Obscure horror games recommendations

[BernKatstel]

My Mom has one horror game she likes to play on her phone anytime she's free

Spoiler: The Horror

Candy Crush

There are titles not even I would dare to play.

 

[Toast2Venus]

There are titles not even I would dare to play.

I hear it everytime I can't make it stop, I just want it to go away

 

[BernKatstel]

I don’t know how obscure it is but Iron Lung is a good game. It’s absolutely terrifying!

Not as obscure right now due to the attention it got recently but I appreciate the recommendation! It was a pretty nice game, love that type of horror.

I hear it everytime I can't make it stop, I just want it to go away

Sorry, you are too far gone already. Your afterlife will consist of aligning candy for children and middle-aged moms to mess up again and again

 

[dummycake]

 

[SsemouyOnan]

Thanks for letting me know. It all sounds fine overall! I hope there’s a way to remove the H content

There is for Black Souls(2), just say no to the girl at the start when she asks if you're interested in carnal acts. You will end up missing a big portion of the lore and cg

 

[BernKatstel]

There is for Black Souls(2), just say no to the girl at the start when she asks if you're interested in carnal acts. You will end up missing a big portion of the lore and cg

A bit of a pity, thanks! Will plunge into it and see how it is for myself

 

[TheEldritchGod]

I don’t know how obscure it is but Iron Lung is a good game. It’s absolutely terrifying!

I have not played it, but I have seen videos. I would agree, this is one of the few horror games out there.

The problem is, Horror and Game do not go together.

The point of horror, is a lack of agency. Take Soma. Oh Noes! I am just a copy of the original person in a robot body! Horror! Gasp and Choke!

Huh?

Uhhh.... where's the horror? I lived my life. A copy of me, at a point in my life was made, and that copy now has a NEW BODY to do stuff. I have power, control, agency, and CHOICE, yet I'm supposed to be horrified. WHY? I've been given a chance at IMMORTALITY! Hell, I would have tried to launch the satellite and then worked hard to keep everything going at the base as best I could.

LIFE is LIFE, and what right do I have to stop life because I don't like the way it looks, or that it's using chunks of my life experience as building blocks? I have choices. I have control, to an extent. Yet, because something looks a little odd I'm supposed to be HORRIFIED.

There was a game where you die and you are in the afterlife and you are supposed to be horrified because you are a damned soul or some such nonsense. Painkiller I think it was called. Uhh... WHY? It's not the afterlife It's just MORE life. A different FORM of life, but life nonetheless. I think. I learn. I grow. My Choices SUCK, but I have choice and CONTROL.

Vampire the Masquerade. Oh NOES! You are turned into a terrible monster doomed to feed off humanity!!!1!

Uhhh... I've worked with clients who are 1,000 times worse than most vampires. Yes, the DEGREE and POWER LEVEL are different, but the fundamentals of VtM are nothing new. I get that losing your humanity is a core mechanic of the game, but that's just it. IT IS A GAME MECHANIC. It isn't horrifying to see my Humanity score go from five to four.

Most games that people call Horror are just 'Halloween-Themed'. Perhaps I might even call them Tragic, but horrifying?

The only thing that makes something horrifying is when you have no control of the situation. Stories can be horrifying because you cannot control the outcome. However, I don't see "games" like Iron Lung as a "game". It's more of a Choose Your Own Adventurer Story. It's a story where you choose how it unfolds. The "Game Play" is choosing what order you discover the story.

A game like Soma or Alien: Isolation or dead space. They claim to be Horror, but I have control over the game. The problem is, in order for it to be horror, you have to be doomed. In the end, you have to lose, or it isn't horror. And that's my problem.

if you give me all the features of a GAME where I can dodge, shoot, roll, sneak, etc etc etc, I have control and agency, then it's a GAME. Then, you switch to, YOU LOSE AND CAN NEVER WIN, which is how you have to end a Horror Story, well, then it wasn't a game, now was it? If the game was rigged from the start, it was just a story with extra steps to TRICK ME into thinking it was a game, when it was just a story.

