Horror Town Brainstorming

[2kimi2furious]

So, I love spook towns. Spooky things in general, really, but I've always waned to do a horror-themed New Leaf town. I recently deleted my old town of about 3 years for a number of reasons and I'm using it as an excuse to follow my dreams! The only thing is... I don't want to copy all the cliches and unique twists from existing horror towns. I'm afraid my "taking inspiration" will go too far and fall into the "copying" territory.

So I made this post to crowdsource. What is too cliche about existing horror towns? What is something you've never seen in some of these towns, but wish you could? What are your favorite horror tropes in general? What really freaks you out?

I'm not trying to copy down every little thing you guys write. I want my town to be unique and from my own imagination, but I can get wrapped up in my own favorite things about scary towns/horror in general. I want to be able to create something that will appeal to a wider audience, not just me.

Thanks in advance!

 

[chesty]

Ive never seen an undead or a bloody villager. That would be very cool but creepy at the same time

 

[2kimi2furious]

Honestly... I personally don't care for overly bloody towns. Undead is interesting, though, but I'm sort of afraid to try to hack my town to make that work.

 

[chesty]

Not a bloody town, a bloody villager.
Anyway, i love monsters and zombies so that would be nice to see someday but i doubt it can be done in ac

 

[LadyDestani]

I prefer psychological horror vs blood and gore. So I like a nice creepy story that makes me think. I'm not freaked out by gore, I just find it boring if that's all there is.

I have only seen a few horror towns so nothing is really cliche for me yet. I have seen Aika Village and it was my favorite so far. I love creepy dolls and I liked watching how the main character gradually devolved.

 

[Stackhouse]

It's hard to be creative with limited items.

You always see the creepy set, and the like.

 

[dizzy bone]

I think the way to successfully make your horror town unique from others is having your own patterns/QR codes that tell a story. Everyone has access to the same items, but you can take your theme one step further with QR codes. I think you’ll have to decide on a story/theme first though. I personally love psychological horror where blood and gore isn’t exactly in your face, but maybe an obsession or something posses the town (a common theme used in ACNL horror towns I’m guessing is dolls)

Eg. An “uzumaki” themed town!!! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzumaki Donno if you read this story by Junji Ito, but basically spirals consume and curse the residents of the town. A once normal Japanese town turns into a shanty village that take on a shape of a huge spiral. That spiral imagery could make for some really awesome claustrophobic feeling interior designs. Like a room just filled with spirals?? Haha. You could easily replace this imagery with another type of obsession you come up with, especially if you can find items that go with or resemble that theme. If you don’t mind what residents move in, choose your villagers based on their interiors. Eg. All zen, all wooden, all a certain colour exteriors. Make them all wear the same T-shirt to make the village seem more cult like.

Maybe base it off a phobia? Going off the spiral idea, an easy pattern that I’m sure makes a lot of people uncomfortable.. dots/trypophobia. A good artist for reference you could use is Yayoi Kusama. (Actually a yayoi kusama themed town would be so fun). You could make tons of mazes and small spaces for a town that represents claustrophobia.

 

[JadeMau]

Like LadyDestani said, psychological horror is my jam. It's so much more frightening and of course can include the usual visual elements if that is what is scary to you. Unfortunately, everything is limited as has been said here, but a subtle atmosphere, an eeriness, an unknown, that is what causes trepidation. I would build it up, hide things behind other things, and direct your audience, so that maybe you have to turn the camera a certain way and get startled by something revealed. Especially the climax of a story. Maybe you could even change your horror town like a running series? This would be more difficult, though, and require maybe an archive, so that if anybody missed something (but that may take away from/make it more difficult with my previous suggestion). I hope this helps, sorry I have a tendency to ramble.

By the by, I just wanted to say off topic: Dipp is one of my favorite cousins in the Katamari universe.

 

[Aeikurin]

Yeah, a Japanese let's player I follow was visiting some horror dream towns, and man I saw so many creative concepts. There was one town where the entire place was infested by this bug (they placed patterns all over with a trail of a bug-like shape) In the end, I think one of the characters killed off two others, with the last just left wondering where the 'bug' came from. There was another town that had a really creepy stalker girl who liked this guy but he got married to another girl and she killed them both. Needless to say, after watching a couple of those, I felt more inspired to make my town a bit more creepy. xD

[SPOILER ALERT]
Not related, but a town I distinctly remember visiting a long while ago but LOVING is this one called RainCity, it's not blood or gore or anything but very much tragedy. There's two characters, one who's trapped in a marriage she doesn't want and another who's forced to sing. The old dream address is 4400-3006-3749, but I dunno if it's been updated since I haven't visited that town since the update. If anyone knows, please feel free to post

 

[2kimi2furious]

Oooh, y’all gave me some great ideas! I’m also glad so many of y’all like psycholigical horror towns. Gore and in your face stuff seem more silly to me. The Junji Ito suggestion is really great. I own all of his manga and I don’t know why I didn’t think to incorporate some of that stuff before. No spirals tho (that’s too easy).

Also sorry for the typos. I’m on my phone and the mobile site is really small and my old people eyes can’t catch thinns.