a pretty effective atmosphere! But most players don’t (or can’t) do that so Scruffy’s idea is really nice
@@The4j1123 It’s in French with no subtitles and I linked you the edited stream recap with everyone’s POV (effect a bit ruined by the fact that 2 of the players kept laughing) the part I’m talking about is from 2:55 to 8:40 basically, the monster player is imitating Clickers from TLOU ruclips.net/video/Y5S01d02-qg/видео.html
I adore proximity voice chat! Me and my friends use a mod for it in minecraft, running past someone while their building and singing, or sneaking up on someone to scare them is a lot of fun.
There’s something hilarious about knowing your trapped in a small restricting space with an unknowable aberration and suddenly hearing your friend scream like a goblin because they angered the monster😂
Towards the end where Scruffy talks about the voice clips being awarded to the monster, SCP:SL (free to play multiplayer game where you can play as the SCPs) is giving one of the SCPs who can actually talk the ability to use voice clips of other players in the current game to trick other players!
another great thing the prox chat does in phasmophobia is create tense moments where you hear the sounds of your friends screaming. Because not only is it a distant scream, meaning a person is in danger, its a voice thats familiar to you; a friend you care about being killed somewhere you can't see. its also fun when you hear someone panic over the radio before it abrubtly cuts off and leaves nothing but static. First time I played it I was yelling my friend's name over the radio, asking if they were ok, and eventually had to come to the realisation that I was now alone
7:47 That's actually an amazing idea. I hope someone over at Ravenhood Games sees this video so it may have the possibility of being implemented in the future. The fear factor would go way up if it was. Imagine this scenario: You and your group of friends are being chased by The Rake and one of your friend's splits off from the group as a distraction. They yell out: "Over here!" The Rake takes the bait and runs towards your friend out of view. The rest of you get away and after a few minutes, you all hear off in the distance: "Over here!" Chilling. Very SCP-939-esque.
You're probably aware, but the game SCP: Secret Laboratory very recently overhauled its 939. Not only is it a blind monster that can now only see sounds as red pulses, it has the ability to steal the voice samples of anyone it kills. Which, will usually be a good amount of people. Even better, one of its abilities allows it to lie in wait before insta-killing a careless player. Not only spooky, but it allows for some really nice voice samples
When I make a horror game I'm definitely implementing something similar maybe having it that before hand every player has to record several lines of dialogue so when they die in the game the player playing the monster has a huge variety of dialogue making it so they could splice lines together to form certain sentences in order to manipulate and trick unsuspecting players that would be intense especially if you're unsure if your teammates are dead or not.
For those that don’t know, the music box at the end is from Phasmophobia! The song is called Adrift and plays when you use the music box item, something that can force the ghost to appear and walk towards the source of the music.
2:05 it even pans to the right also your animations are so charming i can't help but smile even when you're talking about the most terrifying crap i've ever heard in my entire life
7:35 OK but imagine you guys are all making a plan or something and then the monster sneaks up on your ass and joins in on the conversation basically right next to you all and no one realizes until he’s basically in the room with you guys, shit would go from 0-1000 in the matter of a fucking instant and it would be scary and hilarious as fuck
7:15 I mean, it DOES work pretty well as a horror element, especially with friends. If you know someone is out to get you, and you suddenly hear them getting louder and closer (even, say, shouting something like "I SEE YOU" / "COME OVER HERE"), they'll be pretty terrified most of the time. They know where you are, and are actively approaching you and choose to state this information to you loud and clear. They're confident enough they can take you down, and probably will if you mess up.
I’d love to see this concept combined with something like same-actor voice lines like in Deep Rock Galactic, especially how there’s an enemy called the Nemesis who lures Dwarves in by using their voicelines to make them think they’re a player who found something. If this was combined with a horror game (since DRG isn’t all that scary, unless you’re on Hazard 4 or higher I guess-) where your team has to split up to solve objectives and there’s a monster who can trick you with player voicelines, that would make a truly terrifying experience as players have to consider if the voice they’re hearing is from an ally, or a shapeshifter that wants to tear them apart. True horror lies in uncertainty.
7:05 Listen I'm just saying, when I play SCP-939 in Secret Lab, I get the absolute loudest most panicked screaming from other players whenever I start yelling "HEWWO??? IS ANYWONE DER?"
The In Silence section reminds me of the way that SCP-939 is handled in SCP: Secret Lab, another game with proximity chat. Playing as 939 makes everything black and white, but you can see players who make too much noise through walls. Further, while you walk your footsteps are entirely silent, and you're one of only two SCPs that can actually speak to the human players. While that game isn't as deep of a horror game as these are, I've definitely been scared because of a crafty 939 before, and the fact that it depends on the sound you make and is a little faster than you are makes hiding and running from it extremely tense.
A good example of the recorded clips feature is definitely SCP: Secret Laboratory, as you can choose what clips to use and organize them, it is great. My most memorable experience was when I flashbanged SCP 939 and said "THINK FAST CHUCKLENUTS", and then got absolutely slaughtered. About 5 minutes later I was spectating the monster and looking at my phone, when suddenly I got jumpscared by my own voice going "THINK FAST CHUCKLENUTS" as it burst through a door and destroyed everyone inside a room. Amazing.
This is mostly unrelated, but I just wanted to mention it- I've been playing Rain World recently, an unforgiving game with a big emphasis on atmosphere and immersion. It's probably a huge treasure trove of interesting sound design, so if there's any chance you'd cover it in the future, I would love that! Great video as always, Scruffy!
It’d be neat if you could use echolocation as the monster in “In Silence”…it would probably have to have a cooldown to prevent it from being too helpful, but the sound of the monster clicking or screeching would be audible to the human players and give them an idea of YOUR location as well. It’d definitely be more immersive than hearing the player’s voice through the monster.
As soon as I saw this vid, I knew you were gonna talk about Phasmophobia! I’ve been playing that game with friends recently, and the use of in-game voice chat is one of the many things about it I love. Distance between players affecting volume, the global chat being a walkie-talkie, and especially the fact that dead players can’t communicate with the living, increasing the tension as their voice cuts out and things get quieter! Never heard of In Silence, but it seems interesting, so maybe one day I’ll check it out. Great video as always!
I honestly don't know why youtubers do this, it's so fake and the jumpscares aren't even good, they're lame when the adrenaline wears off and it comes off as annoying
A game used the idea you mentioned. Scp Secret Lab made an update to one of it's Scp's, 939. It's a blind Scp that relies on audio to navigate and hunt players. Now when they kill a player, they gain the last four seconds of their audio that they can use to lure players out of hiding places.
When he was talking about the possibility of a hunter/monster in a multiplayer horror game, did anyone think of how the predator did that in the original predator movie? Seems like a cool idea
Best part about In Silence is sneaking up to the group and playing the part of another survivor with a crucial info. “Hey dude, we need you to use your key in this house. Come to me.”
2:26 that's pretty true but the game encourages you to go alone sometimes. Sometimes because of the type of ghost or because of the ghost communicator box.
