The Mark Of Indie Horror Games

The following article discusses topics of a sensitive nature so some readers may find the following content disturbing. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the article belong solely to the author and do not reflect Sunway College and Sunway University’s values.

Content warning: Not suitable for those who are easily disturbed 

(Warning: This article contains spoilers for various indie horror games) 

Iconic indie horror game characters 

Gory details, crazy stories, an eerie chamber of sounds, creepy world-design and a terrifying monster character that wants your head in its grasp. Welcome to indie horror games. Gamers all around the world have been frightened by the horrors lurking in these memorable experiences. 

But what is an indie horror game? 

There is something about indie horror games that manages to haunt its players. Its monster character attacking the player at every turn, its story slowly unfolding itself piece by piece to a shocking conclusion, and leaving the player with a memorable experience. Arguably enough, some indie horror games far exceed the expectations of those of triple A horror games.

What makes indie horror games so impactful? Here we dive deep into various case studies, proving the viability of indie horror games. 

Indie horror games are limited in resources, but have high creativity 

Unlike triple A games, indie horror games, or indie games in general, are developed by a small group of developers. They are restrained from a lot of money and manpower than most game companies possess. Some games only have one person managing its code, graphics, game design, asset creation, music, UI, and holding together different branches of game development in order to create their own masterpiece.  

This does not mean that the games are worse than normal games developed by normal companies. Even if the scale of their game is much smaller, it challenges their creativity to think of new ways to scare players. 

All they need to do is pitch an idea– a unique concept normally integrated with their imagination of a horrifying experience, and display it on a platform like Steam, itch.io, and Epic Games. At this point of production, a free demo is released first, allowing all players to try out their horror game. If they succeed, they gain a supportive fanbase willing to cheer them on with additional funds and boosting popularity, allowing them to proceed with the expansion of the game to further levels. In the case of indie horror, it allows the indie developers to continue their story, toy with newer methods of terrifying the audience, and giving them one step closer to turning their passion project into something bigger. 

Happy Humble’s Burger Farm

Happy Humble’s Burger Farm

Set in the fictional world of New Elysian City, you are hired to work at Happy Humble’s Burger Farm, working as a fast food employee.

At its first phase, the game highlights the mundanity of a fast food worker, named E42 (the player). E42 serves burgers to seemingly robotic customers. As days pass, he meets the crazy mutated mascots of Happy Humble’s Burger Farm. Whenever E42 continuously messes up an order. The main mascot of the establishment, Happy the cow, will threaten him with their presence. If he does not defeat Happy quick enough by throwing rotten burgers at the monster, he dies. 

As E42 progresses, he explores more areas of his city. His next door neighbour, Toe, is in a state of numbness. Flies swerve around Toe as he always walks around the apartment like a living human without a soul. Toe’s stagnant state is also reflective of the people in New Elysian City. They linger around the dilapidated town as walking corpses, their faces dead of any sentiment. As the story progresses, E42 encounters more mutated mascots like Petey the mutated pig, who he has to defeat by serving it burgers until it explodes from a bursting stomach. 

            

       Happy the mutated cow                     Petey The mutated pig 

Something to note about the graphics is how objectively flawed it is, but there is genius behind this design once you understand the full context of the story. Happy Humble’s Burger Farm seems to aim towards a 90s aesthetic-type game. The restaurant lacks any form of depth, its living room conditions unpolished and lacking the natural tone to it. Many of the objects in the game, like stoves, cars, and tables have a lower amount of polygons, making the objects look unrealistic. There are even moments where various surfaces are fully pixelated. The low visual appeal contributes to the overall creep factor of the game, blending in perfectly with the disgustingly mutated monsters determined to kill you. 

