Good horror games?

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Molesting the Decapitated said:
Is Doki Doki Literature Club any good or similar in any way? I keep seeing it in those "obscure horror game" youtube video shits but it mostly just looks like some weird anime girl game... how does the scary shit happen exactly?... Curious
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It's only scary if you go into it without realizing it's a horror game. The point of the game was to get people to believe it's a dating sim and then halfway threw sucker punch them with scary stuff that's very out of place. Since you already know it has the scary parts it's probably not going to be as good as if you were going in blind. Also calling doki doki a "obscure horror game" is kind of weird seeing how popular it was when it first came out.
 
yeah it's kind of a dumb design seeing that hardly anyone it going to be willing to play some random game without looking it up to see if it's any good.
 
BrunoMattei said:
He just slaps the games together on Unity which kind of offends me. He has this holier than thou stance that itchi.io is superior to all other store fronts (probably because there's no quality control and you can just dump crap on there). And I made a suggestion for one of his games that it would be cool if -when playing as the killer- you could drag bodies around and nail them to walls and shit to scare NPC's away just like in classic slashers. The guy freaked out that I made such an egregious suggestion and said that "I could do that if I had a team of 100 people and millions of dollars and then no games will ever get done!"

Dude, take it easy, it's just a suggestion.

I was done with this guy following that little encounter.
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Great, now when he kills himself it'll be our fault
 
Anon88 said:
Also calling doki doki a "obscure horror game" is kind of weird seeing how popular it was when it first came out.
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This seems to be a constant in any and all gaming discussion--things that are actually well-known are constantly mislabeled as "obscure." I even saw it happen here on KF in my topic about 16-bit consoles where people were legitimately acting like nobody had ever heard of Demon's Crest or Earthbound.
 
skykiii said:
This seems to be a constant in any and all gaming discussion--things that are actually well-known are constantly mislabeled as "obscure." I even saw it happen here on KF in my topic about 16-bit consoles where people were legitimately acting like nobody had ever heard of Demon's Crest or Earthbound.
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The obscure SNES game Earthbound. So unknown that the main character is in smash bros and that the original copy of the game is worth hundreds of dollars do to how many people want it. It's kind of sad if people really do think that way.
 
So apropos of nothing, I've decided to do a post of capsule reviews:

Amnesia: The Dark Descent
When I finally got to play this, I was let down. I think its a case where years of hype and people acting like it was the best thing ever meant it was doomed to be a let-down. I didn't find it all that scary (not even the infamous water monster section), and the storyline felt like... well basically it came off as.... "edgelord" isn't quite right, but like the writers were just throwing in as much dark material as they could in a desperate bid to make an impression.

Some of the mechanics are kinda cool though. Incidentally despite being available on consoles, this is probably a game I should've gotten on PC as having watched lets plays, I think a lot of the custom stories are probably better than the core game itself.

The basic plot is you're a guy with amnesia exploring a dark castle because a note you wrote to yourself says you've got to kill someone named Alexander. Spoiler: It turns out Alexander was helping you fight off a curse (you picked up a doohickey during an archeological dig) in return for you helping him kidnap and torture people in order to extract magical substance called Vitae from them. Alexander is actually from another world or something and he wants to get back. Depending on which ending you get, you can end up screwing Alexander over.

Justine
This is a smaller game that was packaged in with Amnesia the Dark Descent. One problem.... it sucks. its whole gimmick is there is no saving, if you die, its over. Considering you can get screwed, and there's a lot of places where its not clear what you're supposed to do, this can mean basically repeating the entire game just because of one little mistake. I finally gave up and just watched a playthru online.

The basic plot is you're some woman who was thrown in a dungeon with these men who have an irrational rage against someone named Justine, and you're trying to escape. The twist is you actually are Justine and apparently taking an amnesia potion and surviving the dungeon full of people who want you dead is just something you do for funzies.

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
This one often gets criticized for the fact that compared to Dark Descent, which had some actual gameplay elements, Machine for Pigs is more just a walking simulator (though there are some places where you can die).

