28 posts tagged with videogames and horror.
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Yer fond of me lobster, ain’t ye?
Dredge invents and perfects the fishing-horror genre [YouTube][Launch Trailer] “Dredge begins with a fisherman arriving at Greater Marrow, one island in an archipelago that interrupts a vast stretch of wine-dark sea, under peculiar circumstances. [...] Catching the fish requires a simple timing minigame, in which you have to hit a button at the exact right moment. But to keep the fish to later sell, you have to make space in your hull; each catch means rearranging the gridded cargo hold to optimize storage. [...] Through all this fishing, selling, and upgrading, you’ll find places to dock on other islands, one of which will set the fisherman off on a search for several artifacts that threaten to reveal more of the ocean’s secrets than, perhaps, he wants to see. It’s quickly understood that Dredge’s ocean has plenty of mysteries — many of which arise at night. It’s not only mackerel and coral grouper that swim in Dredge’s seas; something’s rotting the fish and turning them into grotesque monsters. Fish for long enough at night, and they’ll reveal themselves more easily, bursting forth from the sea to tear your ship to shreds. In these moments Dredge veers slightly into horror. But it’s a soft psychological horror —” [via: Polygon] [more inside]
‘What if FromSoftware made Pinocchio?’
The Lies of P [Announcement Trailer] [Gameplay Trailer] “Lies of P is a new “Souls-like” action RPG that blends the classic children’s story Pinocchio with the plague-filled horrors of Bloodborne. Developed by Round 8 Studios (Bless Unleashed) and published by Neowiz, the game is slated to come to Google Stadia, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X in 2023. Lies of P looks like a horrifying take on the toy-becomes-boy classic. The first part of the trailer shows a rat squirming out of what appears to be a dead man’s mouth. It’s a far cry from the cheery tale many people know from the animated Disney film.” [via: Polygon]
something vulnerable, something raw and sickening and terrifying
World of Horror
World of Horror is a procedurally generated roleplaying game set in a universe of cosmic horror, drawing inspiration from classic Japanese PC adventure games of the 80s and 90s. With a stark aesthetic, choose-your-own adventure storybook gameplay, and an ever-shifting narrative, it evokes both the dread of cosmic horror literature, and the graphical style of horror manga artist Junji Ito. The game has released recently in early access on most digital storefronts (Steam linked here), but has a demo available through itch.io. You can watch the trailer here, along with some reviews, thoughts, and playthroughs below the jump. Content warning: Flashing lights in some videos. Some animated scenes of gore and disturbing imagery in preview content. System availability: Win and MacOS for Steam currently, coming to Switch and PS4 later in 2020. [more inside]
Brutalism is magic.
'Control' Imagines 'The X-Files' as an Eerily Thrilling Action-Horror Game [Vice Gaming] “It opens on a young woman named Jesse Faden arriving at the New York headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Control. She’s searching for her long-lost brother Dylan, but beyond that we have no idea why she is there, or what this agency is that she thinks might know something about Dylan. You’re just there, in the empty lobby of an apparently empty brutalist office building. It turns out that Jesse has stumbled into The Oldest House, which is both headquarters to the Bureau of Control and a supernatural hellmouth that the bureau attempts to prevent from corrupting reality. It is, as one character puts it, the place where the apparitions and dreads of popular culture’s collective unconscious have been brought into being and imbued with arcane powers.” [Game Trailer] [more inside]
culled from deeply toxic material without anything interesting to say
I think we’re all set on Lovecraft games for a while [VG24/7] “And before I start, let me just say that I’m not talking about Lovecraft’s racism which, let’s be honest, is real bad. The dude was racist. He was like my mom in a foreign country racist. This isn’t an argument about whether or not Lovecraft was just “of his time.” Better people have had that argument and I’m not here to cancel Lovecraft. Rather, I want to talk about H.P. Lovecraft games. I think we’ve got enough for a while. But we have to be honest with ourselves: Cthulhu isn’t scary anymore. At this point, he’s a cartoon villain like Darth Vader or, I dunno, Ursula the Sea Witch. I don’t know why Ursula came up in my head, but let’s go with it. The point being that, as an audience we know Cthulhu is supposed to be scary, but because we’re so familiar with him as a concept, he’s not actually scary. Literally nobody is afraid when they see Cthulhu pop up on screen. The whole purpose of cosmic horror is to be confronted by something so vast and incomprehensible that our minds break. [...] And that shit just isn’t happening anymore when I hear the word “Necronomicon.” It’s just a brand now.” [more inside]
Yes, you can pet the dog in the Blair Witch video game.
