A theoretical analysis of the horror genre in video games. It includes 14 essays that explore the cultural underpinnings of horror's allure for gamers and the evolution of 'survival' themes. It individually examines the techniques and story effects of specific games such as Resident Evil, Call of Cthulhu, and Silent Hill.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     
Foreword: A Little Light in the Darkness
CLIVE BARKER     
Introduction: Gaming After Dark
BERNARD PERRON     

APPROACHING THE GENRE
Match Made in Hell: The Inevitable Success of the Horror Genre in Video Games
RICHARD ROUSE III     
Games of Fear: A Multi-Faceted Historical Account of the Horror Genre in Video Games
CARL THERRIEN     
Gothic Bloodlines in Survival Horror Gaming
LAURIE N. TAYLOR     
Storytelling in Survival Horror Video Games
EWAN KIRKLAND     
Shock, Horror: First-Person Gaming, Horror, and the Art of Ludic Manipulation
DAN PINCHBECK     
Haunting Backgrounds: Transnationality and Intermediality in Japanese Survival Horror Video Games
MARTIN PICARD     
The Survival Horror: The Extended Body Genre
BERNARD PERRON     

ENCOUNTERING THE GAMES
Plunged Alone into Darkness: Evolution in the Staging of Fear in the Alone in the Dark Series
GUILLAUME ROUX-GIRARD     
Patterns of Obscurity: Gothic Setting and Light in Resident Evil 4 and Silent Hill     
SIMON NIEDENTHAL     
Hair-Raising Entertainment: Emotions, Sound, and Structure in Silent Hill 2 and Fatal Frame
INGER EKMAN and PETRI LANKOSKI     
Complete Horror in Fatal Frame
MICHAEL NITSCHE     
Gaming’s Hauntology: Dead Media in Dead Rising, Siren and Michigan: Report from Hell
CHRISTIAN MCCREA     
The Rules of Horror: Procedural Adaptation in Clock Tower, Resident Evil, and Dead Rising
MATTHEW WEISE     
Reanimating H.P. Lovecraft: The Ludic Paradox of Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
TANYA KRZYWINSKA     

About the Contributors     
Index