Iron Lung does not lie to me. There are no game mechanics, just story-revealing mechanics.

A "game" where it's a hidden object game and it reveals things thus telling me a story, that can be horror. But the moment you add in any mechanic where I can Live or Die before the end, then it's a game, and you are lying to me. Now you are just pissing me off.

I think that was the problem with Tell-Tale The Walking Dead series. They were leaning HEAVILY into the Horror Story, but they thought, "Lets add some really annoying Game mechanics that will piss off people who have bad Hand Eye Coordination thus forcing the woman who bought it to guilt her husband into PLAYING THE DAMN GAME, and He will PLAY THE DAMN THING because he loves his wife, no matter how GODDAMN ANNOYING THE GAME PLAY IS, and it wasn't even a good story, but if you are a good husband and your wife is bad at first person shooters, you play the damn game so she can watch the story and then wait for her to tell you what choices to made which is REALLY ANNOYING because they only give you five goddamn seconds to choose your options when dialog comes up and as a side note WHO THE HELL HIDES A BABY, THEN TRIES TO MAKE A MAN WHO WAS JUST BETRAYED AND WHO HAD LOST HIS EYE AND HAD ONE REASON FOR HANGING ON (THAT BABY) THAT THE BABY WAS DEAD AND YOU KILLED IT, AND THEN WHEN HE FREAKS OUT AND TRIES TO KILL YOU, YOU GO, SEE? HE WAS UNSTABLE!!!

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

...

I guess my point is, I have not played any so-called horror games that I would recommend, because there are horror stories, and there are Horror-Themed games, but there are no Horror Games.

If you want a good horror-THEMED game, Play The Darkest Dungeon.

Oh wait... Do you want a game that will scare you?
OH. That's easy. THE LONG DARK on interloper difficulty. Oh god, that will scare the pants off you. Beautiful graphics. Simple to learn, years to master. Yet, even today, as good as I am, You hear a wolf pack howl and you know, you are screwed and you have to run your ass off to get to safety and then you gotta make that choice, starve to death, freeze to death, or take a chance and try to sneak past the wild life trying to murder you and how you can find shelter and supplies.

If there was a game where I could WIPE MY MIND and play it ALL OVER FROM THE BEGINNING...

It is The Long Dark.

You will be terrified, scared, and on edge the whole time, and it is GLORIOUS.

If you want to play the long dark, DON'T LOOK FOR HELP. Don't look for maps. You can look up my guide "Weight Loss In The Long Dark" and look at all the other guides I made on TLD, because they help you with gameplay, without ruining the story. And then you can read my Interloper Guide because it's FUNNY and INSANE without making it too easy. It's like a series of cryptic clues.

But TLD? Yeah... That's my go-to relaxation game. I know, a game where you are fighting for your life every second is relaxing? Yes. Yes it is. It is a terrifying game that is so relaxing.


EDIT: Don't read my base guide. Skip that one. Too many spoilers in that one. Read that one after you flail about helplessly for about a hundred hours. THEN you can read that one.

 

[BernKatstel]

I have not played it, but I have seen videos. I would agree, this is one of the few horror games out there.

The problem is, Horror and Game do not go together.

The point of horror, is a lack of agency. Take Soma. Oh Noes! I am just a copy of the original person in a robot body! Horror! Gasp and Choke!

Huh?

Uhhh.... where's the horror? I lived my life. A copy of me, at a point in my life was made, and that copy now has a NEW BODY to do stuff. I have power, control, agency, and CHOICE, yet I'm supposed to be horrified. WHY? I've been given a chance at IMMORTALITY! Hell, I would have tried to launch the satellite and then worked hard to keep everything going at the base as best I could.

LIFE is LIFE, and what right do I have to stop life because I don't like the way it looks, or that it's using chunks of my life experience as building blocks? I have choices. I have control, to an extent. Yet, because something looks a little odd I'm supposed to be HORRIFIED.