Blair Witch [YouTube][Game Trailer] “Blair Witch, the video game, is terrifying. Developed by Bloober Team, the studio behind Layers of Fear, Blair Witch is a mosaic of modern tropes culled from the most nightmarish horror games of the past decade. It has a camcorder mechanic, a lot like Outlast; it uses a flashlight as a demon deterrent, à la Alan Wake; it uses puzzles to push the story forward, like Resident Evil; and, at least in one section, it places the player inside a maze-like house with cramped, shifting hallways, similar to PT. This is all wrapped up inside another familiar franchise, and sprinkled with Bloober Team's flair for frenetic psychological thrills. The end result is a comforting kind of horror game. It's familiar in some ways, and therefore inviting, but there's still a violent and mysterious monster lurking in the trees, behind the door, down the hall. And when it pounces, the panic is immediate.” [via: Engadget] [more inside]
Become a horrible eldritch ocean god. 🐙
Sea Salt [YouTube][Game Trailer] “I am a dark God; my tendrils writhe beneath the waves, and altars to my magnificence are spread across the land. I seek worship, but, more importantly, I need flesh. When the time comes for my devoted archbishop to sacrifice himself, he refuses and flees behind the paltry defense of the city walls. He has mistaken my call for a request, and now I must claim him — and anyone who stands in my path. I will feast. [ ...] It’s best summarized as Hotline Miami, except I’m an angry sea god instead of a nihilist in a mask. I also gather and manage minions in a way that’s a little like Pikmin, but for goths. I have to navigate through levels seen through a top-down camera, and use my 2D pixel-art armies to visit unfathomable violence on the enemies and obstacles in my way.” [via: Polygon]
Even the item menu has a dark backstory
Blasphemous: In for a penance, in for a pounding [Polygon] “The easy way out is to define what Blasphemous does by dropping in a series of game names you may already be familiar with, but which often sound like gibberish to the uninitiated. But it’s worth starting simply: Blasphemous is equal parts Soulsborne game mixed into a healthy helping of Metroidvania. [...] This is a game about pain, illustrated in striking detail, to skillfully communicate the shock value that’s inherent in the religious imagery it plays with. As The Penitent One, I have to take my silent protagonist throughout the far corners of a serpentine map and back. My side-scrolling, 2D quest through ravaged cities and defiled dungeons brings me closer to fulfilling my penance.” [YouTube][Launch Trailer][NSFW: GORE/VIOLENCE] [more inside]
Looking back at Taiwan's White Terror, 38 years of Martial Law, in games
Taiwan's White Terror (Wikipedia) was a period of martial law lasted for 38 years and 57 days from 19 May 1949 to 15 July 1987, following the February 28 Incident (Wikipedia), also known as the 228 Incident. Fear of discussing the White Terror and the February 28 Incident gradually decreased with the lifting of martial law in 1987, and Hou Hsiao-hsien's A City of Sadness (Harvard Chinese Film and Culture course handout; trailer and full film on YouTube) was the first movie dealing with the events, released in 1989. Still, this period of Taiwan's history is not broadly discussed. More recently, a mobile game is reopening a closed chapter in Taiwan’s history (Ars Technica, with a broader summary of the White Terror period). [more inside]
So, two Shoggoths walk into an opticians…
In Cultist Simulator, Death Is Only The Beginning [Kotaku] “The most fun thing to do in Cultist Simulator is die. Cultist Simulator is a new game about running a cult, interpreted as a virtual card-based board game. There are no instructions for what to do, really, so you begin picking up cards, putting them in different slots, and hoping for the best. Sooner or later, you’ll die—usually as a sacrifice. Then the game opens up. You play the game by putting cards in slots and then waiting for them to resolve.” [YouTube][Trailer] [more inside]
Clown Kink, Star Wars Fandom, and Kafkaesque Tumblr Hellscapes
“Either you’re ruining my childhood or everything’s problematic.” Nat (AshesforFoxes), Erin (Holocroning), and Shi (Ohtze) are Three Harpies podcasting about genre fiction. Metamashina is hours of intelligent discussion about the female gaze, women's voices in SF fandom, leftism versus neoliberalism, the importance of domestic labor narratives, and femmebots in film. [Twitter] [Tumblr] [more inside]
“Everything good about Dead Space comes from its underlying cohesion,”
Dead Space Is My Favorite Horror Game [Odyssey] “The moment I saw my first necromorph in Dead Space is when I I fell in love with the franchise. I first stumbled upon Dead Space when I was looking through my cheat code book glossary. My mom was going to be taking me to the movie store where they also rented out video games and I wanted something new to play. I had an Xbox 360 at the time and didn't have too many games so I was looking to expand. I saw the words "Dead Space" and was instantly hooked. I flipped the pages to that section and scanned over all the black and white pictures. I loved the look of it. So when my mom took me to the movie store, I bolted for their game section looking for this game. I was scanning the shelves until my eyes rested on the title "Dead Space." The cover made me want the game even more. It was a severed arm floating in space. The entire cover encapsulated the title perfectly. I knew I was going to love this game.” [more inside]
“...the mundane becomes terrifying.”