Secret Laboratory does a great job with Proximity Voice-Chat, and SCP-939 actually can reuse the last words of the people he killed, in order to trick his teammates.
To a note on In Silence's monster being able to talk to the players: While, yeah, it is a way to have them get inside the other players heads, it can also be a moment of "Oh, S***!" for them as well Say there's a player known for being talkative and keeps being talkative despite being the monster for a round. If the monster approaches a small group of members on the team, it leads to this situation where the players are attempting to be quiet while hiding, but infighting and stepping on stuff like teddy bears and bear traps when they don't see them can lead to these tense situations where the monster can hear these cues and possibly kill one of the players (unless someone has a few too many flashbangs for the monster's liking)
The nice thing about Phasmophobia radio chat is that any audio during the hunt is replaced by static so unless there is a teammate in the other room screaming about getting chased while in normal chat
In recent times. Lethal Company has done the same thing with Proxy chat and it makes the game so much more immersive and enjoyable. It does more a less the same thing as Phasmophobia.
I really like your art style. It's really unique how instead of a basic white backround, you use a black backround while using white outlines for your characters and drawings.
my experience with phasmophobia is telling "give us a sign" in the main menu for half an hour, trying half a dozen work around the lack of speech recognition while cortana works like a charm, telling myself that i have better to do and that it was the devs that should have come with an assisted tool to find what is going wrong, uninstall and refund. great times.
The game Forewarned (a lot like Phasmophobia) does something similar with radios and proximity chat. I’ve had times where my allies all die away from me and I end up wandering the tomb desperately searching for my friends
... A game where you could actually "steal" other players voices as a monster (much like the iconic Predator) would be fascinating as a concept. Finishing off someone who was separated from the group, them unaware that any future cries for help are just lures. I'm not sure how it'd work, of course, in technicality - but it's something I've seen done in other spooky settings before. In one of my more favorite games, Deep Rock Galactic, a co-op mining/shooting mission-based game, a recently added robotic enemy actually mimics the in-game character voices, giving out "I'm downed!" or "Come over here!" pre-recorded voice lines the little dwarven miners give out, all in hopes to draw them close, grab them, and finish them off by crushing them in it's sharp, metal claws. It's pretty easy to circumvent, of course: your teammates leave behind little markers in both cases to show you what they're pointing at (or a red outline to show you where their wounded body is), and the robot experiences little audio glitches to clue you in that it's an obvious trap. But it still threw me in for a loop the first time it happened, and I'd love to see more games play with player communication in-game to mess you up and/or ramp up the spooky factors...!
Something I love about proximity voice chat is that you can spook your friends too, when the tension is high you can always go in for the scare and not only you get to hear the scream, you get to poke at them and ease the nerves for a bit, it's quite handy for games that require certain skill and they have thoughts clouded by fear, or something else entirely...
8:26 Very creative approach. What if a horror game that used proximity VC would award the monster with more *common* words (using AI to detect phrases such as yes or no, and other common terms of the game in question) In a sense the player who is controlling the monster has a free soundboard to toy with them… or to just meme around.
Friday the 13th The Game was one of my favorite horror games ever and it still is extremely scary and fun as hell. the voice proximity chat makes it so much more fun and immersive!!
You should make a video about how Vr makes literally any horror game terrifying, even in phasmaphobia with voice chat, you're so immersed you get the sense that your actually ghost hunting with your team and one mistake could mean your life.
A potential game concept--inspired by what Scruffy was discussing at the end of the video--would be to have two threats: a player controlling a monster, but pretending to be themselves, and a world threat that endangers anyone who uses proximity chat. The idea would be for the player-monster to be unable to speak, but instead having pre-recorded voice lures of other players to use. I think conceptually the game would have to encourage players to record their own voice authentically pre-gameplay by incentivizing the fact that the more convincing they sound, the better it will be if they're the monster.
Another thing to note about phas is that while ghost is hunting all radio attempts become static so if your team has split up in a big building and the ghost starts hunting you have no idea who its hunting or where its hunting.
I love how proximity chat can completely change horror games in whatever way the player wants. It can make games absolutely terrifying, by having you have to be completely silent, or can make them hilarious (if you want them to be) while playing with friends. Playing horror games but not being serious with them can be one of the most amusing things to do with friends.
about what you've said in 8:15, in SCP Secret Laboratory with the new implemented SCP 939 he is able of using its victims last sounds, and let me tell ya, is extremely effective!
I feel like proximity voice chat is one of the best recent additions to co-op video games. Ik it’s actually been around for a while, but it’s becoming much more common place to find in bigger titles. It opens up so much room for terrifying concepts and it’s extremely immersive.
I can't get over these videos, really. After watching them plenty of times already, every single time they pop up in my suggested videos, i have to watch them. They're just so well done, they explain things so well while also making you feel like it's the first time you see the video, it's like watching them just fills me with ideas, I would love to use them someway! Thanks Scruffy, you make wondeful videos!
Dude I gotta say your videogame quirk/soundtrack analyses are so very interesting. I love them so much, the detail that developers go to to make a dynamic game is often unnoticed, and you do an amazing job showing them off. Thanks, and please don't stop anytime soon!
SCP Secret Laboratory also has a great example of Proximity Voice chat. All humans have proximity voice chat, and certain factions of humans have walkie-talkies which they can use to communicate with each other but those have limited battery. There's also a broadcast room which can be used by any humans to briefly talk to everyone in the facility with a long recharge. On the other hand, the monsters have a voice chat that only they can hear, but isn't limited by proximity. And one kind of monster can speak like a person, which is useful because the roles are randomized at the beginning of each round so you don't know who's a monster, or even if the monster that can speak like a person is even in the round.
Being a fan of both games, thank you for making this video. Proximity chat is half of the horror for these games. When a hunt begins and your heart drops knowing your alone, thats horror
Here's something you could've added to the video that also would've been cool to see. There's a mod for Among Us called the "Crew-Link" mod, which adds proximity chat to Among Us. It's interesting as while it prevents the absence of information for the crewmates, it also allows the imposters to lie, deceive, and get alibies better in between meetings. Of course, during a meeting, everyone is in normal voice chat as you'd expect. There are two things however that the mod can do which is a great idea. First, the Communications sabotage disables Voice chat entirely for the living, preventing crewmates from communicating. Additionally, there is a toggleable setting that allows Imposters to hear dead players. This allows for ghosts to muddy and polish the information an Imposter has. Dead crewmates can distract the imposter or tell them false information, and dead Imposters can help their teammates with information like "Will is alone in Decontamination, go kill him there", or "Alex is heading over to Security, don't kill just yet."
One of my favorite things is when I'm outside and can hear my friend's muffled screaming from behind the door. It's both hilarious and fills me with dread.