Player (The Game Archivist) preparing a burger in the restaurant

Player(The Game Archivist) collecting chips on the pixelated floor

Juicy lore is revealed when E42 encounters a small robot head. Its name is V.I.C., and it was left behind by E7, a previous employee of Happy Humble’s Burger Farm who has gone missing. The robot head reveals a shocking revelation- E42 is stuck in a simulation designed by an evil corporation known as Obscura Biotech. E42 is their latest lab rat in the simulation-type experiment. The scientists of this company have surgically implanted a chip in his brain, which distorts his sense of reality to the simulation and suppresses his memories. V.I.C instructs E42 to assemble a keypad hacker, which could be used on all keypads present in the simulation in order to unravel more mysteries. 

Get ready for a more interesting exposition.Throughout the simulation, E42 is exposed to television programmes and radio broadcasts. Obscura uses these forms of media to send out audio and visual cues that hypnotises its test subjects to subject them to Obscura’s command. Long-term exposure of the hypnosis results in brain damage, which is evident when looking at Toe, a poor man who lost his mind to the simulation. 

After encountering more monsters, E42 discovers the schematics of a helmet designed by E7. This helmet could be used to fry the chip implanted inside his brain, allowing his brain to break free from the control of Obscura. Once he accomplishes this and puts on the helmet, old memories flood back in the form of a flashback. E42’s real name is Ryder Heitzman, a reporter who was trying to discover the truth behind Obscura Biotech but was captured by their employees and used as a test subject for their gain. With the chip fried to a crisp, Ryder notices messages sprawled across the walls of his surroundings, seemingly left behind by E7. These messages lead him to more simulations underneath Happy Humble’s Burger Farm, providing the pathway for his exit. 

After going through many trials and tribulations, barely escaping from the clutches of Happy and the other mutated monsters, E42 escapes the laboratory he was confined in for many years, stepping foot into mother nature. Here, the graphics suddenly look like they come from a different game. There’s shading, tone, varying gradients of colour, reflecting the reality of the surroundings E42 is presently at. 

Left pic: The island (Reality)  Right pic: fake New Elysium City (Simulation) differences

This goes to show how much indie horror games can be a platform for creative storytelling and innovative design, even with limited resources. Happy Humble’s Burger Farm uses its intentionally poor graphics to create the creepy restaurant and people surrounding the player, making the player feel disturbed. As the game progresses, the creepy environment serves as a subtle hint to the true nature of the restaurant and its world. Not to mention, the simplistic gameplay of surviving the monsters by reusing the cooking mechanic. 

Happy Humble’s Burger Farm is an example of indie horror games that leverages an indie developer’s limitations for a successful horror experience that blends everything well through its imaginative concepts, compelling narratives, and clever use of available resources. Its story still has many loose knots to tie that I won’t be revealing in this article, but I highly recommend one to give this game a go and discover the mysteries behind the mutated monsters, the true motives behind Obscura and more information about E7 oneself. 

(Or you can just google it). 

Unique art and game design 

Games like Happy Humble Burger’s Farm are made on a smaller scale. Therefore, its budget requirements do not require too much resources. Nevertheless, there are certain indie horror developers that have high ambitions when it comes to their horror game. After all, not every indie horror game is designed to be nostalgic to the 90s. Some developers go high and beyond with their horror games, creating the best quality experience one could expect from a normal triple A game. The sacrifice? Time and effort. 

Dark Deception

Did you grow up playing arcade games? Do you like pacman? Was it fun and nostalgic to you? Do you like horror games too? 

Sample gameplay of Dark Deception Chapter 1- Demo 

Dark Deception’s gameplay is essentially a 3D first person pacman. The game sends you to different mazes to collect shards. The “ghosts” in the game are monsters of hell, chasing you down the hallways of each maze. Your best friends are your power-ups, as you go through each level you gain more powers that become absolutely necessary to outrun the devilish monsters. Get too close to them? You’ll be treated with a jumpscare and you lose a life. Lose all three lives and its game over. 