Doki Doki Literature Club is an uncontrollably horrific visual novel [Polygon] “ It’s a slow burn that begins with you and group of cute girls who must prove that their literature club is worth becoming an official school organization. Of course, your protagonist is hoping to forge new bonds with some of them along the way. The game encourages you to pick a girl to write a poem for, and depending on your choices, you may draw closer to the club’s charming, sweet members. Eventually, true to the game’s advertised content warnings (which you should take seriously, by the way), Doki Doki Literature Club leads you down a dark path, leading to the shocking and emotional death of one character. But in the same moment that it rips your heart open, the game instantly takes a much more unusual twist.” [more inside]
“Can the player open every door in the game?”
“The Door Problem” by Liz England [Theory & Design] “Game design is one of those nebulous terms to people outside the game industry that’s about as clear as the “astrophysicist” job title is to me. It’s also my job, so I find myself explaining what game design means to a lot of people from different backgrounds, some of whom don’t know anything about games. [...] One of the reasons I like this example is because it’s so mundane. There’s an impression that game design is flashy and cool and about crazy ideas and fun all the time. But when I start off with, “Let me tell you about doors…” it cuts straight to the everyday practical considerations.” [more inside]
“You were almost a Jill Sandwich.”
The Best Horror Games [PC Gamer] “So you're looking to spook yourself with the best horror games you can play on PC, are you? Whether you're into jump scares, interactive fiction, thematically interesting stories or just large men running after you with a chainsaw, we've included a wide variety of games that'll hopefully freak you the hell out. Like our lists of best strategy games or best FPS games, we tried to focus on a variety of horror experiences that still hold up well today, though we've expanded the remit slightly to include a few retro curios as well.” [more inside]
“Shooting them will only teach them to use a gun.”
Echo Is A Terrifying Game Where You Teach Enemies How To Kill You by Riley MacLeod [Kotaku] “The Palace is populated by beings En calls Echoes. They are copies of her who form from some black muck in the beginning of the game. As En moves through the Palace, picking up keys or orbs to unlock doors, the Echoes start learning. The Palace moves on a light-dark cycle; when it’s light, anything En does is recorded by the station. Vault over a low wall, for instance, and you’ll leave a brief, blurry ghost behind you that means the Palace has logged your actions. After you’ve performed a few actions, the Palace goes dark, and then reboots. On this round, the Echoes can do anything you did during the last light cycle until another reboot wipes the slate. Between the light and the reboot is a brief period of darkness.” [YouTube][Gameplay Trailer] [more inside]
“Her story is one of confusion, sadness, fear, and loss...”
