THE MAKING OF CLOCK TOWER
Survival horror has been a mainstay of gaming for decades now; horror and hiding in cupboards go hand-in-hand it seems. However, some of the first seeds of the genre lay in the widely revered and hugely unsettling Japanese point-and-click adventure game, Clock Tower.
First released on the SNES in 1995, it sees you playing a 14-year-old orphan girl trapped in a mansion of unknowable terrors, as you desperately try to outpace an unrelenting golden-haired child wielding a gigantic pair of scissors. He can turn up anytime, and does so with reckless glee.
Lacking the fiery arsenal of weapons seen in the likes of Resident Evil, you have to escape using a mix of wits and point-and-click puzzle action (the sort where a slice of ham can mean life or death), plus, plenty of hiding until the horrors pass. While the dexterous mashing of buttons may grant short-lived escape, you’ll also find yourself panicked – meaning you’re likely to trip up as you run from your tiny, pointy pursuer.
Grim, tense and somewhat surreal, Clock Tower introduced a new type of horror to a generation of gamers, and was wildly popular on release. Since then, it has left its bloody, yet restrained, legacy on videogames – forming much of the blueprint of survival horror titles.
Whether through the myriad of sequels, or the modern games that cite its simmering tension as an inspiration, such as , where you creep around long corridors avoiding the, in which you are helpless and reduced to hiding in cupboards until the unknowable nasty passes, its impact on modern gaming is undeniable.