There was a game where you die and you are in the afterlife and you are supposed to be horrified because you are a damned soul or some such nonsense. Painkiller I think it was called. Uhh... WHY? It's not the afterlife It's just MORE life. A different FORM of life, but life nonetheless. I think. I learn. I grow. My Choices SUCK, but I have choice and CONTROL.

Vampire the Masquerade. Oh NOES! You are turned into a terrible monster doomed to feed off humanity!!!1!

Uhhh... I've worked with clients who are 1,000 times worse than most vampires. Yes, the DEGREE and POWER LEVEL are different, but the fundamentals of VtM are nothing new. I get that losing your humanity is a core mechanic of the game, but that's just it. IT IS A GAME MECHANIC. It isn't horrifying to see my Humanity score go from five to four.

Most games that people call Horror are just 'Halloween-Themed'. Perhaps I might even call them Tragic, but horrifying?

The only thing that makes something horrifying is when you have no control of the situation. Stories can be horrifying because you cannot control the outcome. However, I don't see "games" like Iron Lung as a "game". It's more of a Choose Your Own Adventurer Story. It's a story where you choose how it unfolds. The "Game Play" is choosing what order you discover the story.

A game like Soma or Alien: Isolation or dead space. They claim to be Horror, but I have control over the game. The problem is, in order for it to be horror, you have to be doomed. In the end, you have to lose, or it isn't horror. And that's my problem.

if you give me all the features of a GAME where I can dodge, shoot, roll, sneak, etc etc etc, I have control and agency, then it's a GAME. Then, you switch to, YOU LOSE AND CAN NEVER WIN, which is how you have to end a Horror Story, well, then it wasn't a game, now was it? If the game was rigged from the start, it was just a story with extra steps to TRICK ME into thinking it was a game, when it was just a story.

Iron Lung does not lie to me. There are no game mechanics, just story-revealing mechanics.

A "game" where it's a hidden object game and it reveals things thus telling me a story, that can be horror. But the moment you add in any mechanic where I can Live or Die before the end, then it's a game, and you are lying to me. Now you are just pissing me off.

I think that was the problem with Tell-Tale The Walking Dead series. They were leaning HEAVILY into the Horror Story, but they thought, "Lets add some really annoying Game mechanics that will piss off people who have bad Hand Eye Coordination thus forcing the woman who bought it to guilt her husband into PLAYING THE DAMN GAME, and He will PLAY THE DAMN THING because he loves his wife, no matter how GODDAMN ANNOYING THE GAME PLAY IS, and it wasn't even a good story, but if you are a good husband and your wife is bad at first person shooters, you play the damn game so she can watch the story and then wait for her to tell you what choices to made which is REALLY ANNOYING because they only give you five goddamn seconds to choose your options when dialog comes up and as a side note WHO THE HELL HIDES A BABY, THEN TRIES TO MAKE A MAN WHO WAS JUST BETRAYED AND WHO HAD LOST HIS EYE AND HAD ONE REASON FOR HANGING ON (THAT BABY) THAT THE BABY WAS DEAD AND YOU KILLED IT, AND THEN WHEN HE FREAKS OUT AND TRIES TO KILL YOU, YOU GO, SEE? HE WAS UNSTABLE!!!

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

...

I guess my point is, I have not played any so-called horror games that I would recommend, because there are horror stories, and there are Horror-Themed games, but there are no Horror Games.

If you want a good horror-THEMED game, Play The Darkest Dungeon.

Oh wait... Do you want a game that will scare you?
OH. That's easy. THE LONG DARK on interloper difficulty. Oh god, that will scare the pants off you. Beautiful graphics. Simple to learn, years to master. Yet, even today, as good as I am, You hear a wolf pack howl and you know, you are screwed and you have to run your ass off to get to safety and then you gotta make that choice, starve to death, freeze to death, or take a chance and try to sneak past the wild life trying to murder you and how you can find shelter and supplies.