In SCP:secret lab, there is an scp which can communicate with the human team and can use that to trick them into doing things it normally can't like open doors
clicked on the vid imagining it'd be a well made joke using clips of people screaming at the top of their lungs on a gmod horror map before sprinting down a hallway at mach speed in absolute terror, turns out it was a really, REALLY well made documentary on a surprisingly underused game mechanic. this is cool as hell
Proximity chat in horror games and just team games has almost always given me stress or comedy... but there was this one time, where it amplified my fear almost 10 fold. You know that thing in movies where you're hearing gunfire and radio chatter when fighting a monster, and it slowly or suddenly stops and the main characters are just sitting in silence after everyone else was killed? Imagine having that happen live in a video game by sheer chance. A whole military and security team of 17 people going through a bunker complex, we all hear screaming, gunfire starts erupting, you hear it from every hall, radio calls calling for reinforcement or directional call outs of the monster, abruptly, men on the radio start screaming, one less gun is heard, the radio goes dead, the last group says "He is heading for the gate", gunfire... my team is at the gate, "Go, hide, now! Get out of his way" Me and the last 2 guys are scrambling to find places to hide, see the last remainder of the other team shooting to the right in a doorway, I take a turn into a closet shutting the door, my 2 squad mates scattering. 3 guns, screaming, 2 guns, screaming, calls over the radio, nothing. All in less than 2 minutes, 15 players were killed, I found one of my squad mates still alive due to having hid in another closet, but all the others were dead. That was all players, even the monster, and I was terrified.
Another decent example would be how SCP: Secret Lab uses its proximity chat. It’s fairly standard all around, doesn’t even filter it through walls, but there are two noteworthy things about it: hiding and radios. If you are hiding from an SCP player somewhere, you are essentially forbidden from talking, as proximity chat has to be the most deterministic source of information for the SCPs that would otherwise perhaps not bother checking your spot or camping outside your door had they not known you’re there. And then there are the radios that allow you to speak over distance within the facility. Not only these take up valuable inventory space and have a limited charge, but if you’re holding one, you have no idea who else is holding any unless they speak back to you. Throughout the round you’d generally expect all the MTF members to have it as they spawn in, but as the round goes on uncertainty grows. The radios get dropped, picked up or listened to. Because if a player dies with a radio on, it remains on while on the ground, so anyone around can listen to it, giving the SCP team potential information this way. Or you could be unknowingly talking to a player on the opposite team without realizing and walking right into a trap. And then of course there’s SCP-939, whose main mechanic is using sounds to find human players. On top of that, it indeed does get a snippet of every victim’s voice after kills and can cut and play these voice lines whenever to communicate with humans or to lure them out of a safe area, for example.
My friends and I use Phas mainly to goof off, and in that regard it can be hilarious, but it has never lost that spookiness. I'm amazed at how fast it can turn from comedy to horror as soon as a hunt starts, tbh
8:00 it’s funny you mention this. I believe SCP Secret Laboratory is planning to do this with their 939 rework where you can play voices of dead people. Not really the same genre (the game itself) per say but I thought it was worth mentioning.
One of my favorite proximity chat games is SCP: Secret Laboratory. It might stretch the definition of horror a bit, but it can certainly BE scary when you're playing as a Security Guard and slowly making your way through Heavy Containment, trying to find Light and knowing that the SCPs are somewhere nearby going in the exact same direction.
My favorite instance of proximity voice chat horror games is easily SCP Secret Laboratory. Sure it may a little light on the horror aspect, but the voice chat is what makes the game fun in the first place. For a quick rundown of the game, there’s 3 types of roles. Escape roles, military roles, and SCPs (the monsters.) There are 2 different roles of each human class on opposing teams. Escape classes have to avoid the scps and opposing military class to reach the escape, while the military classes are tasked with killing the scps and eachother. The scps are simply tasked to kill everyone. Unlike the other games in this video, there’s no way for spectators to interact with living players, but they do respawn as one of the 2 military roles every so often. Now, back to the voice chat, there’s a short range you can hear people around you, but there’s still other ways to communicate. For example, much like phasmophobia, there’s radios that you communicate over. Also like phasmophobia, your voice is filtered to sound much more like talking over a real radio. However, the radios have drawbacks. You can only carry a few items, so you may have to chose between a radio or an extra medkit. Further, radios have range and battery. Setting your radio to a further range will increase the battery usage, so there’s still incentive to stay relatively together. Only one of two teams span with radios, however, there’s nothing stopping the other team from picking up a radio. There’s even an intercom that with a fairly lengthy cooldown, you can briefly project your voice to the whole game, with added filtering to sound as if you were actually talking over an intercom. scps have their own isolated global voice chat to talk to each other with, mainly for coordinating. The scps cannot talk to humans, with 2 exceptions. One scp can open, close and lock doors, making it very much a supporting role. However, in some locations there are speakers they can talk over. Your voice is heavily filtered while talking through them, but they can be a great tool to trick the human roles, or even get them to kill each other, leaving less work for the scp team. The other scp capable of talking to humans is designed with deception in mind. The scps footsteps sound _almost_ exactly like human footsteps, and they have the ability to use voice chat like any human can. This is heavily used to get people to open doors you can’t by pretending to be just a human without a keycard, or just to taunt people they chase. If it wasn’t for the voice chat, the game would quickly become boring and stale, but with it, the experience becomes something you can easily sink hundreds of hours into, despite the core gameplay being quite repetitive.
your idea about being able to use your friends sound clips in "In Silence" would be CRAZY cool. i doubt it could effectively use an AI to get really good clips with words, but maybe laughter or yelling.
Nothing can compare to the terror of goofing around with some friends in Lethal Company, only to suddenly find yourself entirely alone because you either went into the wrong direction for a few seconds or, the much worse alternative, something got to the others while you weren't looking.
There’s another multiplayer survival horror game with proximity voice chat, and it’s called SCP: Secret Laboratory (it’s free on steam). The premise of that game is there’s a large and complex facility that has monsters imprisoned and are under study, but one day the facility malfunctions and all these monsters are let out of their cells. People can play as scientists and guards working at the facility, people can play as death row inmates that act as lab rats, and people can play as one of the many monsters. Each monster has their special abilities, and one of them is called SCP-939 (each monster has an SCP designation with a number). 939 works similar to the rake from In Silence, where it can only see based on movement and sound. The cool thing about it is that the developers have implemented what you thought of. As of writing this is currently in a Patreon beta for the game, but after 939 kills someone, they can take the last 5-ish seconds of their speech and replay it whenever they want. This way if 939 kills someone while they’re calling for help, 939 can use that voiceline later on to get someone to let them out of a locked room or lure away a group of guards one by one. It’s actually really cool! The funny thing is that the human players can use this to their advantage, and right before they die, they can say something like “don’t trust this voice! 939 is mimicing it!” before they get killed by 939 to make sure no one else falls for its tricks. That is, as long as you’re able to think critically while being chased by 939, which is a horrific skinless monster with a contorted human face with a large jaw that has jagged teeth (not to mention that the game places a jumpscare sound and scary music as you’re being chased by any of the monsters). Some other, less notable ways that this game uses proximity voice chat is it also has radios like In Silence, and when a radio is on the floor you’re able to hear people talking through it, which is kinda neat. Lastly there’s an intercom room in the facility, which can be used by a human player to broadcast their voice to everyone in that server. Usually it’s just someone blasting really loud meme music via soundboard, but apparently it also has a special mechanic with 939 where the intercom can overload 939’s senses and make them hard to navigate the area. Thank you for taking the time to read this comment!
