Afraid of Monsters/Nightmare Fuel

One of the scariest game mods that has been made for Half Life requires a own page to fully elaborate on the fear within. The mods title lives up to its name, you see, and the main article is becoming full of it.

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• The mods first Nightmare is one of the most frightening moments. In David's nightmare, he is told to Follow the Red. Without ability to do anything else, he does. One part of the nightmare is darker somehow, and the player might notice it seems to be a tunnel. But he has to go through it. And then half-way through it happens: The lights turn on, revealing him to be in a room with caged monsters in the walls, screaming when they see him. Then they calm down and don´t do anything but constantly blink, starring at David until he leaves the tunnel to continue following the red dots on the black road. To more scares.
• The first time you encounter a zombie is definely another big shocker. When exploring the hospital after the nightmare, David encounters a 2-legged monster which he kills easily. The monster happened to be in a closet with a button, that David has to push to progress. So when the player goes in, A zombie comes from the door behind and attacks David. You do not even have time to react - you are looking at the button when you suddenly hear a high-pitched gibberish and start taking hits from behind. The zombies are fast so if you were unprepared when it came, you probably lost half your health on that single enemy!
• The blackout. You have to turn off the generators that yields electricity to the hospital from the basement. When it is done, it becomes pitch black everywhere. There are many more zombies running in the hospital now, and the only things to help you against them is a knife, a pistol, some ammo and a puny flashlight. Save scimm for your life.
  • You might receive damage as you fumble in the dark, and you might need health. You are not worried about that, as you remember, there are more painkillers in the bathroom where you started the game. So you get there, and as soon as you open the door there is another zombie standing and waiting. You´d think the area where you started the game would be free of enemies, but it isn´t.
• Markland forest manages to become even worse, because it introduces one certain enemy that you have been lucky to avoid all this time: Invisible zombies. You hear their uncanny screams but cannot find see them, and you don´t realise they are invisible until you take hits. You can see them however with the flashlight; When you aim at one of them, the light becomes a glowing orb around the zombies feet. That is how you know it is running after you too.
• As hilarious it might sound, the first time one can actually get scared, is before you start playing Director´s Cut; The menu has a dark picture of a Twitcher in the background, with loomy music playing (which is Stone In Focus by Aphex Twin). But even then you might notice that the music is in low volume, so you crank it up and decides to start play. But then then you scroll over New Game and - BZZ BZZ ZZZ
  • The Half-Life engine has two sound systems. One is for noises caused by the game, and the other for music playing while the game is on. It just so happens that Ao M DC has the noise filter much higher, and the music filter lower on default. You have to change this in the options to set it right; something not required with other Half-Life modifications...
• When you're fighting the final boss, yourself, stabbing him for the first time makes him pull an axe out of his body, bleeding, even. To wit - the fire axe is the best melee weapon in the game. Crap.
• Mona Lisa's new look. Worse than it sounds.
• On the Sven Coop server, whenever the admin (IceBlueDeer) decides to show up as the original protagonist, David Leatherhoff. So far, he's appeared out of nowhere to kill a random player in full view of everyone, burst open out of previously unopenable doors (or some fucking CAGES) to kill someone, fuck with the players by using macros to open their CD drives and other scary tricks...
  • • Here's a few examples. "Turn off your flashlight.".
    • Did we mention He has access to some weapons other players do not? Armoredscout1 was recording a playthrough on the server, and around a corner in the subway came David carrying a machine gun
  • Even more so when Cocyx decides to block the exit that leads to the end of the campaign with big fucking fans. This troper managed to escape, only to have his game closed (along with a message box telling him he couldn't escape) as soon as he made it out. Fucking macros.
  • Needless to say, they did more to the mod than just porting it to Sven Co-op.
  • If you for a odd reason would decide to play the game in a Sven Co-op Server alone, you would realise that it has a extra creepy addition: The enemies have audible footsteps now. A fast zombie running at you is one thing, but when everything you hear in the dark is a thundering thumping marching your way that is anything but a player? It gets worse by the fact that Sven Co-op is supposed to be played with others, so the monsters have much more health. Truly one of the most terrifying things you can experience is being alone in this case, and it's the easiest way to die. And that's if the server admin isn't bored and doesn't kill you.
• Most of the screams and mumbles heard in the mod, are from different sources on the internet. Sources such as Liquid Generation Screamers. If you are enough of a schmuck, this mod might actually continue to haunt you after you stopped playing it.
• The wheelchair bound enemies are surprisingly disturbing. In contrast to the other enemies in the mod they are slow, an it is quite easy to be thrown off by that. But they still pack a punch, and they mostly appear as jumpscares.
• The floating heads that can shoot their own eyes at you and teleport. Oh, did I mention that they love showing up in cramped spaces, such as office cubicles and bedrooms?
• Afraid of Monsters can best be described as "Silent Hill meets Half-Life". Despite being on an outdated engine, it's the scariest thing I've ever played, and was apparently programmed in the language of sheer terror. The forest level is probably the worst, but some of the endings might top it. One includes finding out that the monsters you were killing throughout the game were actually innocent people that only looked like monsters due to your psychosis and the massive amount of drugs you've been taking. Player Punch indeed.