I criticize it because not only is the narrative just wonk in all sorts of ways (seriously the layout of the beginning areas was so nonsensical that for a hot minute I thought the game was gonna turn out to be a dream) but the notes and such are overwritten to hell... and seem to have an obsession with talking about penises and virginal blood. What. The. Hell.

Incidentally this is where I began to pick up on a quirk of Amnesia's writing: whenever the games have a theme, they love to hammer it in to the point where you want them to just shut up. I don't recall if the first game did this, but Machine is constantly bringing up Pigs. "They will make pigs of you all!" etc. Like.... okay, we fucking get it.

So the basic story is you're a guy named Mandus who at some point in the past had built a machine, and now its been sabotaged, and apparently the person who sabotaged it also kidnapped your sons and you're basically trying to rescue them. Honestly if you don't see where this is going then you're probably a Redditor, but spoilers anyway: Turns out Mandus sabotaged the machine himself and apparently just forgot, and also his sons are dead... he killed them. Honestly Machine for Pigs makes no sense.... I think the Machine is alive or something and is trying to trick Mandus into un-breaking it so it can do its job and take over the world? Yeah honestly in a lot of ways A Machine for Pigs is just utter nonsense.

Amnesia Rebirth
FULL DISCLOSURE: I only watched a Lets Play of this one.

"Rebirth" is the worst fucking title you can give a sequel, because the name sounds like a remake or an updated port... not an all-new game (indeed this was why I watched that Lets Play, I thought I was just gonna see a remake of the original Dark Descent).

The thing is.... Amnesia Rebirth reminded me of another game.... that game being Metroid Other M. You know how I said Machine for Pigs kept bringing up the "Pig" theme? Well Rebirth's theme was babies. It. Would. Not. Shut. Up. THE BABY THE BABY THE BABY. Literally the player character is a pregnant woman and there's even a mechanic where you can calm yourself by checking your tummy.

I'm actually kind of shocked the Twitter crowd didn't rip this game apart. They finally make a woman the protagonist.... and the entire game revolves around babies and pregnancy. Which only gets worse once all the secrets are revealed. Seriously, this game is one step removed from that game reviewer Retsupurae made fun of who wished they'd make a game about Lara Croft having breast cancer.

Okay, so you play as a woman who is part of an archeological team (or something like that) but their plane crashes in the middle of the desert. When your character wakes up, she's shocked she's all alone in the plane, and also her pregnancy has advanced a few stages. Basically what's going on is there's this alien queen from another dimension who can't have babies of her own, so she wants your player character's baby, but your PC refused to give it to her, so the alien queen gave her amnesia and put her back on the plane, and apparently she planned to just keep doing this until your player character made the "right" decision. And yes, apparently even alien queens are obsessed with babies. Look, I know I'm on Kiiwi Farms, but I think even we can say this is a bit ridiculous.

Aaand that's my review of the Amnesia series. It's a series that has some fun mechanics, but really was kind of a one-hit wonder, and the first game was really only worthwhile because of custom stories.

I need to replay the Penumbra games, as I recall those actually being a lot better.
 
Some I've played recently that I enjoy:

Teocida & Tamashii

Two games in the same dark, satanic biomechanical universe.

Gameplay: both are fun puzzle platformers set in very well realized horror-themed universes. The puzzles are enjoyable and fun to get through, without really getting into being frustratingly difficult. There's a lot of hidden, secret content as well that is fun to try to find.
Tamashii
Graphics: The games are both really amazing looking. Both depict this HR Gigerish analog hellscape of impaled eyeballs, gnashing teeth, and deformed foetal skeletons. The unique style of the game alone would drive me to finish it, but the fact that it's also fun makes it even easier.

Story: Every piece of dialogue reads like it was written by a goth high schooler that reads Aleister Crowley and studies sanscrit and makes it their business to ensure everybody they interact with knows it. Every interaction is a cringe occultic word salad.
Teocida
Pozload: You can't play modern indie games (or AAA games at this point) without the developer vomiting their unwanted opinions on modern politics on you and, at least Teocida, is no different. And the only thing that keeps Vikintor, the developer, from having a page here is that nobody knows who he is. The Brazilian developer is an avowed Feminist (future sex pest) and absolutely, venomously hates "gamer culture". So much so that one of the secrets you can unlock in Teocida (and was also in his older game, Estigma) is a huge rant against gamers.