Just the horror of hearing your friend whisper “hey i found something come here” and turning the corner to see them laying dead on the ground with a massive monster turning to you and playing the same “hey i found something come here” and sprinting at you
Strong "Hey, who turned out the lights" energy lmao. I love it.
that kinda reminds me of nothing there from lobotomy corporation
If only 939 in the new Mimicry update was actually this terrifying. The game is just goofy fun in general.
@@SheepUndefined *spacesuit shuffling intensifies*
I’m now just imagining your friend going “hey I found something come here” and the something being their body
Just a small note, Phasmophobia also uses absence of action, but not nearly to the degree of In Silence. Talking while a ghost is hunting will let the ghost know where you are
Exactly.
Also when the ghost is near you, you can ONLY use the proximity voice chat as your walkie talkie gets disabled.
tbf, this is noted in the video!
May I re-direct you to 3:54
He literally mentioned this in the video.
Scruffy has such a naturally soothing voice that he could talk about the most horrifying games and id never be scared
Yeah I love his voice it’s so good! His audio quality is always amazing, his mic is a big reason why his voice sounds so good.
On the contrary - his calming voice when hes talking about the sound design of FNAF is unsettling
Fr bro
@@jacobchavez9315 true
agreed!!!!!!
surprised you didnt mention that when a hunt/significant event is ongoing in phasmophobia, the radios are useless. not only because talking leads the ghost to you but because when the button is held down all thats sent to other players is static.
they can still talk to you over the radio if they are in a safe position, but in your final moments you can only shout information, as using the radio would just be stagic, and hope they can hear it through walls if you know you are about to die.
i havent played phasmophobia before but that sounds downright terrifying
If I recall correctly awhile ago they changed that, where as during a hunt it the radios used to be completely useless, last time I played they were still usable during the hunt *unless* the ghost was close to you, which might have been why it wasn't mentioned in the video.
@@Leon3789 correct but 90% of the time the ghost is close enough to you that it is static, and you dont really want to talk anyways cause that'll alert it to you
May I re-direct you to 3:54?
@@Psyko_Monk3y this doesnt mention radios during the hunt
That voice clip idea was insidious. I love it. Before the game starts each player could pre-record themselves saying specific messages, and then only be able to use those to communicate in game, obviously seriously limiting the effectiveness of the voice chat, but by allowing the monster to fully use all of the players recorded clips, they become indistinguishable from the player they took over
What's interesting is something similar is already done in Team Fortress 2, where while disguised all of your voice commands appear to the enemy team as if the person you're disguised as said it. Of course, because tf2 has global voice chat, an observant player could quickly shout "spy as me" over the microphone as soon as they notice it, but when they don't it can be quite fun to use the "Help!", "Medic!" and even "Sentry ahead!" voice commands while disguised to trick them into walking right past you to deal with some other threat (that doesn't actually exist) or trick them into healing you. In fact, the "Medic!" voice command's bubble above your head loosely indicating what percentage of health your at matches your disguise, so if you disguise as a low-health player it becomes even more convincing.
I feel like maybe the game could just record whenever somebody’s mic activates and they say a certain set of keywords like “Hey” “Hello?” “Is anybody here?” etc. Phas has some speech recognition like that in it, I’m sure another spooky game could do that and then yoink those clips for the monster to use.
I LOVE this idea. But how would you balance the experience of people who take the game seriously with people who put every single one of thier voice clips with the word **BALLS** at high volume? Of course the sheer comedic value of that probably would give the game a big enough boost anyway.
W-w- wha- w-what's th- wha- ther-there's no secrets over here?
Then what's the point of it being a "voice" chat?
Lethal company now is an S tier application of the sound design
Lethal Company out here taking the cake with proximity voice chat
I absolutely love Scruffy’s “Hello!” at the beginning. It’s just so friendly! And, as always, fantastic vid!
And he always does it in the same pitch/tone/whatever, but it's probably always the same clip so
except in this video
agreed
Yay :3
Reminds me of Stampy lol.
Just Found him cuz of the Algorithmen now im happy
Another thing that makes Proxy voice so terrifying, even in single player horror games, is that in normal horror games, you can scream in terror with no consequence. The monster cannot hear you. With Proxy chat on, even in a single player horror game, the monster can hear you, and you have to force yourself to stay quiet when you might otherwise scream. Every sound you make makes you paranoid that the monster just heard you and will be able to find you
Some single player horror games *do* utilize your mic so you actually need to stay quiet in certain points.
I can't name the examples off the top of my head but they're certainly out there.
@@speeder3235 Alien Isolation does, if I recall correctly
@@Esmeraldmel Only the console edition, PC version doesn't.
@@Esmeraldmel and fears to fathom
Phasmophobia with VR, being able to move things around in real-time while a ghost, gives _a lot_ more capability to communicate to teammates
yeah lol i was talking by pointing with a mug at different letters on the keyboard
@@bobert3230 Might be better to use something thin like a knife for that, but I know that's not always an option
I usually go for spelling out letters in midair since it can be done just about anywhere
Unfortunately 90% of the VR players in phasmophobia are completely useless and die immediately
I'm always delighted to see Scruffy's avatar on-screen, it's so lovely to see it interact with whatever world to better showcase what he's talking about.
I think it's adorable, love his simple little avatar dude and it's fluid animation
@@ari638 That and he just has a really nice design, tying to the whole music thing he does. I really want to draw this little guy and put him in things, but for that last bit I should probably ask for permission first.
Eh, it’s alright. I’m not a big fan of it but the design is clever and either way his videos are amazing!
4:53 i like how his glasses went from [ ] to { } when he became a ghost lol
The VC in Phasmophobia honestly adds a lot of fear, I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone get trapped in a room or in the building as they're leaving and it turns into them frantically screaming through the walls, sometimes it can end up comical, but even more it can end up super scary. There's this particular group that played it not that long ago where they were leaving and one of the members got stuck in the house, screaming their head off as another frantically tried to shout instructions on where to hide through the wall, but as they ran from the ghost, it got fainter, and fainter... Until, outside, the screaming stopped. And when they went back inside, they found them dead at the bottom of the stairs, and it was terrifying.
Coming back to this video this makes me think about lethal company in a much deeper way than I initially did. Speaking of, lethal company is very fun.
Omg I love how you process the sound at 3:57 so much. Having the scary strings swell up but then distorting it so it sounds like it has a low-bitrate/compressed sounds so cool and creative, as if the player character got reduced to ghostly remains of themselves.
Great video as always
thats actually what happens when you die in the game!
