Dress To Intimidate (DTI): Letting the Skeletons Out of the Cartridge

While most people seek comfort and joy, a handful find their bliss through the spine-chilling thrills of horror games, where shadows and suspense become their refuge. For them, true pleasure lies not in peace but in the heart-pounding terror lurking behind every corner.

This taste for fear is not simply a genre, but a cultural phenomenon. Spreading from the on-screen to console-controlled realms, the horror category has invited even the cautious to explore thrills once reserved for the bravest. Thriller games like “Until Dawn” and the “Resident Evil series” remain ever present to complete horror to-dos but hidden gems can revive the shrieks and scares our bodies had once experienced. 

These scary video games come in different packages: first-person shooters, role-playing stories, survival-horror series, sandbox games, and many more. Not just those produced from the West, but releases from Japan and the Philippines deserve recognition. Even if you do not want to take the helm of playing these bone-chilling games, horror “let’s play” can often captivate the attention of audiences.

Netflix’s occult anime, “Trese (2021)”, is not the only one that puts a Filipino folklore spin on the horror series. Raven Studios developed “Ligaw” which lets the player take the role of a delivery rider in Caloocan city as the rider is faced with startling noises and strange visions. Chapter 1 starts by breaking the normal progression of delivering packages to your clients as one recipient asks for their package to be dropped off inside their house.

“While the Philippines has many scary stories involving creatures like tikbalang and tiktik, we wanted to do something different,” John Rhys Pereyra, an artist from Raven Studios answered. 

“We didn't use those supernatural beings as bad guys. Instead, we created a psychological horror story based on real-life experiences. It's about things or feeling threatened when nothing is happening. This is something many delivery riders in the Philippines can relate to, especially during the pandemic,” he added. 

Raven Studios has also produced “St. Castro Plaza: Night Shift” and instead of a delivery rider, the player is now a mall guard. The security personnel is in charge of closing down the mall all the while mannequins attempt to catch the player. The combination of its limited lighting and eerie sounds generates a petrifying experience.

Spooking the audience was not the only point of Raven Studio’s games as it also attempted to narrate scary yet relatable situations through a fresh perspective.

Once you hear RPGMaker horror games, one would think about plays like Mad Father, Ib, Ao Oni, and even Omori; many more interesting cases lie hidden in the vast amount of options.

“Fausts Alptraum” gives the same feeling as Ib with sketch-like illustrations that tie the uncomfortable feeling when playing this puzzle-horror combination. It follows Elisabeth Faust who visits her dead father’s mansion and is immediately imprisoned after entering. The storyline is inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s play Faust with lines from the play appearing in the dialogue. 

A cult-classic RPGMaker game would be “Angels of Death,” with a solemn girl named Rachel “Ray” Gardner in need of counseling after witnessing a murder. Instead of being able to attend her therapy, she finds herself on the basement floor with no memories of anything but her identity. What is even more damning is how she is forced to partner up with Isaac “Zack” Foster, a serial killer, to fulfill her desire to be done away with by him.

Although not made through RPGMaker, “Fear & Hunger” is a Lovecraftian turn-based action jest that relies on the player to repeatedly play due to the inevitable in-game deaths. With gorey designs and an excruciatingly painful punishment system, Fear & Hunger presents different experiences per run, thus pushing the player to experiment with outcomes allowing the plot to not feel repetitive.

A critically acclaimed yet buried favorite would be “Darkwood.” As soon as you open the world, you are thrown into an unsettling forest with no other objective than to find a key that was stolen from you. Despite the simple mechanics of having to survive the night and scavenge in the day, the story pulls the player into the grotesque progression. This survival game also has multiple endings with one “true” ending.

Looking for Sci-Fi horror? From the makers of “Amnesia: The Dark Descent,” “SOMA” presents a desolate world that makes the player question what it means to be human. Being isolated in an underwater facility while consuming the last of your food stock can push any person into madness. The game manipulates a twisted image of an omnipresent AI that can control corrupted humans.

Taking on a third-person perspective, “Song of Horror” follows an editor searching for his writer, Sebastian P. Husher who has gone missing, along with his family. The spiel makes use of AI manipulation but in a way that makes it seem like a living being with its form. Tension is built up naturally without the need for scripted sequences – somewhat like how “Amnesia” plays out.

Horror’s dread is never dead

Horror games have a different kind of allure that captivates those who crave the adrenaline rush of facing the uncomfortable. Unlike other genres that provide triumph or even relaxation, horror games draw players into immersive worlds that challenge their survival instincts. These titles offer a unique sense of vulnerability that may be difficult to experience in daily life.

With the number of horror games produced over the years, many remain hidden and do not have the polished reputation of well-known titles yet continue to deliver unforgettable chills. This variety from alternative to mainstream horror offers many options for those seeking psychological terror or eeven simple jump scares.

This rising popularity of both film and game scares reflects a cultural shift, where the appeal of fear has grown into a shared experience – blurring the lines between pleasure and panic. This carves out a unique place in entertainment that correlates excitement to catharsis. 

Perhaps the blood and gore oddly could make one feel alive. Horror games have become both a trick and a treat for scare enthusiasts and being lesser known does not mean that it is any less enjoyable.