Corpse Party (2021)
Corpse Party (2021) has one of the best stories I’ve ever heard, full stop. For a 2D 16-bit horror pseudo-visual-novel, it doesn’t get any better than this. Not only that, it is superlatively intense and immerses consumes any player daring enough to take on the challenge. Corpse Party is the kind of game that one doesn’t play through so much as live through; this game weighs heavy on the soul. The halls of Heavenly Host seem to exact as much toll on the player as on the characters themselves! The game has an uncanny knack for getting into the player’s head, too - this game is eerily good at cultivating within the player the sense of fear and dread that pervades the school, and it’s easy to get the impression that perhaps the game is toying with the player more than the other way around…
– Real player with 69.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Horror Multiple Endings Games.
This was the game that started it all for me. Over a decade ago, long before I cared for story telling, I found this game. I watched YouTubers play it as a kid, because back than, that’s what I did. Watch games, play games, go to school, that was it. However, soon I’d find out this wasn’t just a game to have fun and enjoy like the rest I experienced at the time.
Looking back on it now, I can say the story of Corpse Party quite literally changed my entire life. For the first time, a story made me feel pain, an extreme sadness. It was powerful, and as a child, it confused me. No game, no show, nothing, ever made me feel the level of despair this relentlessly dished out to me. It was so long ago, so it’s hard to remember, but I think as a child, after I finished this, I avoided it at all costs. That way, I didn’t have to think about it. However, it already planted something in my mind. Although it made me feel terrible, the feeling was very real. It fascinated me that something made up could hurt me so badly. So, from there, I left this series and searched for countless ones like it. Searching for even more stories that could leave an impact on their viewers all the same.
– Real player with 31.5 hrs in game
The Survey
I have played a lot of horror games and one of the best things I love about them is how they can make you feel on edge and defenseless against the things you encounter as compared to other games. Combat in horror games are a thing of the past now and we now see most games made with emphasis on atmosphere and storytelling while building up the tension.
“The Survey” is one of those rare gems which have all the characteristics of a superb horror games and once again proves that you don’t need ultra graphics, huge environments or many enemies ( all the characteristics of a big budget) to make an unsettling and creepy experience.
– Real player with 5.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Horror Walking Simulator Games.
I actually liked this a decent amount. It’s about two hours long and features you walking through a 13-room house in something that’s obviously been a bit inspired by P.T., but in my opinion it actually works as the words ‘inspired by’ are key here. It’s not a rip-off and forms its own identity as it goes along. The game is mostly based around atmosphere, exploring your house for notes and slowly changing differences, while avoiding an occasional entity, and checking your phone every once in a while to answer survey questions and check your mail. The phone also has a hint system where if you can’t figure out the current thing to do within 5 minutes, it’ll give you a hint.
– Real player with 4.8 hrs in game
Siren Head: Awakening
So, here’s the thing. I actually really enjoyed the game. It has Slenderman vibes where it’s a small type map and you gotta get the object while you’re being hunted and it seems to get more aggressive. I could just be bad at this game, so take what I say as simply from my experience alone, but after figuring out everything I needed to accomplish, it became nearly impossible to achieve. Where, I would hide in a structure, but Siren Head would get me anyways, or I would see him go one way, and start walking and he would appear right next to me after just seeing him, even with my flashlight off and such; so as of now, I never finished. This was on normal mode. So, my biggest thing is that there should at least be a way to get away from Siren Head once he is alerted because if you are no where near a structure, you’re gonna get got and that’s the end of it. I tried a few techniques like tapping the sprint button, however, nothing worked. Over all it’s a good game, or rather it has all the potentials, but in many ways even when I was doing all the right things I was set up to fail.
– Real player with 5.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Horror Atmospheric Games.