Got pixelated
I think a really nice medium between these two games is Forewarn, its essentially a phasmophobia clone but with mummies instead of ghosts. If a player gets killed by a trap, mummy, or spirit while searching a tomb, they have the choice of spectating or becoming a mummy to hunt the surviving players! The fun thing about coming back as a mummy is that the in-game mic will pitch shift your voice to make you seem more menacing. I’ve seen a couple streamers get jumpscared by their fallen teammates while playing, its a fun way to still implement proximity chat while not taking the player out of the experience!
For anyone searching, the title of that game is actually “Forewarned”.
I remember when neocranium played that game iirc, and pretty much started pole dancing right in front of his ex-teammates while calling himself a "bad mummy"
That bit never fails to make me laugh
Always a joy when Scruffy uploads. So fun to learn about sound design in video games and horror especially and when it comes from Scruffy it’s even better
that voice clip idea is something another asymmetric coop survival horror (SCP Secret Laboratory) is going to implement soon as part of the voice mimicking doggy SCP's rework. people can opt out, but if they opt in, the SCP gets the last few seconds of the victims proximity chat to use as an ability, able to throw it out as a lure, or to scare players away from a certain route or room, in order to ambush the humans better. Cool concept.
Here after the 939 revamp, and the feature is still cool.
@@Titanic-wo6bqThe problem is that since 90% of the SL fanbase are shitposters then they'll say some shit like "I LIKE MEN!" before they die, not saying that's a downside, hell its an upside to be roaming around playing "I LIKE MEN" over and over
at least it's really funny.
The most soothing voice to make a video about horror games
I only got into Phasmo recently and it's seriously so fun. Another thing that make that game's proximity so fun is what happens when the ghost is near you while hunting. In real life it's rumored that ghosts take electric energy from items around them in order to be powerful, so when the ghost is hunting near you your items will be interfered with. Your flashlight will blink in and out, your emf reader will go off the fritz, and your wallow talkie will turn to static. Anyone in the range of the ghost can neither hear teammates output nor can their teammates hear there's. But, the other teammates can communicate over the walkie talkie as long as they're far enough away from the ghost. To me this adds another layer of fear, the fact you can hear a teammate setting off static and know they're either being chased down or killed is horrifying, especially when you consider all other teammates are in safety.
This reminds me of SCP secret lab. Namely, the dogs (SCP-939). The dogs cannot see you unless they touch you, hear your running, or use voice chat. Due to the lack of other ways of communicating however, this is an excellent way for the player to get in their own head. Mostly forcing them to adapt. Another interesting thing is that the dogs can talk to players as well, which is mostly used either for memes, or tricking a player into believing they are a human on the other side of a door.
In Silence seems really cool, and yeah I definitely think there's a lot of potential with the monster being able to distract, confuse, or scare the players with voices
Honestly sounds like some Predator shit
(God, I wish someone someone would make something like that… Probably too ambitious for a lot of game devs but just thinking about it makes it seem like the coolest thing ever)
Me and my friend played spongebob music as the monster when we were chasing each other
I once watched an In Silence stream where one of the players made horrifying, wailing noises while playing the Rake. So from the perspective of the other players, when they were trying to be as quiet as possible, they would hear those wails in the distance constantly. It was a pretty effective atmosphere!
But most players don’t (or can’t) do that so Scruffy’s idea is really nice
@@NatLaS would you mind linking that if you can find it? I’d love to see it
@@The4j1123 It’s in French with no subtitles and I linked you the edited stream recap with everyone’s POV (effect a bit ruined by the fact that 2 of the players kept laughing) the part I’m talking about is from 2:55 to 8:40 basically, the monster player is imitating Clickers from TLOU
ruclips.net/video/Y5S01d02-qg/видео.html
I adore proximity voice chat! Me and my friends use a mod for it in minecraft, running past someone while their building and singing, or sneaking up on someone to scare them is a lot of fun.
2:48 I didn't even notice the lipsync for a second that's really cool
There’s something hilarious about knowing your trapped in a small restricting space with an unknowable aberration
and suddenly hearing your friend scream like a goblin because they angered the monster😂
When someone has a soundboard in phas its just horrendously more scary to hear a vine boom from upstairs
Edit: Thats alotta likes holy fauci, gracias
LOLOL
I can just imagine a creeper sound playing
I'd start running
Thanks you gave me a great idea
STOP 💀
Towards the end where Scruffy talks about the voice clips being awarded to the monster, SCP:SL (free to play multiplayer game where you can play as the SCPs) is giving one of the SCPs who can actually talk the ability to use voice clips of other players in the current game to trick other players!
another great thing the prox chat does in phasmophobia is create tense moments where you hear the sounds of your friends screaming. Because not only is it a distant scream, meaning a person is in danger, its a voice thats familiar to you; a friend you care about being killed somewhere you can't see.
its also fun when you hear someone panic over the radio before it abrubtly cuts off and leaves nothing but static. First time I played it I was yelling my friend's name over the radio, asking if they were ok, and eventually had to come to the realisation that I was now alone
7:47 That's actually an amazing idea. I hope someone over at Ravenhood Games sees this video so it may have the possibility of being implemented in the future. The fear factor would go way up if it was. Imagine this scenario: You and your group of friends are being chased by The Rake and one of your friend's splits off from the group as a distraction. They yell out: "Over here!" The Rake takes the bait and runs towards your friend out of view. The rest of you get away and after a few minutes, you all hear off in the distance: "Over here!" Chilling. Very SCP-939-esque.
You're probably aware, but the game SCP: Secret Laboratory very recently overhauled its 939. Not only is it a blind monster that can now only see sounds as red pulses, it has the ability to steal the voice samples of anyone it kills. Which, will usually be a good amount of people. Even better, one of its abilities allows it to lie in wait before insta-killing a careless player. Not only spooky, but it allows for some really nice voice samples
When I make a horror game I'm definitely implementing something similar maybe having it that before hand every player has to record several lines of dialogue so when they die in the game the player playing the monster has a huge variety of dialogue making it so they could splice lines together to form certain sentences in order to manipulate and trick unsuspecting players that would be intense especially if you're unsure if your teammates are dead or not.
For those that don’t know, the music box at the end is from Phasmophobia! The song is called Adrift and plays when you use the music box item, something that can force the ghost to appear and walk towards the source of the music.
I was just about to give up looking if someone had asked, because I KNEW it sounded familiar, when I saw this. Thank you so much!
@@robovelcro No problem!! Glad I could help!!
This came out fantastic! And I love the mention of the basketball event :) Definitely one of my favorite parts of our session!
2:05 it even pans to the right
also your animations are so charming i can't help but smile even when you're talking about the most terrifying crap i've ever heard in my entire life
7:20 You know, I can make a pretty good evil laughter. So... If I ever buy this game and assemble 5 more people to play it...