Overall: A fun game with so much style it completely overshadows its incredibly cringe dialogue and developer and is very much worth playing.


Who's Lila?

Imagine you are an autist that has a hard time expressing emotions. Yes, fellow farmers, I know that's going to be a real huuge stretch for most of you, but please try to follow along anyway.

Gameplay: William is just such a person and in Who's Lila? the screen is split into two sections: the game, which plays out like a point & click adventure game, and William's face which, due to his inability to express himself, you must manipulate for him when interacting with people so he doesn't look like a total weirdo.

You'll finish the game in probably 20-30 minutes, but the game has 15+ endings you'll want to explore to make progress toward figuring out what's happening in this world and the answer to the titular question.

Who's Lila| Finally, autist representation in gaming.

Graphics: A very interesting style that I've heard referred to as Ditherpunk, but I won't describe it that way because it's fucking gay and I'm tired of people slapping "-punk" at the end of words and calling it a day.
The dithered look makes it feel like you're playing it on a late 80s macintosh computer and the vague look it gives to everything just adds to the mysterious aesthetic.

Story: I found myself enthralled in the story and wanted to keep learning more about this world. I'm not incredibly familiar with the works of David Lynch, but I have it on good authority the game is very Lynchian. A lot of the game is secretive and I don't want to give away too much, but there's a lot of secrets going on here if you like that kind of thing.

Who's Lila| A nice, natural smile.


Pozload: there's an in-game analog to Pepe the Frog and how it was "hijacked by extremists" but that was about it.

Overall: A really unique and frequently unsettling experience that is worth playing through to get all the endings and really experience this world. A great minimalist soundtrack too. Strongly recommended.
 
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Reviving this thread to ask:

Has anyone here ever delved into mods for the Amnesia games? Particularly The Bunker?

Also just recently there was a game released called--I shit you not--"Slit-Mouthed Woman vs Ao Oni" (they spell it as Aooni, which I refuse to do).

I've already bought it, and will probably show it to friends later, because it sounds like the ultimate "so bad its glorious" experience.
 
Resurrecting the topic.

Amnesia the Bunker
A few posts up I reviewed the entire Amnesia series (as it existed at the time), and found them all to be kinda mid.

The Bunker is the best game in the series and probably one of the best horror games period.

The story isn't anything special, but it provides a great setup for a horror game: You're trapped alone with a beast in an underground bunker (and some mutant rats, but the beast is the bigger issue). The game is more or less open... well I can't say "open world," can I? It's more like Open Bunker. Or maybe Metroidvania-esque.

And just... more games ought to be like this. I paid full price for this one after hearing it had mod support, because I can just imagine the possibiliies.

The Amnesia series really had some trajectory. Starting out as "Penumbra but not as good," going mid, going stupid... then suddenly being awesome.
 
Scratches, an old adventure game made by a two-man dev team. The game is played from the first person, the various locations presented as 3D-renderd stills, with some animated elements.

The premise is that you are a writer that has gone to the seemingly vacant Blackwood house. While it does have some Moon logic, it's a generally fun experience. Civvie did a pretty good video on it, though I recommend you only watch it after having played the game.


Signalis is a great fusion of Resident Evil gameplay loop and Silent Hill storytelling. If you can ignore the rancid, deranged fanbase the game has managed to attract, what you will experience is a very well-designed survival horror title with a striking presentation and an intriguing story.

You play as Elster, an android seeking her ship pilot after waking up from statis and realizing they have crash-landed on a planet, yet from the get-go it is very obvious things are not as they seem and something terribly, terribly wrong has happened in the mining installation you're exploring.

Crow Country is barely a horror game, it's not particularly scary and not even that difficult, but it's successful in accomplishing what it sets out to do. Much like Signalis, it also features an "isometric" perspective, and much like Signalis, it copies the Resident Evil gameplay loop of exploration, puzzle solving, resource management and combat.