If there was a game where I could WIPE MY MIND and play it ALL OVER FROM THE BEGINNING...

It is The Long Dark.

You will be terrified, scared, and on edge the whole time, and it is GLORIOUS.

If you want to play the long dark, DON'T LOOK FOR HELP. Don't look for maps. You can look up my guide "Weight Loss In The Long Dark" and look at all the other guides I made on TLD, because they help you with gameplay, without ruining the story. And then you can read my Interloper Guide because it's FUNNY and INSANE without making it too easy. It's like a series of cryptic clues.

But TLD? Yeah... That's my go-to relaxation game. I know, a game where you are fighting for your life every second is relaxing? Yes. Yes it is. It is a terrifying game that is so relaxing.


EDIT: Don't read my base guide. Skip that one. Too many spoilers in that one. Read that one after you flail about helplessly for about a hundred hours. THEN you can read that one.

…My condolences. I shall condemn telltale on your behalf and check out The Long Dark. Thank you for the in-depth suggestion

 

[MatchaChocolate69]

Please let me know if you have played any and why you think it’s good. Any type of game is fine. I’ll reward any worthy suggestions

Finally, I can recommend this game somewhere! It's actually a visual novel, probably one of the best ever made.
A MASTERPIECE: SAYA NO UTA
Are you ready to descend into the darkest abyss?

Plot summary:
Fuminori Sakisaka is a medical student whose life was radically changed in a tragic accident that killed his parents. To save his life, doctors performed an experimental neurosurgical procedure on him. However, it resulted in a severe form of agnosia, drastically altering his senses. Fuminori now perceives the world as a horrific nightmare, where the sky is black, and everything is covered in pulsating flesh, organs, and blood; people appear to him as grotesque masses of flesh emitting a terrible stench, and even food tastes disgusting.
Fuminori would have already ended his life, if not for one night while still hospitalized, he meets Saya, a mysterious girl who appears incredibly normal to him. Rejoicing at having found a glimmer of hope in this horrific world, he convinces the girl to live with him.

 

[SailusGebel]

Darkwood, Tiny Bunny.

 

[Corty]

Welcome to Kowloon on Steam

This is an indie horror from the first person, in which you find yourself in an area called Kowloon in search of cheap housing. The inhabitants of this place only at first glance seem to be ordinary people, but if we dig deeper, we will see their real faces.

store.steampowered.com

 

[MintiLime]

Haven't played them, but I've seen playthroughs of them:
[Amnesia: The Dark Descent]
[Amnesia: The Bunker]
[Layers of Fear]
[Dredge]
[Fears to Fathom]
[Iron Lung]
[Lethal Company] (technically)

Failing that...I recommend having a look at games that Gab Smolders and Markiplier have played.
They both have played a heck ton of indie horror games.
Gab will also sometimes play Japanese ones that haven't been translated, or haven't got a huge western following.

X

I personally recommend ManlyBadassHero for horror games!

 

[BernKatstel]

Finally, I can recommend this game somewhere! It's actually a visual novel, probably one of the best ever made.
A MASTERPIECE: SAYA NO UTA
Are you ready to descend into the darkest abyss?

Plot summary:
Fuminori Sakisaka is a medical student whose life was radically changed in a tragic accident that killed his parents. To save his life, doctors performed an experimental neurosurgical procedure on him. However, it resulted in a severe form of agnosia, drastically altering his senses. Fuminori now perceives the world as a horrific nightmare, where the sky is black, and everything is covered in pulsating flesh, organs, and blood; people appear to him as grotesque masses of flesh emitting a terrible stench, and even food tastes disgusting.
Fuminori would have already ended his life, if not for one night while still hospitalized, he meets Saya, a mysterious girl who appears incredibly normal to him. Rejoicing at having found a glimmer of hope in this horrific world, he convinces the girl to live with him.

