a lot of people are talking about the bomb, so here’s a quick summary. horror is all about the fear of the unknown. with the bomb on the table and the red lights filling up, you know exactly what’s going to happen - once the bar fills, you explode. there’s no suspense, no jump, no waiting… it just happens. clarity-wise, the bomb is perfect - you understand it’s a time limit, it no longer punishes greedy clicks, and it encourages you to keep playing instead of ending early. gameplay-wise it’s clear, but horror-wise it kills tension.
compare that to running out of health: when you’re at 1HP and flip a JERRY card, you know you’ve lost, but you’re unsure what happens next. that uncertainty drives real fear. it’s similar to running out of power in Five Nights At Freddy’s for the first time. Let's compare and contrast.
in FNAF, you have a limited power supply each night, and if it runs out, the lights and doors stop working. you know you’re in trouble, but the game doesn’t immediately show you what happens. you wait for 10, 15 seconds in the dark... footsteps surrounding you, until suddenly Freddy appears in the hall, and begins to play a small tune for a while, his face, while somewhat visible, is still concealed with the darkness. and then... he stops, and the room is completely dark. more footsteps approach, until the iconic jump-scare. the entire time, you’re left holding your breath, asking “what’s going to happen next?” that unpredictability is what makes it so scary the first time round.
this game, instead, just pulls out a gun let's you realize what's happening, drops all tension, answers the the tension before it gets to use it, and shoots you a second later - predictable, no suspense. the bomb mechanic suffers the same problem: it makes everything clear, so there’s no “what’s going to happen next?” moment, which is the heart of horror.
alright, but what about the horror of Buckshot Roulette? that game doesn't draw things out. and, if this game made very game over 30 seconds long, it'd get more monotonous. let's compare with Buckshot Roulette, shall we?
in Buckshot Roulette, you take turns taking shots at the Dealer or yourself, trying to kill the dealer using live rounds before he kills you. Blanks deal no damage, and shooting the dealer with a Blank ends your turn, while shooting yourself with a Blank keeps it. This game is similiar to Buckshot, in that you take risks and gamble with the chance of taking damage, but the playout of taking damage from a JERRY, and shooting yourself with a Live in Buckshot Roulette is different.
In this, you flip a card in your last health, only for it to be a JERRY. your player looks up at the person in front of you, and they pull out a gun, waits a second, then shoots you. It's too long for any point to be shocking, so going forward, taking any risk doesn't have much tension in it. In Buckshot, however, when you shoot yourself... you hold the gun up to you, aim, and then... blam! Gun shot in your ears, screen fades to black for a second, then you're revived. It has immediately tension, and a considerable jump, meaning there's more tension when you shoot yourself with the chance of a live. The tension is spent before it tells you what the result will be, where this game does the opposite, expending the tension before the payoff.
TLDR: add more suspense to lose conditions. either by drawing it out and keeping the player guessing, or by spending the earned tension at the peak. The bomb and gun diminish the tension by answering any questions the player has before it's spent.