The artstyle is very reminiscent Ecstatica, or Final Fantasy 7, and the theme park locale is well utilized.

Heavenly Dust 2 is another "isometric" survival horror game, this one a very blatant ripoff of Resident Evil. Again, it's really not that scary, but it as well manages to nail the RE formula. The prequel is a less refined version of the second game and can easily be skipped, the plot in neither game is particularly good, and the translation has some obvious Engrish going on. Still, for a budget title made by a small team, it has a lot of charm.

Nightmare of Decay is a first-person homage to Resident Evil 1. The story is so minimal it might not even exist and boils down to your character going to bed and waking up in some spooky mansion full of zombies, with your sole goal being escape. What follow is a pretty good distillation of RE1 into a first-person shooter. As with the games above, it features the same addicting gameplay loop of exploring the place, solving puzzles, gathering items and fighting enemies.

There's quite a few immersive sims that lean into the horror aesthetic, ranging from System Shock 2, Prey, Bioshock 1 and 2, Gloomwood et al that I feel never really get mentioned when discussing horror games, despite being very similar to Resident Evil games in a lot of ways, especially in terms of exploration, resource management and combat.
 
So here's another series that had a trajectory:

The Dark Pictures Anthology

Okay, so at first I wasn't too interested.

The first game, Man of Medan, was infamous for being a buggy mess. Markiplier's Let's Play was the best because he highlighted just how jank it was.

I never did play or watch Little Hope. Someone earlier in this very thread spoiled the big twist and yeah, its one that would have pissed me the fuck off. I might watch a lets play because I've come to enjoy the Dark Pictures' "quirks" but... yeah.

Apparently by this point Supermassive had heard people joking that every game in the series was gonna turn out to be people having hallucinations and henceforth, they dropped that shit. Or maybe they always planned to.

House of Ashes though.... was genuinely pretty awesome. At this point I decided to buy the series on Steam and experience them first-hand (though I still did primarily experience this and the next game through lets plays) because wow, this series finally got gud.

Then imagine my shock when watching The Devil in Me and being like "Wait... there's actual gameplay? It's not just a choose your own adventure book with Dragon's Lair bits?"

Currently its a toss-up between those last two which one I consider the better installment. The Devil In Me gets points for having actual gameplay but I found its overall story weaker than House of Ashes.

Something that bugs me is Devil In Me is the one game so far that doesn't have a major twist. It's pretty much exactly what is advertised on the tin: a slasher movie. I went through the game having guesses about what the twist was gonna be and it just never happened, and it ends up having a lot of the same problems a lot of slasher movies do as a result: a killer who is basically superpowered and able to be everywhere at once despite being ostensibly just a normal guy, and that at several points the heroes should have been able to just overwhelm him and beat his ass.

I kept thinking it was gonna turn out there was more than one killer or that the entire island was actually the home of some weird government experiment. But it never happened. Quite honestly it probably would have been a better story if it did.

There is one recurring issue I've noticed though (and even Lets Players often had issues with this): sometimes during "make a decision, quick!" sequences its not entirely clear what the game is trying to communicate, so you're almost guaranteed to screw up. The LPers I watched specifically had this issue with some of the "aim a cursor over the right thing" segments--Krinx TV was driven to tears by one which caused her to kill a dog without meaning to, because she thought it was going to cut the dog free from its leash. Then again, these games are meant to be played multiple times so... live (or die) and learn.
 
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VR is basically the next generation for what horror can be if you ever get tired of playing through a monitor. Playing something like RE or even fear can get old as you get used to the various "tricks or techniques" present.

VR on the other hand makes everything scary as shit. Perspective and ability is changed so much that it makes things as routine as zombies scary again. Doom 3 was a particularly good investment of the software, especially going in blind. Some of the scariest shit I've ever experienced came from playing the first half of that game. Enough that I had to psyche myself up to play it again. Eventually you get used to it, but it takes a while and every game does feel different.

I would love to say I play a lot of VR horror games but I don't really have the balls to play much that doesn't give you a gun. Even some games that are not horror games can be scary by how enemy ai is coded to run at you and get in your face.
 
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