| Don't Scream | |
|---|---|
| Designer(s) | Joe Henson |
| Engine | |
| Platform(s) | |
| Genre(s) | Survival horror |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Don't Scream is an indie survival horror game, designed by British video game designer Joe Henson. [1] The game became popular when it released for early access on 27 October 2023. [2] Version 1.0 was released on 28 October 2024.
Don't Scream is 18 minutes long; time only moves in the game when the player moves. [3] The game is set in a forest in 1993, near the site of what appears to be a plane crash. The game is played from the perspective of a camcorder, which the protagonist is assumed to be carrying. [4] The player can choose different paths which will lead to either a homestead, a farm, a mini-mart, or a cemetery. There are random encounters of ghostly spirits that haunt the forest who will attempt to scare the player. The player character dies if they scream or make a loud noise; the game allows this mechanic to function by accessing players' microphones, with their consent. [5] [6] Players can restart when they die. [7]
Joe Henson, who designed and developed the game, said that "The rise of PlayStation-esque visuals in a lot of indie horror titles is a testament to how undefined visuals can increase the fear factor." Henson added that the "loss of details plays into our imagination". [8]
Roguelike is a style of role-playing game traditionally characterized by a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels, turn-based gameplay, grid-based movement, and permanent death of the player character. Most roguelikes are based on a high fantasy narrative, reflecting the influence of tabletop role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons.
Survival horror is a subgenre of horror games. Although combat can be part of the gameplay, the player is made to feel less in control than in typical action games through limited ammunition or weapons, health, speed, and vision, or through various obstructions of the player's interaction with the game mechanics. The player is also challenged to find items that unlock the path to new areas and solve puzzles to proceed in the game. Games make use of strong horror themes, such as dark mazelike environments and unexpected attacks from enemies.
Hugo's House of Horrors is a parser-based adventure game designed by independent software developer David P. Gray and published as shareware in 1990. The game follows the character Hugo as he searches for his girlfriend Penelope in a haunted house. To progress through the game, the player uses items and interacts with the environment to solve puzzles and access more rooms in the house. The gameplay was inspired by Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards. Hugo's House of Horrors was praised for its environment and atmosphere, but was criticized for its plot and visual design. It was followed by two sequels: Hugo II, Whodunit? and Hugo III, Jungle of Doom!, and a spin-off first-person shooter game, Nitemare 3D.
Minecraft is a 2011 sandbox game developed and published by Swedish video game developer Mojang Studios. Originally created by Markus "Notch" Persson using the Java programming language, the first public beta build was released on 17 May 2009. The game would be continuously developed from then on, receiving a full release on 18 November 2011. Afterwards, Persson left Mojang and gave Jens "Jeb" Bergensten control over development. In the years since its release, it has been ported to several platforms, including smartphones, tablets, and various video game consoles. In 2014, Mojang and the Minecraft intellectual property were purchased by Microsoft for US$2.5 billion. Minecraft is the best-selling video game of all-time, with over 300 million copies sold and nearly 170 million monthly active players as of 2024.
Hidetaka Suehiro, known as SWERY or Swery65, is a Japanese video game director and writer. He was one of the founding members of the game development studio Access Games which is based in Osaka. His roles in the company included director, designer, and writer. He is the director of the games Spy Fiction, Deadly Premonition and D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die. He then left the company in 2016, and he founded his own studio, named White Owls Inc.
Slender: The Eight Pages, originally titled Slender, is a short first-person survival horror game based on the Slender Man, an infamous creepypasta. It was developed by independent developer Mark J. Hadley using the game engine Unity and was first released in June 2012 by his one-man studio Parsec Productions.
Proteus is a 2013 adventure game designed and created by Ed Key and David Kanaga for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita. In the game, the player traverses a procedurally generated environment without prescribed goals. The world's flora and fauna emit unique musical signatures, combinations of which cause dynamic shifts in audio based on the player's surroundings.
Early access, also known as alpha access, alpha founding, paid alpha, or game preview, is a funding model in the video game industry by which consumers can purchase and play a game in the various pre-release development cycles, such as pre-alpha, alpha, and/or beta, while the developer is able to use those funds to continue further development on the game. Those that pay to participate typically help to debug the game, provide feedback and suggestions, may have access to special materials in the game. The early-access approach is a common way to obtain funding for indie games, and may also be used along with other funding mechanisms, including crowdfunding. Many crowdfunding projects promise to offer access to alpha and/or beta versions of the game as development progresses; however, unlike some of these projects which solicit funds but do not yet have a playable game, all early access games offer an immediately playable version of the unfinished game to players.
