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Halloween is approaching, and with that, it’s time to pull up your chair, turn all the lights out, and load up a spooky indie game. Indie games tend to do horror the best, with off-the-wall narratives and low-poly designs. If you’re tired of plastic eyeballs, those weird spiderweb things that no one knows what the material is made of, and neighbors who leave their porch lights off like they’re doing you a favor, then maybe it’s time to turn to the nightmarish mind of an indie game developer. From psychological horror with unsettling imagery to co-op fishing, there’s definitely something out there that will make the hairs on your neck and arms stand up.
No, I’m Not a Human
Starting off strong, No, I’m Not a Human is about a world where the world is ending and being taken over by visitors, beings who do everything in their power to look like humans. Why do they want to look like humans? To try and take refuge inside your home by being invited inside. Fortunately, visitors also display telltale signs that they’re not human, such as bloodshot eyes, white teeth, and a flurry of other, rather unsettling things. The game uses this imagery to really sell the anxiety of never truly knowing if the person you’ve allowed into your home is there to kill you. However, if you think you haven’t let the right one in, then you need to do what must be done.
The gameplay involves you engaging with different people who knock on your door (or windows, from what I’ve seen) and assessing whether you should keep them safe from the horrors of the outside world. You can use your door’s peephole and the various windows around the house to look outside and assess the people whom you can let in, as well as travel through the house’s different rooms and talk to the people you’ve let in. Trust me, before long, you’ll be telling yourself, “Okay, that’s enough.”
It Has My Face
While It Has My Face might not be nearly as terrifying as No, I’m Not a Human, it definitely has its own it’s on its very own level. It’s a horror roguelite that asks you to kill your clone in a prison-like environment before they kill you by locating illegal weapons and slowly unfolding why you’re even here in the first place. The gameplay is deceptively simple, with rounds quite literally being the same one after another, with the real difference being the location of this specific round and what your clone looks like. However, the more you play, the more paranoid you slowly become. You’ll sometimes have hallucinations where everyone in front of you looks like your clone, and every crowd you pass through has the chance of hiding the killer, making your life ripe for the taking.
Of course, that’s just the beginning, as you venture further through the various doppelgangers, purchasing and upgrading new weapons as even more terrifying threats start disguising themselves to look like you. Aim straight and aim true because from what I’ve played, you won’t get a second chance at the same target.
CloverPit
CloverPit fills my Balatro-loving heart. This is another one that might not seem too scary, but being in the thick of gambling for your life, not being sure if you have enough coins to survive the next round, definitely made me paranoid every time I managed to move on. You’re stuck in a room that has nothing more than a slot machine, an ATM machine, and a red telephone. The floor of the room is built like a cage, with a locking mechanism ready to open up and plunge you to the murky depths if you don’t manage to pay the sum you owe.
Every round asks you to deposit a certain amount of coins into the ATM by winning them at the slot machine. You have three chances to try and earn the amount required, and every time you play, you earn tickets that can be used to purchase power-ups that can be used to help you earn more coins. After every round, the toll goes higher, and the sweat on your upper lip starts to form. Who thought making money the focus of a horror game was a good idea?! Because it is…
CARIMARA: Beneath the forlorn limbs
Okay, back to more unsettling imagery! Carimara: Beneath the forlorn limbs is as eerie as the name suggests. You are a mute… thing, made of ‘moss and mirrorlight’ who might not be able to speak, but can ask the strange beings in the house questions using various cards. However, just because you approach someone with a card doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll answer; maybe they’ll just stare wide-eyed at you until you try something else. The cards are each attached to different items you can find as you explore this black and white, pixelated hellscape with burnt textures and the feeling as though someone is standing directly behind you, forcing you to go where you don’t want to.
The entire point of the game is to explore, discover questions you can ask, and ask them to learn more about what lingers beyond the darkness. You aren’t armed with a weapon of any kind and have nothing to defend yourselves, making CARIMARA that more scarier. At the end of the day, you can accidentally ask the wrong person the wrong question, awakening something you never wanted to know existed.
GONE Fishing
While GONE Fishing might seem like your average fishing survival game, there’s much more hiding underneath. You’ll gather bait by searching the ground for frogs, worms, spiders, and more to try and catch as many fish as possible to sacrifice them and appease some sort of dark creature that inhabits the lake. If you don’t offer a complete offering every day, then your chances of meeting a dark fate at night are much more likely. Unlike the above, you can play GONE Fishing online with your friends to try and use one another to survive days and nights, actively watching as the deep becomes more and more impatient with every passing hour.
There are a few features that help bring a bit of normalcy while you play, including a Trader you can sell fish to in exchange for money that can be used on upgrades and totems, making your job just a bit easier, and an immersive fishing system that involves a variety of fish species with unique behaviors, fight patterns, and sizes. This is one fishing trip you’ll be lucky to escape from.