Somehow haven’t heard of this one. The art looks pretty good and the premise sounds unique. I’ll look for a download

Darkwood, Tiny Bunny.

These seem promising, thank you

Welcome to Kowloon on Steam

This is an indie horror from the first person, in which you find yourself in an area called Kowloon in search of cheap housing. The inhabitants of this place only at first glance seem to be ordinary people, but if we dig deeper, we will see their real faces.

store.steampowered.com

A little short, but I kinda dig the way it looks. Will have to see it in action

I personally recommend ManlyBadassHero for horror games!

Thank you for the suggestion, they’re my go to channel when I want to relax lol

 

[Notadate]

Do hgames count
Japan is weird

 

[BernKatstel]

Do hgames count
Japan is weird

Yeah, I think they are fine. I’ll just look around to see if I can get a sfw version

 

[Notadate]

Yeah, I think they are fine. I’ll just look around to see if I can get a sfw version

Yeah I think this one has one, and they are all advoidable… I think? Forgot it’s name

 

[BernKatstel]

Yeah I think this one has one, and they are all advoidable… I think? Forgot it’s name

Do let me know if the name comes back to you. I shall grieve for it in the meantime

 

[Notadate]

Do let me know if the name comes back to you. I shall grieve for it in the meantime

Found it, and it’s well holy shit. That’s why I quite after a few minutes.

 

[Shrimp_eater]

One game i often see recommended in terms of horror is Thief (1998). Another one is Subnautica.

I have not played it, but I have seen videos. I would agree, this is one of the few horror games out there.

The problem is, Horror and Game do not go together.

The point of horror, is a lack of agency. Take Soma. Oh Noes! I am just a copy of the original person in a robot body! Horror! Gasp and Choke!

Huh?

Uhhh.... where's the horror? I lived my life. A copy of me, at a point in my life was made, and that copy now has a NEW BODY to do stuff. I have power, control, agency, and CHOICE, yet I'm supposed to be horrified. WHY? I've been given a chance at IMMORTALITY! Hell, I would have tried to launch the satellite and then worked hard to keep everything going at the base as best I could.

LIFE is LIFE, and what right do I have to stop life because I don't like the way it looks, or that it's using chunks of my life experience as building blocks? I have choices. I have control, to an extent. Yet, because something looks a little odd I'm supposed to be HORRIFIED.

There was a game where you die and you are in the afterlife and you are supposed to be horrified because you are a damned soul or some such nonsense. Painkiller I think it was called. Uhh... WHY? It's not the afterlife It's just MORE life. A different FORM of life, but life nonetheless. I think. I learn. I grow. My Choices SUCK, but I have choice and CONTROL.

Vampire the Masquerade. Oh NOES! You are turned into a terrible monster doomed to feed off humanity!!!1!

Uhhh... I've worked with clients who are 1,000 times worse than most vampires. Yes, the DEGREE and POWER LEVEL are different, but the fundamentals of VtM are nothing new. I get that losing your humanity is a core mechanic of the game, but that's just it. IT IS A GAME MECHANIC. It isn't horrifying to see my Humanity score go from five to four.

Most games that people call Horror are just 'Halloween-Themed'. Perhaps I might even call them Tragic, but horrifying?

The only thing that makes something horrifying is when you have no control of the situation. Stories can be horrifying because you cannot control the outcome. However, I don't see "games" like Iron Lung as a "game". It's more of a Choose Your Own Adventurer Story. It's a story where you choose how it unfolds. The "Game Play" is choosing what order you discover the story.

A game like Soma or Alien: Isolation or dead space. They claim to be Horror, but I have control over the game. The problem is, in order for it to be horror, you have to be doomed. In the end, you have to lose, or it isn't horror. And that's my problem.

if you give me all the features of a GAME where I can dodge, shoot, roll, sneak, etc etc etc, I have control and agency, then it's a GAME. Then, you switch to, YOU LOSE AND CAN NEVER WIN, which is how you have to end a Horror Story, well, then it wasn't a game, now was it? If the game was rigged from the start, it was just a story with extra steps to TRICK ME into thinking it was a game, when it was just a story.