The various monsters eager to kill you in Dark Deception

Arguably the most horrifying aspect of Dark Deception are the monsters.The game currently has eight mazes, each with their own unique version of a monster. There’s the hotel monkeys, brandishing their daggers in both hands as blood drips from their teeth, chasing you down the cramped hallways of an abandoned hotel; The pristine golden mansion reflecting luxuries and wealth in every inch, its monsters- golden statues, pretend to be static as they wait for the right opportunity to chop you down with their axes once they believe you aren’t looking; There’s the circus of clowns chasing after you in its epilepsy-inducing environment and chaotics traps… Each maze and monster is iconic in its own way, exploring its own central theme. Thus immersing you in a completely different universe. Its horror is further enhanced with its lore; The fact that most of these monsters chasing you down were once humans who did bad deeds when living is truly tragic, yet they have never once shown you an ounce of sympathy. 

The game’s overall infrastructure design delivers a riveting world for everyone to enjoy. It gets innovative with every maze advancement, forcing the player to think of new strategies as they adapt to harder challenges. The most horrifying experience will be the first playthrough of every new maze, having been used to the previous maze and being thrown into another maze completely different than the one before; You never know what to expect.

Another aspect of Dark Deception that deserves many praises is its sound design. As someone who has played the game, I can guarantee that headphones are a must to succeed. The game punishes you for not wearing headphones. Subtle details like footsteps, laughter, and the dramatic music that blasts in your head when enemies are nearby are all guides for you to determine the monster’s locations and plan your next move. We can’t forget to mention Dark Deception’s music, which has the right amount of thrill that enhances the chase sequences with the monsters. And yes, each maze has its own set of chase music. As the monster’s approach you, the music’s rhythm and loudness is cranked to maximum. You can hear the laughter of the enemies echoing in your eardrums, pleased to capture you. With all your might you run as fast as you can, activating your speed boost, waiting for the music to calm down and listening for their fading footsteps. When things do calm down, you can never truly take a breather. You never know when something turns the corner and attacks you. 

And of course, we can’t forget to mention the game’s superb voice acting. The voice actors did a great job. In the later levels, famous voice actor Tara Strong gets invited to voice almost the entire female cast, and she definitely delivers! 

Dark Deception- Monsters & Mortals                        Super Dark Deception 

It’s hard to imagine that a game like this is developed by a team of three. However, the game is still a work in progress. The final part of the game is set to release by the end of this year, marking it six years since the game’s first official release in 2018. This is not counting the pre-alpha demo of the game that was released in 2014. So technically, the game is 10 years in the making. Back then, internal affairs and lack of budget contributed to the game’s slow release; Such are the challenges of indie game development. Currently, the team is thriving, releasing a spin-off multiplayer game (Monsters and Mortals) in 2020, enhanced editions of the game in 2021, and this year, they have an 8 bit version of the game scheduled to release. Such are the ambitions of indie developers, and they have not disappointed with their performance. Looking past the bugs, Dark Deception is a ride that never stops getting exciting as the story continues to build up to its climax.

Darkwood

In most horror movies, jumpscares are one of the most common methods filmmakers use to “scare” people. In video games, jumpscares would usually be associated with game over screens of a hooligan screaming at you, shocking you out of nowhere, usually the punishment for losing the game (Thanks, FNAF). Jumpscares have their scary moments, but they fall flat when the player keeps going through the same routine of startles, dying and restarting. Top that up with poor execution and you have a group of gamers pulling their hair out instead of peeing their pants while playing a “horror” game. 

Darkwood is one of those games that never lets your heart jump out of your chest from a startle. In other words, its horror is done through a deeply unsettling sound design, environment design and game design, rather than jumpscares. 

The top-down view of Darkwood. There is only such little vision supporting you in your journey

The picture above shows a normal level of the game. You can already tell how different this game is from other horror games from its top-down viewpoint.  Darkwood explores a different perspective of horror from its vantage point. 

The game takes place in post-apocalyptic Poland. From the heart of Darkwood comes a fatal plague, turning the forest into a terrible place where nature itself is against you. The government has sealed off the forest for the safety of everyone else in Poland, occasionally sending in teams to investigate the source of the plague. You were a part of those teams, until your team was attacked while camping in the woods. You, as the only survivor remaining, must return home through the path you had once taken, while fending off against these creatures. 