7:35 OK but imagine you guys are all making a plan or something and then the monster sneaks up on your ass and joins in on the conversation basically right next to you all and no one realizes until he’s basically in the room with you guys, shit would go from 0-1000 in the matter of a fucking instant and it would be scary and hilarious as fuck
Scruffy's the only person I could trust to make a horror-themed video that I could actually watch. haha
7:15 I mean, it DOES work pretty well as a horror element, especially with friends. If you know someone is out to get you, and you suddenly hear them getting louder and closer (even, say, shouting something like "I SEE YOU" / "COME OVER HERE"), they'll be pretty terrified most of the time.
They know where you are, and are actively approaching you and choose to state this information to you loud and clear. They're confident enough they can take you down, and probably will if you mess up.
I’d love to see this concept combined with something like same-actor voice lines like in Deep Rock Galactic, especially how there’s an enemy called the Nemesis who lures Dwarves in by using their voicelines to make them think they’re a player who found something. If this was combined with a horror game (since DRG isn’t all that scary, unless you’re on Hazard 4 or higher I guess-) where your team has to split up to solve objectives and there’s a monster who can trick you with player voicelines, that would make a truly terrifying experience as players have to consider if the voice they’re hearing is from an ally, or a shapeshifter that wants to tear them apart. True horror lies in uncertainty.
7:05
Listen I'm just saying, when I play SCP-939 in Secret Lab, I get the absolute loudest most panicked screaming from other players whenever I start yelling "HEWWO??? IS ANYWONE DER?"
The In Silence section reminds me of the way that SCP-939 is handled in SCP: Secret Lab, another game with proximity chat.
Playing as 939 makes everything black and white, but you can see players who make too much noise through walls. Further, while you walk your footsteps are entirely silent, and you're one of only two SCPs that can actually speak to the human players.
While that game isn't as deep of a horror game as these are, I've definitely been scared because of a crafty 939 before, and the fact that it depends on the sound you make and is a little faster than you are makes hiding and running from it extremely tense.
I thought it was same speed as a running player unless wearing heavy armour?
@@toasthead as SCP 939, you can both walk AND run, running makes noise though
939 taught me to never open 914 unless there’s multiple voices on the other side.
A good example of the recorded clips feature is definitely SCP: Secret Laboratory, as you can choose what clips to use and organize them, it is great. My most memorable experience was when I flashbanged SCP 939 and said "THINK FAST CHUCKLENUTS", and then got absolutely slaughtered. About 5 minutes later I was spectating the monster and looking at my phone, when suddenly I got jumpscared by my own voice going "THINK FAST CHUCKLENUTS" as it burst through a door and destroyed everyone inside a room. Amazing.
This is mostly unrelated, but I just wanted to mention it- I've been playing Rain World recently, an unforgiving game with a big emphasis on atmosphere and immersion.
It's probably a huge treasure trove of interesting sound design, so if there's any chance you'd cover it in the future, I would love that!
Great video as always, Scruffy!
Another banger from Scruffy! These continue to always get better at conveying information in acreative way, always a treat!
It’d be neat if you could use echolocation as the monster in “In Silence”…it would probably have to have a cooldown to prevent it from being too helpful, but the sound of the monster clicking or screeching would be audible to the human players and give them an idea of YOUR location as well. It’d definitely be more immersive than hearing the player’s voice through the monster.
Something else you forgot was that during a hunt in Phasmo, your walkie talkie gets cut off completely until the hunt is over.
Not anymore, it's only when you're near the ghost now. It also tells the ghost where you are if it becomes glitchy
HI MIDRULE!!!!
hi midrule
@@snesmocha hihIH!IH1!!!
@@prodGhostly117 hi!HIh!Ih!!!
8:10 Scp:Secret Laboratory Is doing just that in a coming update. Quite Interesting, that you predicted that.
As soon as I saw this vid, I knew you were gonna talk about Phasmophobia! I’ve been playing that game with friends recently, and the use of in-game voice chat is one of the many things about it I love. Distance between players affecting volume, the global chat being a walkie-talkie, and especially the fact that dead players can’t communicate with the living, increasing the tension as their voice cuts out and things get quieter! Never heard of In Silence, but it seems interesting, so maybe one day I’ll check it out. Great video as always!
Thank you for making horror videos that don’t contain jumpscares so we can enjoy your awesome videos! Scruffy is awesome.
I honestly don't know why youtubers do this, it's so fake and the jumpscares aren't even good, they're lame when the adrenaline wears off and it comes off as annoying
A game used the idea you mentioned. Scp Secret Lab made an update to one of it's Scp's, 939.
It's a blind Scp that relies on audio to navigate and hunt players. Now when they kill a player, they gain the last four seconds of their audio that they can use to lure players out of hiding places.
When he was talking about the possibility of a hunter/monster in a multiplayer horror game, did anyone think of how the predator did that in the original predator movie? Seems like a cool idea
Best part about In Silence is sneaking up to the group and playing the part of another survivor with a crucial info. “Hey dude, we need you to use your key in this house. Come to me.”
2:26 that's pretty true but the game encourages you to go alone sometimes. Sometimes because of the type of ghost or because of the ghost communicator box.
Secret Laboratory does a great job with Proximity Voice-Chat, and SCP-939 actually can reuse the last words of the people he killed, in order to trick his teammates.
5:33 he looks so happy
7:58 this is SUCH A GOOD FUCKING CONCEPT, wow. i want this so badly now
I might just be high, but the high quality of your audio mixing is noticeable IMMEDIATELY when watching a video, love it every time.
To a note on In Silence's monster being able to talk to the players:
While, yeah, it is a way to have them get inside the other players heads, it can also be a moment of "Oh, S***!" for them as well
Say there's a player known for being talkative and keeps being talkative despite being the monster for a round. If the monster approaches a small group of members on the team, it leads to this situation where the players are attempting to be quiet while hiding, but infighting and stepping on stuff like teddy bears and bear traps when they don't see them can lead to these tense situations where the monster can hear these cues and possibly kill one of the players (unless someone has a few too many flashbangs for the monster's liking)
The nice thing about Phasmophobia radio chat is that any audio during the hunt is replaced by static so unless there is a teammate in the other room screaming about getting chased while in normal chat
In recent times. Lethal Company has done the same thing with Proxy chat and it makes the game so much more immersive and enjoyable. It does more a less the same thing as Phasmophobia.
I really like your art style. It's really unique how instead of a basic white backround, you use a black backround while using white outlines for your characters and drawings.
7:55 SCP: Secret Laboratory has actually done the exact thing with SCP-939
my experience with phasmophobia is telling "give us a sign" in the main menu for half an hour, trying half a dozen work around the lack of speech recognition while cortana works like a charm, telling myself that i have better to do and that it was the devs that should have come with an assisted tool to find what is going wrong, uninstall and refund. great times.
That's a great idea, and one I'm surprised they haven't implemented.