I certainly appreciate the fact that the developer responded to so many negative reviews about this game saying “Sirenhead teleports in front of the player” or “Sirenhead camps the car”, or something else similar and went out of their way to patch the game accordingly. That isn’t a trait many people possess. Therefore, I have decided to give this game another chance. A few things I have noticed are that, while Sirenhead still teleports in front of me, he doesn’t do it as often as before the patch. Sirenhead also doesn’t camp the player anymore and according to one of my Steam friends, he turns invisible every now and again, so I can’t predict when he’ll appear as easily. Finally, there are also more possible spawn locations for each of the items you must find in the game. This is quite an improvement since the patch, but personally, I think this is a bit better than okay for a free game. It doesn’t bring many new gimmicks to the table and feels like a carbon copy of Slenderman at times, but it isn’t a buggy, painful mess to play through either. My opinion mostly stems from the fact that horror games aren’t really my favorite genre, however I understand that that’s not the developer’s fault, therefore my positive review still stands. Overall, if you’re a horror fanatic looking to add a game to your collection, but also are on a budget or completely broke, this is one game I can recommend.
– Real player with 4.2 hrs in game
Concealment
It’s good. :) Watch out for the monster.
– Real player with 1.2 hrs in game
Short, atmospheric horror experience. Get some creeps for your buck!
– Real player with 1.0 hrs in game
Dark Existence
BACKGROUND STORY
The year is 2036. You are a survivor living in an underground bunker alongside other survivors. The bunker is home to an organisation of scientists who conduct research and experiments on unknown phenomena related to the extinction event. It is your job to ensure that supplies are brought to the bunker as well as test subjects for the scientists to operate on. This requires going to paranormal sightings and capturing whatever objects or creatures you come across.
The world is full of these creatures and it is up to you and your friends if you choose to go with others, to make sure that you successfully capture one of them.
THE BUNKER
The underground facility where you currently live is classed as the ‘Multiplayer Hub’. All players spawn here together when hosting/joining a server. In the bunker, you will have the freedom to explore and investigate cases. You will also see the creatures that you have previously captured.
OLD MANOR ON THE HILL
One of the first places you will travel to from the bunker is the Old Manor, located a few hours away. There are reports of paranormal activity within the Old Manor from passing survivors. They have reported a strange figure staring out the window, and strange sounds coming from inside. You have been tasked to go inside and investigate the cause of this activity.
GAMEPLAY
In Dark Existence, you will play as a survivor who is trying to fix some of the damage made from the extinction event. You will be checking out places close to the bunker to see if anything of value can be resourced. Your main task however will be investigating paranormal activity which will involve a lot of stealth within dark and dangerous environments.
In the Old Manor, there is an old woman that has had her body taken over by an evil presence, she is smart, she can see very well. But she doesn’t hear very well. So stay out of sight.
As you work through the stages of investigating, you may find she becomes harder to evade. Discover her weakness. You must find a way to capture her, just be careful; she doesn’t react well to being hurt.
You can play alone, however, this is not recommended. You may play with up to 3 other friends that dare to enter the halls of hell with you. Look out for wardrobes, kitchen cupboards, anything with a door as you might just find something that will allow you to progress further.
GAMEMODES
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Play Alone
A chapter-based singleplayer mode where you will play through the chapters of hellish nightmares.
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Cooperative Solo
Deciding on helping out the world by yourself? You sure can, but bear in mind, this will be extremely challenging and terrifying alone. Grab a team.
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Cooperative Mode
This would be the smart choice to make, play with up to 3 friends to help you, but don’t let your friend get you killed! Work as a team.
Loop Room
The loop room is a horror game from the first person point of view, and the goal is to operate 5 panels in 100 repeated rooms and escape to the emergency exit.
Run away from the endless room through various equipment and items.
- Four kinds of maps : There are four different types of maps. Each map has different ghosts and sounds.
Also, experience new fun in a different way from map to map.
- Escape : You can escape after operating the panel with a key card that you can get around the room.
MIDNIGHT Remastered
Pretty interesting game that kept me entertained. 10/10 would recommend compared to the other games classified as a indie horror. Still can’t figure out the last achievement though.. :/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep6z4L3nyRY
– Real player with 1.4 hrs in game
Fun little indie pixel horror based loosely off of the ‘Midnight Man’ urban legend/game.