By daytime, you walk the path back home,rummaging through abandoned houses along the way in search for supplies to survive the night. By night time, where the plague is said to be most active, you camp in your hideout, dealing with the threats of Darkwood’s creatures. Mushroom men, centipedes, big dogs, chompers, banshees and many other creatures aim to kill you in your hideout. With a weapon in hand, you must slay creature after creature, fighting with bated breath until the clock chimes 8am, the mark of daytime. Rinse and repeat, with the levels getting harder as you progress through the game and story. This is the backbone of Darkwood’s gameplay. 

Darkwood’s horror comes from its ability to bring up the intensity of the atmosphere over long periods of time. Imagine walking through an abandoned home with only a cone of vision in front of you. You can still see things outside of the cone of vision but the true terrors- the creatures lurking in the darkness, can only be seen within the cone of vision. Sometimes, this darkness is too pitch black for you to see anything; You can only rely on such little vision you have to navigate your surroundings with! Things get worse when there’s many of these creatures coming after you, you have to keep turning your vision in all directions in order to slaughter all of them. If you need to run, you have to turn your back on the creature, which creates more problems in itself! Naturally, survival instincts start kicking in, welcoming anxious thoughts- where are the monsters? Which ones should I attack first? Where’s the exit? Where’s my hideout? 

Picture above: The enemy invisible when facing away the the monster
Picture below: The player facing the enemy to determine the monster’s position

Captions: YouTuber Freddy Asser demonstrating strategy to defeat the mushroom man

Not only is there so much going on in Darkwood’s gameplay, sound effects consistently haunt you throughout the levels. You can’t help but feel that you are never alone in the world of Darkwood. Despite turning your cone of vision 360 degrees, you can never make out what’s out there. There are sounds of all sorts coming and going as they please. As you tip-toe across the creaky floorboards, you can hear faint pitter-patters of footsteps sounding behind you. Combine it with the squeaky opening of doors, the sound effects of picking up useful objects, the screeches of furniture dragged across the floor in order to access different areas of the house; There’s always an uncertainty in the sounds you create, making the game very tense. In other areas of the game, like the swamp for instance, terrifying screams could echo in the distance. You only imagine what’s really out there…  

All in all, the game receives a golden medal for manipulating its atmosphere rather than relying on traditional jumpscares. I’ve barely touched the tip of the iceberg of Darkwood’s dark fairy tale story. As you, the protagonist, continue to make your way home, your sanity starts to get questioned. Especially when the game starts giving you the choice to do questionable things. 

The protagonist describing his insane actions, his sanity long gone since the start of the apocalypse 

Both Darkwood and Dark Deception are challenging survival horror games. Both will always keep you alert, forcing you to lookout for any potential danger coming your war. They are both ambitious, made with passion and certainly have more that meets the eye of its dark realities. They represent indie horror developer’s tenacity in order to publish the best experience they can muster. I highly recommend checking out these games yourself to unfold the lore behind these two masterpieces. 

Subverting expectations 

What about horror isn’t fascinating when what you expect does not happen? Many indie horror games love to explore different perspectives and break the status quo. Sometimes, a successful horror game needs to take an opposite direction on the trending horror games to introduce a fresh perspective to horror.  

Doki Doki Literature Club!

The main title screen of Doki Doki Literature Club!

From the title screen, it seems weird that such a pinkish screen could fit among the pictures of such grim titles. Yet, this game has gone down in history to becoming one of the most bone chilling horror games out there. We’ve already established how indie horror can take on many different forms. But if you’ve read the previous case studies you can certainly see a pattern- horrible monsters chasing you down the map, creepy surroundings keeping you on edge, maybe getting startled along the way. Thus was the trend in indie horror games, and most mainstream horror. 

Nevertheless, a team of indie developers decided to take this concept to a whole new level. In 2017, Team Salvato created Doki Doki Literature Club, a visual novel dating simulator masking horror beneath an inviting shell, teaching fans all around the world to never trust everything on a surface level. 

