Here we are, the last week of October and you are probably wondering how and why this month went by so fast. I remembered playing spooky games all month but before I knew it I had not finished my playthrough of the Dead Space games, nor did I finish another spooky game that I wanted to talk about. I will probably talk about it during November but for now, I want to finish up October with some honorable mentions, specifically Psycho-unstable Journey and Forgotten School
Psycho-unstable Journey is a short horror game developed by KenForest. It was released at the beginning of October, is on PC, and is free.
Psycho-unstable Journey is a game about traveling in a car and all of the things you may see or hear during a long car ride. The Developer says it best:
“its game is about traveling by car. Here you have to overcome a long way through rain and lightning. Can you make it to the end, won’t you go crazy.“
Gameplay is pretty basic and nothing that breaks away from the norm. Walking and interacting with things is about as far as it goes. The atmosphere is what it’s about here, like many indie horror games. The sound design is pretty decent as well. Rain hits the windshield, crickets chirp, and the radio static all add up when the game wants to spook the player. It isn’t perfect per se but it does it do atmosphere well enough.
The game has that good old PS1 look to it. Flat faces and drab colors. I am pretty sure there is a tree made of meat in the latter half of the game but it is hard to determine because the game looks like poop.
Psycho-unstable Journey is only a twenty-minute game but it does some stuff that I thought would make it a mention for the end of this spooky month. First, the atmosphere is what makes the game, and second, the sound design is particularly good.
There was like a sky full of manta rays at some point too, whatever, it’s a spooky game.
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Forgotten School is also a short psychological VHS horror game from Azaxor. It was released on October 25th, is on PC, and is free.
Once again, there is no cohesive story but thank GOD the developer has a nice little snippet of what the game is about:
“Japanese school girl Akiyo shows up at her school in the morning, but it would seem that everyone is gone. Through her video camera she always keeps on her, she discovers a hidden dimension unseen to the naked eye.“
Again, this is a walking simulator with little interaction. The atmosphere and the video camera take the spotlight in this game. The school is empty and (mostly) dark (as always) and the only way to see through to this other world is by turning on your video camera and then the game gets really weird. Apparations will appear and a lot of the time it is fucking scary. People in windows, people on conveyor belts, and hands coming up through the floor.
A lot of weird shit happens in this game.
The video camera has another use, it is able to see hidden words written on the wall. Words hurt and there are a lot of hurtful and dangerous words written around the school. The idea of the words lends itself to the overarching moral of the game, which is to “be kind.”
The sound design is pretty decent. When there is a spooky thing nearby the music ramps up in volume and, personally, it became a lot for my ears, and had to turn it down. I can’t describe the sound when the video camera is on but it lends itself well to the game.
I was certainly freaked out by Forgotten School. Japanese horror, either it is games or movies, is something else. I get freaked out by these mediums. The game only lasts about fifteen minutes and there is really not much after that, so it does run quick but I thought that the spooks were good enough to add as an honorable mention for my spooky games of the month.
It was fun and really weird and at two specific moments, fucking scary.
Grinds and Games 