When you start, your character has already completed the ritual which bummed me out because I like going through the candle lighting and knocking and stuff. No worries though!
My biggest challenge when beating this game was remembering where things were. The object is to collect seven envelopes that are marked with one of the deadly sins from the bible. Luckily they aren’t randomly placed so it’s just a matter of finding them all and not running out of matches before you can escape.
– Real player with 1.4 hrs in game
The forgotten phobia
The forgotten phobia is another template flip style game from asset flippers/scammers, Piece of Voxel. This time it looks like they’ve ripped off a lazy 2D retro pixel template for a horror/adventure platformer game. Resolution and controls are locked and they used ugly retro pixel “art”, probably because that’s what the template they copied had. The game is in Russian and doesn’t appear to have any English translation, but the language of bad games and asset flip scams is universal.
An important note: Piece of Voxel are known asset flippers and have previously taken other developers work and put it on Steam in an attempt to scam gamers and get paid for someone else’s effort. An example of Piece of Voxel doing this is Hoples, which is really “Pixel Adventure 1 ”, written by the actual developers, Pixel Frog. Also, Top Truck Driver, which is really “Hill Racing Template ”, developed by Janko Knez.
– Real player with 0.2 hrs in game
You Must Survive
I do not recommend this game in it’s current state. Upon quitting from my first play, I had to uninstall it, delete the steamapp folder for it, as well as locate a hidden folder under local files that had to be deleted as the game found itself stuck in a loop of requiring an update. This game doesn’t clearly indicate as to what it wants you to do for the first part of it, I ended up looking up a YouTube video of someone else playing it, in order to figure out what I had to pick up and put where. After ending this second play session, and being taken back to the menu, all of the options were unable to be click on, so I had to Alt+f4 in order to quit the game. I understand why this game is only $4.55, but do yourself a favour and put that money towards something else, as this is not worth it.
– Real player with 0.5 hrs in game
Here are a few issues I had:
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After leaving the game and coming back, the only thing in the main menu that worked was the “new game” option.
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Inside the house, I was able to ignore the monster and run through it.
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At one point, I lost the item (it was the lightbulbs) that I needed to progress.
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As soon as I pressed ‘u’ to go to night time, I basically managed to get outside immediately. It didn’t really seem like what I did before mattered.
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The ‘outside’ part of the game looks pretty bad imho. The monster just runs straight at you, you’re running through a slenderman clone where the slenderman is slower than you and the level is linear. I also couldn’t figure out how to pick up the gun. The only onscreen prompt I got was to press ‘e’ which caused a small message up to pop up.
– Real player with 0.3 hrs in game
Dark Fracture: Prologue
Dark Fracture is INTENSE! This is a unique horror game the likes of which I have never seen before. The game play, lighting, environments and story are all completely focused on delivering an excellently executed horror experience. I was really impressed at how much stuff was interactable and right from the start the game gave a foreboding feeling and I found myself opening every drawer looking for stuff to help me, my survival gamer instincts kicking in. Even if this isn’t completely a survival game, it had aspects of it, like the sanity meter, that made me feel like I needed to find as much stuff as I could to help myself survive. Which is a plus! However, the game is certainly focused on horror first and boy did it deliver! The horror was heavy, constant, and like I mentioned before, INTENSE! I almost could not handle this game! There were several points I said to myself, “I do not want to go out there.” There were points at which I nearly jumped out of my headphones! There was so much quality horror content and game play packed into this demo I can only imagine what the full game will be like! Well worth the time spent and I can’t wait for the full game!
– Real player with 25.6 hrs in game
UPDATE
Holy bananas Batman! I fixed the graphical problems I was having by popping in and out of windowed mode a few times and adjusting the resolution that way. Then the mouse worked fine and I was able to see the journal properly.
Big difference. I’m changing my down thumb to an up thumb. :)
This was an interesting game as far as the insanity mechanic goes. I enjoyed playing through and exploring and eventually finding my way to the the end. I also appreciate the humor that is gently sprinkled in here and there.
– Real player with 2.1 hrs in game