For starters, Steam has categorised the game under “Psychological Horror”. Furthermore, there’s the warning that is displayed when you first boot up the game: 

The warning page when you first enter the game

Just like Happy Humble’s Burger Farm, I need to explain the full context of the story in order to showcase the genius behind this game. Please skip to the next section if you do not wish to be spoiled in any forms. The game is free, and if you haven’t tried it out, I highly recommend you do so to gain the best experience ever. 

You are pushed by your childhood friend, Sayori, to join your school’s literature club, composed of four lovely girls. The oldest and most mature of the bunch- bookish Yuri, whose shy and brooding nature earns her many fans. We have short-tempered Natsuki, her feisty nature hiding her caring side and love for all things cute. There’s the girl who dragged you into the club, Sayori, the happy-go-lucky goofball who always sees the bright side. And last if not least, the president of the club, Monika.

Just like any other dating simulator, you choose from either Sayori, Natsuki or Yuri as your lover. You earn more time to spend with your favoured girl by writing a poem appealing to her, or choosing to help her with preparations for the school’s festival. Each interaction with your preferred girl will slowly lead to the girl falling in love with you. You unlock cute moments with them, and it truly seems like nothing more. Until it isn’t, as all these fun interactions slowly crack open the sheep’s clothing, revealing the horrors behind this game. 

From left to right: Sayori, Yuri, Monika and Natsuki

Choosing words for a poem for your favoured girl 

Regardless of whether or not you choose her as your date, Sayori will confess to you about her situation, that her clumsiness and disorganisation is due to her lack of self-love towards herself. She’s always late because she wakes up every day with no purpose to get out of bed. Her happy-go-lucky nature and love for all things are methods she uses to cope with her depression. The moment is sweet; You as the protagonist comfort her in a hug, telling her that you love her, officiating the both of you as a couple. Sayori cries tears of being touched and thanks you. 

When the day of the festival arrives, Sayori is nowhere to be seen in the school halls. All the club members are worried about her, with Monika telling you that you “kind of left her hanging this morning, you know?”. You read her poem in the pamphlet of the festival. Instead of a poem, Sayori has written one single phrase repeatedly across the entire paper: “Get out of my head”. Anxious thoughts fill your head as you decide to check on Sayori. You reach her house, making your way up the stairs to the door of her bedroom. When you push open the door, you arrive at an unsettling scene. For the sake of all of us not getting disturbed for the rest of the day, let’s just say that Monika’s words were quite literal with what happened to Sayori. 

Revealing the contents of Sayori’s bedroom, the game’s music plays off-pitch, a static filter showcasing the gravity of the situation. The protagonist’s shock is quickly replaced with regret, blaming himself her Sayori’s downfall and lamenting about his life never being the same. An “END” shows up on screen, and the game returns to the main menu. However, things aren’t the same as they used to be. 

The title screen after the events that occured to Sayori

It’s like Sayori had never existed at all. All the members of the club, including the MC you play as, have forgotten about her very existence. The game tries to continue on without Sayori in the picture, with Monika replacing her as the one who invites you to the club. Everything continues to play out as it normally was, write poems, join the festival, hangout with the girl you like. But even the others start to exhibit more aggressive behaviours. 

Natsuki has lost her cute side and her jerk side becomes more ruthless in the way she acts, constantly getting into harsh arguments with Yuri. Speaking of the latter, she becomes very creepy whenever she’s around you, displaying disturbing acts of obsession and condescension. One time, she mentioned “touching herself” with the pen she had taken from you. Sometimes when you interact with her, her pupils dilate and her demeanour changes from calm to creepy, as she talks about wanting to crawl inside of you. The poems these girls exchange with you start to get out of hand- Unintelligible writing and more frequent gibberish. Even the dialogue of the game suffers from changes. 

