16 Indie Horror Games To Pick Up During The Steam Halloween Sale
8) Pathologic – $1.29
This one kind of feels like cheating. Both The Void and Pathologic are created by the same studio, Ice-Pick Lodge. They are both incredibly strange Russian art games that push the boundary of what we even consider to be a game. Both present the player with a hopeless grey world, and a limited timeframe to try to make things slightly better. The two games are admittedly very similar. In the end, I’m including them both because Pathologic is just $1.29 right now. At that price, you have no excuse not to try it out. It’s weird and frustrating and even after playing it a dozen times I still can’t put my finger on why I like it. Maybe I’ll just have to play through another dozen times to figure it out.
7) Cold Fear – $2.49
After a couple of weird Russian art games, I figure you all deserve a break. Cold Fear is a zombie shooter from an age where shameless ripoffs were the norm. In this case, Cold Fear is a shameless ripoff of Resident Evil 4. It’s fine, everyone was doing it back then. You just had to have a good enough gimmick. For Cold Fear, that gimmick was to just shove in as many gimmicks as possible. Since Cold Fear takes place on a boat, why not have a mechanic where you need to hold onto things to steady your aim? And also since it’s on a rocking boat, why not have swinging boxes serve as environmental hazards? Also, boats are in the ocean, so why not have the waves battering the ship as another hazard? But wait, boats also have engines! Why not also have a part where you can knock zombies into the engine and turn them into red mist? There are like a zillion stupid gimmicks in Cold Fear, and they are all pointless and wonderful. At $2.49, it’s a great blast from the past.
6) Narcosis – $7.49
Narcosis has one of the most terrifying premises of any horror game I’ve ever played. After an underwater earthquake destroys your research base, you find yourself trapped in a pressurized dive suit on the bottom of the ocean. You’re safe from drowning and most of the wildlife. However, you are always running out of oxygen. Your suit has become your walking coffin. It’s a race against time to make it to the last evacuation point before you suffocate. But don’t panic! Panicking makes you breath harder, and waste oxygen. So you must remain calm. If only you didn’t move so damn slow… and you weren’t hallucinating.
5) Dead Synchronicity: Tomorrow Comes Today – $1.99
In Dead Synchronicity, the world is infected with a plague. No, not the people. They have their own problems/plague. The world itself is infected. Time, reality, existence itself is dying. It’s hard to explain the exact plot, but the sense of hopelessness is palpable to anyone. It’s all wrapped up in a classic point-and-click adventure package with an expressionist art style that should make it a perfect fit for anyone looking for a more thoughtful indie nightmare.