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice [IGN] “It follows the titular Senua, a celtic warrior, who embarks on a mission to the homeland of the Northmen in order to penetrate the depths of their version of hell, the mythological Norse land of the dead called Helheim. It's bound by threads of historical fiction, historical non-fiction, mythology, and metaphor all admirably weaved together to create a unique backdrop that's ripe for exploring the darker tones and themes Hellblade tackles. But as impressive as its story is, Ninja Theory’s smart design reinforces the sensory nature of the harrowing tale through subtle and intuitive mechanics. Even before the game begins, you're prompted to play with headphones in order to capitalize on the binaural audio design (simulated three-dimensional sound). This is used to great effect as the voices that plague Senua are in a constant chatter, dancing around her head in creepy ways that feel as though you're never alone.” [YouTube] [Trailer] [more inside]
“Perhaps Resident Evil 7 will be a similarly dramatic reinvention,”
The Resident Evil Games Ranked From Worst to Best [PC Gamer] “As the series that popularized the survival horror genre, Resident Evil has attempted to sustain its hold on the elusive zombie shooting crown since its inception in 1996. Suffice it to say, Resident Evil hasn’t maintained a keen, constant rule over the genre, blasting further off into bizarre, convoluted lore dumps and Matrix-worthy action sequences as the series grew in scope and ambition. Through reinvention after reinvention, Resident Evil games may not always be great, but they’ve always been fascinating, curious objects. And it’s because of that wild experimentation that Resident Evil still has a firm grip on us, redefining the genre and forcing the entirety of game design to respond—hell, Dead Space was going to be System Shock 3 before Resident Evil 4 came out. Now we’re just around the corner from another series reinvention in Resident Evil 7 [YouTube] [Trailer], a more grounded first-person return to survival horror, borrowing ideas from games that may have formerly looked to Resident Evil for inspiration. We’ve come full circle.” [more inside]
1,000 Rooms of Cute Terror
You have been invited to visit a haunted mansion owned by a ghost named Spooky. Can you survive all 1,000 rooms of jump scares? Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion is a free (Steam and Indie DB) 2.5D FPS puzzle survival horror game. Despite its cute exterior, there's more to Spooky's house than meets the eye. [more inside]
"...Every room becomes a mouth."
(Content warning for pretty much the whole post: Body horror, bright flashes, and disturbing imagery abound.)
Kitty Horrorshow (Itch, Twitter) is an independent game developer making fascinating, horrifying things. Minimalist horror games that go bold directions and are deeply uncomfortable experiences. Her biggest game by far, though, is ANATOMY, a game in which you explore a dark house, seeking out cassette tapes and studying the "physiology of domestic architecture". [more inside]
YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS ARE DEAD
One of the most infamously bad NES licensed games ever released, Friday the 13th is known for its obtuseness and difficulty. Still, there's many who see an interesting design buried beneath Pack-In Software's incompetence, even inspiring an action figure based on its odd Jason Voorhees sprite, and it's for those people that YouTube filmmakers TripleZeroFilms created a 50-page, full-color, illustrated strategy guide (with its own trailer video!) for this unpolished gem in the extremely rough. [more inside]
Bloodborne's Horror Universe
From Software left fantasy for horror, and the results are mind-blowing. More detailed analysis and spoilers below the jump. WARNING! THIS POST CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE GAME BLOODBORNE. IF YOU HAVEN'T PLAYED THIS YET AND WOULD LIKE TO, IT SPOILS SOME COOL REVEALS LATER IN THE GAME! LIKE EVEN MOUSING OVER URLS COULD SPOIL STUFF - BE WARNED. [more inside]
"Thank God. Another human being."
You couldn’t control the camera, I mean. The Silent Hill video games were blunt and herky-jerky—you, backed into a corner, swinging a plywood board clumsily at two sets of mannequin hips bolted horrifically together, flailing at you. Clay-colored, faceless children grabbed at you in the dark as you tap-tap-jogged awkwardly in circles, desperate to regain some kind of control. The world fell silent for cutscenes, PlayStation glory-era wax-lipped women with empty eyes mouthing hollow dialogue at you from the mist and shadows.Why Silent Hill mattered.
It was all really bad and scary, and kind of broken, and everyone loved it, especially me.
"I wish Phil Spector were here..."
Zombies Vs Beatles (slyt)
D-don't you l-like my new look?
"That was one of the most memorable scenes for me. Namely because his expression made it look like he wasn’t terrified of the fact he was hanging, but what was watching him hang." System Shock 2, the highly influential sci-fi horror game, was released 10 years ago today. [more inside]
Hey little sister what have you done
bog leech
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