Natsuki glitching out, the textbox in a different colour 

Yuri glitching out

Bloodied poem given to you by Yuri 

It’s hard to imagine these unhinged girls the same girls you had met on your previous playthrough. They’ve become corrupted, glitchy and by no means are themselves. However, one character remains the same… Monika. She continues throughout the story as calm and composed as she always was, seemingly unfazed by her friend’s new behaviours. The more you continue on, the harder it is to not get suspicious of her, as even your in-game choices start to get manipulated. For example, when choosing between Natsuki, Yuri or Monika to help out for the festival, the mouse’s cursor will automatically hover over Monika’s name. Try to move the mouse away from Monika’s name, and you’ll be in a struggle against your mouse that will always drag itself back to hover over Monika’s name. If you do manage to click the names of the other girls’, the game glitches to a white screen. Realistic eyes stare at you for a long while, until a long line of options can be chosen, but those options display one name, and one name only, Monika. 

Miss suspicious reveals her true intentions after Yuri stabs herself to death, in which she apologises for how she didn’t realise: “the script was broken that badly”. Monika deletes Yuri’s character file and Natsuki’s character file, saying she will fix everything. The game reboots, but no title screen appears. What appears is a scene of Monika sitting at a desk, passionately staring directly into you, the player. 

While chatting with your Monika, she confesses to her involvement in the game’s broken state

She confesses about her self-awareness that she, along with her clubmates, were never real. She has felt empty for a very long time, knowing that she was just a character in a video game. There was hope when she knew such an entity like us, the player, existed in this fictional world. But even in the dating simulator, the player could never interact with her as much as the other girls. No matter how much she manipulated the script, whether it be making Sayori more depressed, or turning Yuri into an obsessive creep, nothing she could do would make her closer to you, the player, the only real thing left in her world. She did not want to watch from the sidelines as everyone else gets a chance to confess their feelings to you. She did whatever it took to get her one step closer to you, finally resulting in the deletion of all three of her friends, until it’s just Monika and you left. 

Once done with her confession, Monika feels joy in the moment of just the two of you. She forces you to write a poem about her, and soaks in the spotlight. In order to defeat her, the player has to utilise an out-of-the-box gameplay: They have to go to the game files and delete her character file. 

Youtuber JoshiBall deleting monika.chr file in his desktop

Returning to the game, Monika will be very betrayed that you deleted her. But she is no longer a threat. The game reboots once again, with everything back to normal. In the title screen, only Yuri, Natsuki and Sayori are present. Sayori has replaced Monika as club president and everyone is back to their old selves. That is, until it is revealed Sayori has become self-aware. She knows everything is an illusion and craves to be with you forever. Somehow, Monika returns in the form of written text, trying to stop Sayori from harming the player. After witnessing what Sayori was about to do, Monika concludes that the literature club is nothing but a place of misery. In true villain fashion, she says goodbye to the player, Sayori and the literature club, deleting everything in the game. The credits roll. 

Doki Doki Literature Club was the first of its prime. It scared the heck out of a million people who played the game with its constant fourth wall breaking. And while the buggy messes and tackling of serious themes like depression creep people out, the true horrors lies in how one character, Monika, could go to such lengths to attain your love. How her self-awareness led to the destruction of the game, and ultimately her friends. Everything that has happened was a result of her desire for you, not the main character in the visual novel, you, the player. Until everything left is just Monika. Just Monika. 

A gripping story that stretches far and wide, limited to the developer’s and the community’s imagination 

Most of the case studies I’ve used, if not all, are story driven games. There’s a main story that plays out in front of your eyes and drives the direction of the game, enhancing the narrative with reasonable explanations to why things play out as it is. 

Despite this, there’s always something else to explore in these games other than the main story. It’s a recurring trend amongst indie horror developers to leave small trinkets of  lore in their games that hint to the stories behind the world and monsters that inhabit them. These snippets of lore are optional and don’t mess with the gameplay. After all, some player’s don’t care about these lore bits and just want to play the game. 

It was Five Nights at Freddy’s that would bring a new genre of horror to the table and introduce this unconventional form of storytelling where instead of being delivered on a silver platter, the players have to piece together the story themselves. 