The game Forewarned (a lot like Phasmophobia) does something similar with radios and proximity chat. I’ve had times where my allies all die away from me and I end up wandering the tomb desperately searching for my friends
... A game where you could actually "steal" other players voices as a monster (much like the iconic Predator) would be fascinating as a concept. Finishing off someone who was separated from the group, them unaware that any future cries for help are just lures. I'm not sure how it'd work, of course, in technicality - but it's something I've seen done in other spooky settings before.
In one of my more favorite games, Deep Rock Galactic, a co-op mining/shooting mission-based game, a recently added robotic enemy actually mimics the in-game character voices, giving out "I'm downed!" or "Come over here!" pre-recorded voice lines the little dwarven miners give out, all in hopes to draw them close, grab them, and finish them off by crushing them in it's sharp, metal claws. It's pretty easy to circumvent, of course: your teammates leave behind little markers in both cases to show you what they're pointing at (or a red outline to show you where their wounded body is), and the robot experiences little audio glitches to clue you in that it's an obvious trap. But it still threw me in for a loop the first time it happened, and I'd love to see more games play with player communication in-game to mess you up and/or ramp up the spooky factors...!
If a supernatural being came to me but spoke with Scruffy's voice I would be soothed more than scared
Something I love about proximity voice chat is that you can spook your friends too, when the tension is high you can always go in for the scare and not only you get to hear the scream, you get to poke at them and ease the nerves for a bit, it's quite handy for games that require certain skill and they have thoughts clouded by fear, or something else entirely...
8:26
Very creative approach. What if a horror game that used proximity VC would award the monster with more *common* words (using AI to detect phrases such as yes or no, and other common terms of the game in question)
In a sense the player who is controlling the monster has a free soundboard to toy with them… or to just meme around.
Friday the 13th The Game was one of my favorite horror games ever and it still is extremely scary and fun as hell. the voice proximity chat makes it so much more fun and immersive!!
I used to play that a lot with my friend group on lockdown , underrated game
Better than DBD imo
You should make a video about how Vr makes literally any horror game terrifying, even in phasmaphobia with voice chat, you're so immersed you get the sense that your actually ghost hunting with your team and one mistake could mean your life.
A potential game concept--inspired by what Scruffy was discussing at the end of the video--would be to have two threats: a player controlling a monster, but pretending to be themselves, and a world threat that endangers anyone who uses proximity chat. The idea would be for the player-monster to be unable to speak, but instead having pre-recorded voice lures of other players to use. I think conceptually the game would have to encourage players to record their own voice authentically pre-gameplay by incentivizing the fact that the more convincing they sound, the better it will be if they're the monster.
Another thing to note about phas is that while ghost is hunting all radio attempts become static so if your team has split up in a big building and the ghost starts hunting you have no idea who its hunting or where its hunting.
I love how proximity chat can completely change horror games in whatever way the player wants. It can make games absolutely terrifying, by having you have to be completely silent, or can make them hilarious (if you want them to be) while playing with friends. Playing horror games but not being serious with them can be one of the most amusing things to do with friends.
about what you've said in 8:15, in SCP Secret Laboratory with the new implemented SCP 939 he is able of using its victims last sounds, and let me tell ya, is extremely effective!
I feel like proximity voice chat is one of the best recent additions to co-op video games. Ik it’s actually been around for a while, but it’s becoming much more common place to find in bigger titles. It opens up so much room for terrifying concepts and it’s extremely immersive.
I can't get over these videos, really.
After watching them plenty of times already, every single time they pop up in my suggested videos, i have to watch them.
They're just so well done, they explain things so well while also making you feel like it's the first time you see the video, it's like watching them just fills me with ideas, I would love to use them someway!
Thanks Scruffy, you make wondeful videos!
Dude I gotta say your videogame quirk/soundtrack analyses are so very interesting. I love them so much, the detail that developers go to to make a dynamic game is often unnoticed, and you do an amazing job showing them off. Thanks, and please don't stop anytime soon!
7:50 this is actually such an awesome idea and i hope someone tries this in the future
SCP Secret Laboratory also has a great example of Proximity Voice chat.
All humans have proximity voice chat, and certain factions of humans have walkie-talkies which they can use to communicate with each other but those have limited battery. There's also a broadcast room which can be used by any humans to briefly talk to everyone in the facility with a long recharge.
On the other hand, the monsters have a voice chat that only they can hear, but isn't limited by proximity. And one kind of monster can speak like a person, which is useful because the roles are randomized at the beginning of each round so you don't know who's a monster, or even if the monster that can speak like a person is even in the round.
7:58 SCP secret lab has done this with SCP 939, which is cool and neat :)
yea it is cool
Being a fan of both games, thank you for making this video. Proximity chat is half of the horror for these games. When a hunt begins and your heart drops knowing your alone, thats horror
Here's something you could've added to the video that also would've been cool to see.
There's a mod for Among Us called the "Crew-Link" mod, which adds proximity chat to Among Us. It's interesting as while it prevents the absence of information for the crewmates, it also allows the imposters to lie, deceive, and get alibies better in between meetings. Of course, during a meeting, everyone is in normal voice chat as you'd expect.
There are two things however that the mod can do which is a great idea. First, the Communications sabotage disables Voice chat entirely for the living, preventing crewmates from communicating.
Additionally, there is a toggleable setting that allows Imposters to hear dead players. This allows for ghosts to muddy and polish the information an Imposter has. Dead crewmates can distract the imposter or tell them false information, and dead Imposters can help their teammates with information like "Will is alone in Decontamination, go kill him there", or "Alex is heading over to Security, don't kill just yet."
One of my favorite things is when I'm outside and can hear my friend's muffled screaming from behind the door. It's both hilarious and fills me with dread.
In SCP:secret lab, there is an scp which can communicate with the human team and can use that to trick them into doing things it normally can't like open doors
clicked on the vid imagining it'd be a well made joke using clips of people screaming at the top of their lungs on a gmod horror map before sprinting down a hallway at mach speed in absolute terror, turns out it was a really, REALLY well made documentary on a surprisingly underused game mechanic. this is cool as hell
Great vid as usual. my favorite use of proxy in a horror game is SCP secret lab.
You're so effective in teaching people on the subtle but amazing mechanics of horror games. Thank you, and good work.
Best parts of Phas are when the ghost closes the doors and you're outside, just hearing the muffled screams of terror 😂😂😂
Proximity chat in horror games and just team games has almost always given me stress or comedy... but there was this one time, where it amplified my fear almost 10 fold. You know that thing in movies where you're hearing gunfire and radio chatter when fighting a monster, and it slowly or suddenly stops and the main characters are just sitting in silence after everyone else was killed? Imagine having that happen live in a video game by sheer chance. A whole military and security team of 17 people going through a bunker complex, we all hear screaming, gunfire starts erupting, you hear it from every hall, radio calls calling for reinforcement or directional call outs of the monster, abruptly, men on the radio start screaming, one less gun is heard, the radio goes dead, the last group says "He is heading for the gate", gunfire... my team is at the gate, "Go, hide, now! Get out of his way" Me and the last 2 guys are scrambling to find places to hide, see the last remainder of the other team shooting to the right in a doorway, I take a turn into a closet shutting the door, my 2 squad mates scattering. 3 guns, screaming, 2 guns, screaming, calls over the radio, nothing. All in less than 2 minutes, 15 players were killed, I found one of my squad mates still alive due to having hid in another closet, but all the others were dead. That was all players, even the monster, and I was terrified.