Iron Lung does not lie to me. There are no game mechanics, just story-revealing mechanics.

A "game" where it's a hidden object game and it reveals things thus telling me a story, that can be horror. But the moment you add in any mechanic where I can Live or Die before the end, then it's a game, and you are lying to me. Now you are just pissing me off.

I think that was the problem with Tell-Tale The Walking Dead series. They were leaning HEAVILY into the Horror Story, but they thought, "Lets add some really annoying Game mechanics that will piss off people who have bad Hand Eye Coordination thus forcing the woman who bought it to guilt her husband into PLAYING THE DAMN GAME, and He will PLAY THE DAMN THING because he loves his wife, no matter how GODDAMN ANNOYING THE GAME PLAY IS, and it wasn't even a good story, but if you are a good husband and your wife is bad at first person shooters, you play the damn game so she can watch the story and then wait for her to tell you what choices to made which is REALLY ANNOYING because they only give you five goddamn seconds to choose your options when dialog comes up and as a side note WHO THE HELL HIDES A BABY, THEN TRIES TO MAKE A MAN WHO WAS JUST BETRAYED AND WHO HAD LOST HIS EYE AND HAD ONE REASON FOR HANGING ON (THAT BABY) THAT THE BABY WAS DEAD AND YOU KILLED IT, AND THEN WHEN HE FREAKS OUT AND TRIES TO KILL YOU, YOU GO, SEE? HE WAS UNSTABLE!!!

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

...

I guess my point is, I have not played any so-called horror games that I would recommend, because there are horror stories, and there are Horror-Themed games, but there are no Horror Games.

If you want a good horror-THEMED game, Play The Darkest Dungeon.

Oh wait... Do you want a game that will scare you?
OH. That's easy. THE LONG DARK on interloper difficulty. Oh god, that will scare the pants off you. Beautiful graphics. Simple to learn, years to master. Yet, even today, as good as I am, You hear a wolf pack howl and you know, you are screwed and you have to run your ass off to get to safety and then you gotta make that choice, starve to death, freeze to death, or take a chance and try to sneak past the wild life trying to murder you and how you can find shelter and supplies.

If there was a game where I could WIPE MY MIND and play it ALL OVER FROM THE BEGINNING...

It is The Long Dark.

You will be terrified, scared, and on edge the whole time, and it is GLORIOUS.

If you want to play the long dark, DON'T LOOK FOR HELP. Don't look for maps. You can look up my guide "Weight Loss In The Long Dark" and look at all the other guides I made on TLD, because they help you with gameplay, without ruining the story. And then you can read my Interloper Guide because it's FUNNY and INSANE without making it too easy. It's like a series of cryptic clues.

But TLD? Yeah... That's my go-to relaxation game. I know, a game where you are fighting for your life every second is relaxing? Yes. Yes it is. It is a terrifying game that is so relaxing.


EDIT: Don't read my base guide. Skip that one. Too many spoilers in that one. Read that one after you flail about helplessly for about a hundred hours. THEN you can read that one.

I'd say the main appeal of horror game's isn't so much the story but the 'mood' and atmosphere they can bring about.

I think the problem with your argument is that i can easily apply the same logic to books and movies too. It's all a facade created by the author to try and unsettle us, there can't even be any attempt to give us an illusion of helplessness because we know from the start the story is set in stone. Its so very easy to detach ourselves from horror in any format, its a genre that will never work for people unwilling to engage with it regardless of medium.

 

[Voidiris]

Please let me know if you have played any and why you think it’s good. Any type of game is fine. I’ll reward any worthy suggestions

Darkwood and House.Wad are two great ones that can be seen as masterpieces in their own way. Dead space should have some good existential horror. Dasaku is a good horrifying visual novel and Denpa in general is a obscure visual novel horror genre.