Five Nights at Freddy’s (FNAF)

Bonnie the animatronic right outside your security desk 

The game has you stuck in a night-shift security job at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria. You’re in a cramped security desk, surveilling the halls of the pizzeria through the security cameras in your tablet. You see the three animatronic mascots of the restaurant, Freddy, Bonnie and Chica on the stage. The whole building is powered by one battery supply. The lights, the fan at your desk, the monitor and the doors consume power whenever you use them.  A surge of anticipation spikes within yourself, once you switch to the camera at the show stage and realise Bonnie, the rabbit animatronic, has disappeared from the stage. You frantically switch between camera after camera, and you finally found him, his silhouette barely visible in the darkness of the backstage. 

After monitoring Bonnie for a long while, you switch cameras and realise that Chica is gone from the stage. She was easy to spot at the party tables with her robotic beak wide agape, her deadshot eyes staring right into the camera. Switching cameras, Bonnie was gone from his original location. Before long, you find Bonnie in the hallways, seemingly walking towards the security office. After a while, you pull down the monitor, turning on the lights to the hallway on your left side. Bonnie stares right at you through the window. You quickly slam the left doors shut. In order to see whether he is truly gone, you have to keep turning on the flickering lights to check his presence. You pray for him to leave as you watch the power start to decrease at an alarming rate. Yet, Bonnie never leaves, he continues to stare at you from the windows. Giving up, you decide to check the cameras again for Chica, but she’s nowhere to be seen. A raspy voice plays in your head and as you pull down your monitor, you are greeted by the screeches of Chica, screaming at you in front of your face. Congratulations! You have died in the hands of a chicken robot. 

You lose! Chica kills you by screaming at your face

This was FNAF’s gameplay. Survive against killer animatronics with a limited power source by 6am.There’s a total of five nights (with a bonus sixth and seventh night). The number of animatronics that attack you per night increases as the nights go on, alongside their aggressiveness and difficulty. By night 6, five animatronics are coming for your blood. 

This game was a hit when it was released in 2014, scaring players all around the world with deadly mascot monsters slowly making their way to the security office. A seed was planted that would grow a large community of fans who loved the game. And as the game continued to grow in size, It didn’t take long for many people to realise the vast lore hidden beneath such a simple point-and-click survival horror. 

People would notice weird occurances in their usual gameplay. A great example of this would be the four newspaper clippings that would have a low chance of replacing the Rules for Safety paper: 

FNaF 1 Newspapers and Clippings – FNaFLore.com

These newspaper clippings tell the story of 5 children reported missing, who were lured to a back room by a mysterious man in a mascot suit. This man has been arrested as a suspect for the missing children’s case, but the bodies themselves were never found. Later, the pizzeria was threatened to shut down over lack of sanitation, as many have reported on foul odour coming from the animal mascots. 

These rare screens have prompted theorists around the world to put on their thinking caps and solve the mysteries behind these five missing children. Theories were put on display for many to review, each with their own perspectives on the timeline of events. The general agreement was that the bodies of the five missing children were stuffed in the animatronic suits of Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, Foxy and Golden Freddy. By connecting the dots, many people have come to the conclusion that the souls of the missing children were now trapped in the animatronic suits. The children yearn for revenge, and they seem to think you, the night guard, is their killer, aiming to exact their vengeance upon you. All that lore from a bunch of newspaper clippings huh? 

Another of these weird anomalies would be the “It’s Me” messages that rarely come and go in their gameplay. This is normally expressed through various means: Flashes of “It’s Me” appearing on screen along with brief glimpses of Golden Freddy; Pirate’s Cove displaying a sign of “It’s Me”, instead of the usual “Out of Order” sign. Sometimes there will be “It’s Me” messages smeared on the walls of the East hallway, painted alongside the mysterious newspaper clippings. Knowing what they knew about the missing children in the animatronics, people think these “It’s Me” messages are alluding to the angry children telling the player of their existence.

Normal camera shot of pirate’s cove, with the sign saying: “Out of Order”. There’s Foxy ready to leave once you pull down the monitor. Say hi to Foxy!

