SILENT HILL Inspired Horror Game UNNERVING Releases Demo On Itch.io

So it’s that time of year again, where all us Americans are too stuffed with turkey and holiday merriment to get any real work done. This means that my usual deluge of emails cuts back to a trickle. It makes my job slightly tougher since I can’t just copy/paste press releases to meet my daily content requirements. Now I have to do real work, which is not why I got into video game journalism. On the bright side, it’s given me plenty of time to sift through itch.io. If you’re not aware, itch.io is an open storefront where you’re free to submit basically whatever you want. Looking to push out your game jam project for a few extra bucks? Have at it. Is your game little more than a proof of concept? More power to you. Actually wading through the new release tab is generously described as torturous, but itch.io gets a lot of points for supporting a robust conceptual horror market. Right under their browse games tab, your choices are indie games, free games, fun games, and horror games. If you’ve got some extra time and a lot of patience, definitely check it out.

For the rest of you, I’m going to do my best to try and bring you some highlights. I previously covered the Silent Hill Remake demo, which got a decent amount of traffic. So here’s another cool one for you fans of retro-horror. Introducing Unnerving, a horror game straight out of the PlayStation era. Here’s more info from the developer MACH31294:

Unnerving is a simple Third- person Survival Horror experience  with pixelated textures and low poly graphics, influenced by pc, psx and ps2 survival horror games of the 90’s/ early 2000’s,  like Alone in the Dark, Resident Evil (1-4) and Silent Hill (Team Silent), as well as 90’s series and movies like The X-Files and Stephen King’s work, among others.

Okay, MACH31294’s strong suit clearly isn’t writing flowery descriptions of his game. It sounds pretty generic, but the demo hit me right in the nostalgias. It’s got grotesque monsters that somehow remain terrifying despite the technical limitations. It’s even got tank controls and a fog wall. It does innovate somewhat, with some over the shoulder camera segments that make the game feel more like Silent Hill 1.5.

The Unnerving demo is short, and admittedly buggy as fuck. MACH31294 isn’t really hiding that though and clearly states on the game’s page that it’s a work in progress. So expect some serious jank. The final game is projected to be finished by the end of the year. MACH31294 states that the final product isn’t very long, but will make up for it with three different endings. Very retro. And honestly, the whole thing is free. So why not give it a shot? It just might give you that shot of retro horror we old-folks crave. So head on over to Unnerving’s itch.io page, and check it out.