There’s nothing better than the eerie silence and tension that sets the tone in a horror video game experience. The mix of mystery and intrigue draws you into a world that is both captivating and frightful all at the same time. The horror video game genre holds a special place in my heart. The first video game series to really make me obsessed with gaming was the original Resident Evil series. That era of gaming that combined exploration, survival, narrative and action are some of my best memories growing up. Years later I find myself drawn back into a genre that originally got me into gaming. Below you’ll find a list of 3 indie horror games that have each left their own unique legacy within the genre.
The Playlist is an ongoing series of curated games that we want to shine a light on. Click the links below for the full articles.
Silver Pines
Take your favourite survival horror games of the past and mix them with a dose of psychological thriller with a graphic novel art style and you have Silver Pines. As the protagonist, you play the role of a detective tracking down a suspect in a mostly abandoned town. All the makings of a great survival horror are here: an eerie town to explore, an unsettling atmosphere, unexplained phenomena, lack of resources, a narrative full of mystery, puzzles, and challenging encounters all await you in the small American town of Silver Pines.
Whisper Mountain Outbreak
Whisper Mountain Outbreak (WMO) is a challenging roguelike coop action survival horror game that captures the essence of the genre. Drawing inspiration from early entries in the Resident Evil franchise, WMO does an excellent job of setting up tension and horror vibes through its game play, environments, and sound design. Staying true to the survival horror genre you have to make tough choices in what resources to carry and how you use them. Combat is relatively simple but challenging with a reasonable stamina system that allows bursts of activity for melee combat along with the thrill of gunplay. It’s a simple but very effective offering. It works well because it doesn’t hold your hand or tell you exactly what to do at any given moment.
Dredge
Everything you do in this game has been implemented with benefits and consequences. This type of fundamental game design, even with a simple premise is able to captivate an audience as you are constantly making meaningful decisions that carry some risk. Upon first glance, this game seems as if it’s just a simple fishing adventure. In tandem with the narrative, nothing is exactly as what appears on the surface. At the core, it plays upon our human nature of curiosity and exploration. Woven within the gameplay are snippets of narrative. The gameplay and story invite the player to explore it’s depths on a quest to unravel mysteries that are lurking beneath the surface in this seemingly ordinary world with supernatural oddities.
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