It’s Me message replacing “Out of Order” sign

To cover all the fan theories that stemmed from this game would be like stuffing an entire ocean into a fish bowl, nightly impossible. Especially when the game continues to grow its franchise sequel after sequel, giving players more pieces of lore to dissect. As of today, FNAF has a total of 6 sequels, 2 VR games, and one AR game. Many books have been published set in the same universe as FNAF. For every piece of media released by Scott Cawthon, there will always be its scare and its secret  jigsaw puzzles hidden in view for the crazy theorists to connect. Many theories have come and go, but everything results in more stitches of a tapestry of a huge timeline, built from the stitches of the smallest details ever recorded. 

In essence, FNAF’s storytelling is accomplished by theorists who love to butting heads and connecting the dots. As the franchise grows, old theories get washed away by new theories, people’s ideas of the story continue to change and evolve. Everyone is one step closer to figuring out the mysteries behind these creepy animatronics. 

Indie horror games inspire it’s fanbase, promoting more people to take up game development 

FNAF’s success has impacted a lot of lives. Many YouTubers like Markiplier  and jacksepticeye  who covered the video game, and YouTube channel The Game Theorists , that covered FNAF theories, rose to popularity. There are fanarts, fanfictions, discussions and theories spread across the Internet. 

From left to right, top to bottom: FNAF 1, FNAF 2, FNAF 3, FNAF 4, FNAF world, FNAF Sister Location, FNAF Pizzeria Simulator, FNAF Ultimate Custom Night, FNAF VR Help Wanted, FNAF Security Breach

A fan who has collected over 170 merch items 6 years ago. Who knows how many they have collected now?

FNAF would also be the spark to ignite more game developers to create their own horror games. Many fans started recreating their own twist to the FNAF genre, resulting in the creation of fan games such as Five Nights at Candy’s, Five Nights at Juniors and even remakes of the original FNAF games. Some of these creators would go on to create their own horror games. A lot of these games use the same method of storytelling FNAF has done to introduce their video game’s exposition without boring the player, making it an optional knowledge the player can discover if they are curious. Secret notes, encrypted language, journal entries, cassette tapes, you name it. 

Huggy Wuggy- The large toy mascot greeting you in Poppy Playtime’s factory

With the years following the release of FNAF,so too arose its own genre of horror- mascot horror. These games echo many similarities to FNAF, but each game has their own spin into the genre. From the black and white animation studio infested with ink monsters and corrupted cartoon characters like BATIM (Bendy and the Ink Machine), or the eerie abandoned toy factory haunted by the giant bloodthirsty toys of Poppy Playtime. These mascot horrors have also been huge hits in the community, resulting in their respective franchises of fan creations. The cycle of inspiration continues. 

It goes to show how much of an impact FNAF has to the global gaming community. If one man can leave such an impact, why can’t you? 

Conclusion

For one, indie horror does its job well, terrorising the player in different ways. Whether it’s their strong narrative filled with twists and turns and mysteries to be solved, with the main puzzle forming together into one cohesive and awestruck narrative. Or, indie horror’s different forms of gameplay in terms of role-playing, visual novels and survival. Whether it’s their polished animations, immersive atmosphere and sounds that crawl up your spine… Ultimately, the success of indie horror games lies in two things – creativity and passion.  

Indie horror games have done a great job in leaving a mark beyond just scaring you. It touches your soul. It haunts your mind with thoughts, reminding you of its terrors. It either shakes you throughout the entire day, or leaves you awake at night. It stays in the back of your mind, occasionally popping up as you obsess over its brilliance. Such “horror” truly leaves an impact on its audience. Thus, indie horror developers garner more attention and support from their audience. As long as it has its audience, nothing will hold back indie horror games from taking over the Internet. 

I highly encourage everyone to try out the indie horror games I’ve listed down. It was hard to choose between which indie horror games to list down in this article. My indecisiveness killed me inside but I ultimately chose these five indie horror games to cover as they connect to me personally. But I know there are many indie horror games out there waiting to be discovered. Thanks for reading this article, and I hope I’ve convinced you to try out an indie horror game. Happy screaming!

Written By: Tan Lee Ann

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