I just got an idea. A coop horror game in which the monster can record your voice and use it as a TTS, you need to spot the flaws in its system.
Another decent example would be how SCP: Secret Lab uses its proximity chat. It’s fairly standard all around, doesn’t even filter it through walls, but there are two noteworthy things about it: hiding and radios. If you are hiding from an SCP player somewhere, you are essentially forbidden from talking, as proximity chat has to be the most deterministic source of information for the SCPs that would otherwise perhaps not bother checking your spot or camping outside your door had they not known you’re there. And then there are the radios that allow you to speak over distance within the facility. Not only these take up valuable inventory space and have a limited charge, but if you’re holding one, you have no idea who else is holding any unless they speak back to you. Throughout the round you’d generally expect all the MTF members to have it as they spawn in, but as the round goes on uncertainty grows. The radios get dropped, picked up or listened to. Because if a player dies with a radio on, it remains on while on the ground, so anyone around can listen to it, giving the SCP team potential information this way. Or you could be unknowingly talking to a player on the opposite team without realizing and walking right into a trap. And then of course there’s SCP-939, whose main mechanic is using sounds to find human players. On top of that, it indeed does get a snippet of every victim’s voice after kills and can cut and play these voice lines whenever to communicate with humans or to lure them out of a safe area, for example.
Your videos always have so much care and attention put into the sound and graphic design. You can really tell it's what you love and I love it too
My friends and I use Phas mainly to goof off, and in that regard it can be hilarious, but it has never lost that spookiness. I'm amazed at how fast it can turn from comedy to horror as soon as a hunt starts, tbh
8:00 it’s funny you mention this. I believe SCP Secret Laboratory is planning to do this with their 939 rework where you can play voices of dead people. Not really the same genre (the game itself) per say but I thought it was worth mentioning.
One of my favorite proximity chat games is SCP: Secret Laboratory. It might stretch the definition of horror a bit, but it can certainly BE scary when you're playing as a Security Guard and slowly making your way through Heavy Containment, trying to find Light and knowing that the SCPs are somewhere nearby going in the exact same direction.
And then you start noticing a lot less people talking on the radio than before.
My favorite instance of proximity voice chat horror games is easily SCP Secret Laboratory. Sure it may a little light on the horror aspect, but the voice chat is what makes the game fun in the first place. For a quick rundown of the game, there’s 3 types of roles. Escape roles, military roles, and SCPs (the monsters.) There are 2 different roles of each human class on opposing teams. Escape classes have to avoid the scps and opposing military class to reach the escape, while the military classes are tasked with killing the scps and eachother. The scps are simply tasked to kill everyone. Unlike the other games in this video, there’s no way for spectators to interact with living players, but they do respawn as one of the 2 military roles every so often. Now, back to the voice chat, there’s a short range you can hear people around you, but there’s still other ways to communicate. For example, much like phasmophobia, there’s radios that you communicate over. Also like phasmophobia, your voice is filtered to sound much more like talking over a real radio. However, the radios have drawbacks. You can only carry a few items, so you may have to chose between a radio or an extra medkit. Further, radios have range and battery. Setting your radio to a further range will increase the battery usage, so there’s still incentive to stay relatively together. Only one of two teams span with radios, however, there’s nothing stopping the other team from picking up a radio. There’s even an intercom that with a fairly lengthy cooldown, you can briefly project your voice to the whole game, with added filtering to sound as if you were actually talking over an intercom. scps have their own isolated global voice chat to talk to each other with, mainly for coordinating. The scps cannot talk to humans, with 2 exceptions. One scp can open, close and lock doors, making it very much a supporting role. However, in some locations there are speakers they can talk over. Your voice is heavily filtered while talking through them, but they can be a great tool to trick the human roles, or even get them to kill each other, leaving less work for the scp team. The other scp capable of talking to humans is designed with deception in mind. The scps footsteps sound _almost_ exactly like human footsteps, and they have the ability to use voice chat like any human can. This is heavily used to get people to open doors you can’t by pretending to be just a human without a keycard, or just to taunt people they chase. If it wasn’t for the voice chat, the game would quickly become boring and stale, but with it, the experience becomes something you can easily sink hundreds of hours into, despite the core gameplay being quite repetitive.
your idea about being able to use your friends sound clips in "In Silence" would be CRAZY cool. i doubt it could effectively use an AI to get really good clips with words, but maybe laughter or yelling.
I love how you don't use game footage. and that you have a very distinct art style.
It pairs well with your amazing voice keep it up.
Nothing can compare to the terror of goofing around with some friends in Lethal Company, only to suddenly find yourself entirely alone because you either went into the wrong direction for a few seconds or, the much worse alternative, something got to the others while you weren't looking.
It’s always a happy day when scruffy uploads! Even when the subject matter is scary, his videos are soothing to the soul, and the art is beautiful
There’s another multiplayer survival horror game with proximity voice chat, and it’s called SCP: Secret Laboratory (it’s free on steam). The premise of that game is there’s a large and complex facility that has monsters imprisoned and are under study, but one day the facility malfunctions and all these monsters are let out of their cells. People can play as scientists and guards working at the facility, people can play as death row inmates that act as lab rats, and people can play as one of the many monsters. Each monster has their special abilities, and one of them is called SCP-939 (each monster has an SCP designation with a number). 939 works similar to the rake from In Silence, where it can only see based on movement and sound. The cool thing about it is that the developers have implemented what you thought of. As of writing this is currently in a Patreon beta for the game, but after 939 kills someone, they can take the last 5-ish seconds of their speech and replay it whenever they want. This way if 939 kills someone while they’re calling for help, 939 can use that voiceline later on to get someone to let them out of a locked room or lure away a group of guards one by one. It’s actually really cool! The funny thing is that the human players can use this to their advantage, and right before they die, they can say something like “don’t trust this voice! 939 is mimicing it!” before they get killed by 939 to make sure no one else falls for its tricks. That is, as long as you’re able to think critically while being chased by 939, which is a horrific skinless monster with a contorted human face with a large jaw that has jagged teeth (not to mention that the game places a jumpscare sound and scary music as you’re being chased by any of the monsters). Some other, less notable ways that this game uses proximity voice chat is it also has radios like In Silence, and when a radio is on the floor you’re able to hear people talking through it, which is kinda neat. Lastly there’s an intercom room in the facility, which can be used by a human player to broadcast their voice to everyone in that server. Usually it’s just someone blasting really loud meme music via soundboard, but apparently it also has a special mechanic with 939 where the intercom can overload 939’s senses and make them hard to navigate the area. Thank you for taking the time to read this comment!
3:00 the receiver doesn’t also need a walk-in talkie?