Dread Central is an American website founded in 2006 that is dedicated to horror news, interviews, and reviews. It covers horror films, comics, novels, and toys. Dread Central has won the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award for Best Website four times and was selected as AMC's Site of the Week in 2008.
The Forest is a survival horror video game developed and published by Endnight Games. The game takes place on a remote heavily forested peninsula, where the player character Eric LeBlanc must fight off cannibalistic monsters, while searching for his son Timmy after a plane crash. The game features nonlinear gameplay in an open world environment played from a first-person perspective, with no set missions or quests, empowering the player to make their own decisions for survival. Following a four-year long early access beta phase releasing in 2014, the finished game was released for Windows in April 2018, and for the PlayStation 4 in November 2018. The game was a commercial success, selling over five million copies by the end of 2018. A sequel game, Sons of the Forest, was released in Early Access for Windows on February 23, 2023.
A jump scare is a scaring technique used in media, particularly in films such as horror films and video games such as horror games, intended to scare the viewer by surprising them with a scary face, usually co-occurring with a loud scream. The jump scare has been described as "one of the most basic building blocks of horror movies". Jump scares can startle the viewer by appearing at a point in the film where the soundtrack is quiet and the viewer is not expecting anything alarming to happen, or can be the sudden payoff to a long period of suspense.
A horror game is a video game genre centered on horror fiction and typically designed to scare the player. The term may also be used to describe tabletop games with horror fiction elements.
Carrion is a horror video game developed by Phobia Game Studio and published by Devolver Digital. Described as a "reverse-horror game", the game allows players to control a tentacled monster whose objective is to make its way through a facility, stalking and killing humans in its path.
Phasmophobia is a paranormal horror game by British indie game studio Kinetic Games. The game became available in early access for Microsoft Windows with virtual reality support in September 2020. In the game, one to four players work to complete a contract where they must identify the type of ghost haunting a designated site, with several other optional objectives. It is based on the popular hobby of ghost hunting.
World of Horror, also known by its Japanese title Kyōfu no Sekai (恐怖の世界), is a role-playing video game with a 1-bit pixel art style inspired by the works of H. P. Lovecraft and Junji Ito. The game was created by Polish developer Paweł Koźmiński and published by Ysbryd Games. It was released into early access on February 20, 2020 through Steam, GOG.com, and Microsoft Store. The full game was released on October 19, 2023 for macOS and Windows. It was released on October 26 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.
Poppy Playtime is an episodic survival horror video game series first developed and published in 2021 by American indie developer Mob Entertainment. The game is set in the fictional toy-making company named Playtime Co. The player controls a retired employee who receives a note inviting them back to the abandoned toy factory after the company's staff mysteriously disappeared. In the game, the player navigates through a first-person perspective and must solve puzzles, such as requiring a gadget named the GrabPack, to progress while avoiding various monsters in the factory.
Unsighted is a 2021 indie video game developed by Studio Pixel Punk and published by Humble Games for the Nintendo Switch, Windows, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. The game is a Metroidvania adventure game in which players assume the role of Alma, an automaton who has amnesia in the aftermath of a war between humans and robots. In Unsighted, the player and all non-player characters have a depleting in-game time limit. When the time limit expires for characters, they become "unsighted" and disappear from the game. Players must explore the world and fight enemies to locate a finite amount of meteor dust, which allows them to choose to increase the time limit for themselves or other characters.
Joe Henson is a British video game designer and marketing consultant. His projects include Don't Scream and Paranormal Tales.
Pools, stylised as POOLS in its logo, is a 2024 horror walking simulator developed by Finnish developer Tensori for Windows, macOS and Linux. It is an interactive adaptation of the liminal space phenomenon which gained popularity online since 2019. The game is set in a vast, labyrinthine pool complex.
Mouthwashing is a 2024 psychological horror adventure game developed by Wrong Organ and published by Critical Reflex. Played from a first-person perspective, the game follows the five crew members of the freighter spaceship Tulpar after a mysterious crash leaves them stranded in space, trapped within as supplies dwindle. The captain, alive but severely maimed and unable to speak or move, is blamed by the remaining crew for deliberately crashing the ship for reasons unknown. The game uses a split, nonlinear narrative. The game received positive reception from video game critics for its narrative and visual style.
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