Scary Games

I love the Halloween season! Everything’s spooky. It just feels so on brand for me. Now, I don’t have as many games to share with you this year, but I do have a few I thought were unsettling in very different ways.

The first one is called Escape from the Haunted Room and… yeah, that’s what you’re supposed to do. There are a few puzzles, but I didn’t have any trouble figuring them out. Mostly it was just creepy. There are some jump scares, especially at the end, but the real scare is the atmosphere. It always feels like there’s something in the corner of your eye and then when you look, it’s gone.

Next is 33, which is very different, and someone even described it more as “interactive art” than a game, something I agree with. You’re in a room, and in order to get money to buy things, you have to kill others. In this case, the horror is in what you’re doing.

In that vein is also Presentable Liberty, where you play someone who is locked in a room during a plague and only receives occasional correspondence from a few people, including one who really, really doesn’t want to let you out. You can play some mini-games to pass the time between letters, which slowly reveal the plot to you. Again, it’s less of a game and more along the lines of a visual novel, but it’s very creepy. Especially when the opportunity to escape comes up… Now, this one actually costs money, but you can pay whatever you choose and it is worth kicking a few bucks to them.

So I guess that’s all for this year. Anything spooky come your way?

Games, Halloween Edition

Since it’s October, it’s time to share all the spooky things I’ve come across! I’ve found two really good game series and hey, both are horror based, so this is the perfect time to play.

The first is called Cube Escape by Rusty Lake. There are a total of nine games where you play a protagonist trying to, well, escape. The cube part comes from the fact that you’re generally confined to one or two rooms and you have to solve puzzles and put clues together in order to proceed. However small it sounds, it’s really bigger than you think. For example, in Seasons (arguably the best one) you’re only in one room, but through a sort of time-travel, you’re really exploring four different places.

For the most part, I’d say you’d be able to play through them with no problem, but I used a walkthrough to get through three of them (The Mill, Harvey’s Box, and Case 23) as they were a bit…dense, you could say, with the puzzles, occasionally even requiring passwords from previous games. But they are really fun, creepy, and hey, they’re free, so it’s not like it will cost you anything.

The second series I found is only two games, and it’s actually text based. In Playing With Letters and its sequel, A Sweet Typing Thrill, you have to figure out what word to type in in order to move on. The title of each “level” gives you a hint for a code you need to crack. Sometimes it’s an anagram, sometimes it’s a riddle, and in the second one, you have to use a lot of the Rotate 13 cipher (do yourself a favor and google it right away to make things easier). Both also have a secret ending you get by cracking a code from the song used (it’s mentioned right below the author’s name) and in the second, the title itsef. Well, if you need help with that, thankfully there are walkthroughs.

But be warned, the storyline is very dark, full of death and murder. Even if it’s only text, if that’s not you’re thing then you should give it a pass.

More Zombies

It’s been a while since I’ve done an apocalypse post. And although I said I’ve done enough with zombies…there’s just so much material to go on. So here’s the best free zombie games I’ve come across.

The Sagittarian 1, 2, 3, 4a, 4b

I really like the author’s (Hyptosis) other works, the fairy tale reimaginings Hood and Aliceis Dead, so I was glad to give his zombie games a try. They’re choose-your-own adventure-like in style, making it more like a story than a game. He also just came out with another story set in the zombie wasteland called Riverside. You’ll have fun trying to pick an option that won’t end with you dead : ).

i saw her standing there

The I isn’t capitalized on purpose. That’s how it’s written. Anyway, this is a platformer with stick figures, where a guy is in love with a girl, but she’s a zombie now, so he has to keep luring her into a cage. Hey, it’s not trying to be a healthy relationship. There’s also a sequel. With lasers.

Shadow Tag

Okay, these aren’t really zombies, but creepy children trying to kill you. And really, is there that much of a difference between children and zombies? No. No there isn’t. Anyway, the point in this game is to find everything you need to escape a creepy cabin (keys, gas, etc.) and not get nabbed by the children. And you better not let your flashlight run out of batteries.

Zombie Survival Quiz

No listing of free zombie games would be complete without a zombie survival quiz. It’s different from the last quiz I shared with you, with a lot more questions, and it gives you a Physical, Mental, Experience, and Emotional Rating. My physical was a B and my mental was a C, which I really think should be the other way around. My experience was a C (probably because I don’t know much about guns) and emotional was an F (oh, come on!!). You can also look at the answers when you’re done to see which ones are the best.

Halloween 2013

Only five days until Halloween! Yay! Can you tell I’ve been excited about it? So in keeping with this month’s tradition of sharing scary things on Saturday, here’s the most frightening things I’ve come across this year:

Scariest Video Game

The Last Door, chapters 1 and 2, a gothic horror game about a man trying to determine what happened to his boarding school friends. Has the bonus of also being a great story in its own right.

Scariest Horror Short

Proxy. Remember a couple of weeks ago when I told you about the Slender Man shows on YouTube? This is another one, but it’s just a short and only about ten minutes long. Totally creep-tastic.

Scariest Horror Short Story

Candle Cove, by Kris Straub. It’s about a bunch of people reminiscing about a bizarre show they used to watch. Trust me, it’s a good one.

Well, share: what are the scariest movies and stories you’ve come across?

Fearless

I am not actually without fear. I believe spiders will try to crawl into my mouth if I’m not careful because they are unholy creatures even Satan shuns. I’m also not a fan of public speaking unless, like here, I can craft my words via typing. But when it comes to movies, books and video games, I’m rarely frightened. This isn’t a shock since I literally grew up reading Stephen King (I was the only fifth grader who brought CHRISTINE to class to read) and was similarly indoctrinated to horror movies (I remember watching Alienwhen I couldn’t have been more than seven). So, in summation, it takes a lot for a book/movie/game to scare me.

There’s a reason I threw “game” in there. While roving through the internet one day when I should have been editing, I came across a story about “the Slender Man”. It’s an urban legend actually invented on the internet, about a tall, thin man in a black suit with no face, just white where eyes and a mouth should be. In all a good story. Nothing to write home about, but hey. It’s different from the usual ghosts and ghouls.

Except. There is a game called Slender, released free for download over the internet. I heard about it and decided to check it out on YouTube and…it was scary. Actually scary. Silent Hill was interesting, but didn’t make me blink and this, released as an indie game, actually frightened me enough that I didn’t want to download it, the crummy YouTube videos were enough for me. Not long after I stumbled across another game, Deep Sleep. It’s a Flixel game and so the graphics aren’t on par with Slender, but it’s still creepy as sh!t. It’s also a short point-and-click game, where you collect items to use to escape a typical scary setting. For such a quick game, it sure gave me chills.

What these games have in common is the lurking figure, the one that remains just out of sight and hunting you. Neither has a strong story or any characters except the first-person player, but those aren’t necessary. You are the character, something is after you, and you have to keep moving. A simple concept, but don’t go mistaking that for a criticism. If you want a good story, look elsewhere. If you want to be scared, go for either one of these games.

And leave the lights on.