Order Up!: Adventures in Free Steam Horror
By Rae
During my Spooktober adventures, I decided to really startdigging down into the horror games available for PC, so I set out into a deepdive of the horror tag on Steam. What I didn’t realize at the time was exactlyhow much there is out there for free. The Steam store has a heftyamount, and if you start branching out to itch.io or searching through Google,you can find a whole lot more.
Of course, unless it’s well-received enough to make a splash(for example, Doki Doki Literature Club), it’s hard to gauge what your experiencewill be like. With Spooktober only ten months away, I’ve decided to dedicatesome time in 2020 to trying out some of the free horror world! Occasionallythroughout the year I’ll do a rundown of some of the games I’ve played. DuringOctober, we’ll take a look at which games really stood out among the rest.
For now, welcome to my first adventure into free horror,featuring games from the Steam store.
Note: All of these games contain disturbing orviolent themes, images, and storylines. Please use your discretion if startingimagery or stories have an effect on you.
In At Home Alone, you’ll take the place of a young girlwhose mother is headed off to another day of work. Left to your own devices,what will you do with your day? Before long, the doorbell will ring, and youcan invite a boy in to play with you. But who is he? You’re about to start adisturbing chain of events with just one invitation…
There are some details I really enjoyed about At Home Alone.Once you finish one playthrough, the next will have some new options and events– slowly you’ll uncover more of the story. But the game doesn’t really let youget there organically. Most options that you have really aren’t optional atall, and if you try to do anything outside of what will progress the story, thegame will stop you. All in all, it feels like a VN more than anything – justwith a few extra steps of movement. The translation grammar isn’t great, butthe majority of the story is understandable despite that, and I did find thecreepy tidbits that tell you the full story to be really interesting.
Final thoughts: I wouldn’t say that it’s not worthplaying, but it is an extremely linear playstyle, so don’t expect to wander thehouse and discover all sorts of things. If you’re curious about what happensbut don’t want to go through it yourself, there’s always Youtube – I think thetwists are completely worthwhile. There’s also a pay-for follow-up, though I’veyet to try it.
Her Lie I Tried to Believe (Hangover Cat Purroduction)
Her Lie I Tried to Believe is 100% a story with somebackground art – you don’t get choices to make, or things to do. Instead, youclick through paragraphs of story, with occasionally changing scenes.
The story stars a young man recounting the story of a girlhe hated throughout all of school – his imagined rival and longtime obsession.When he has the opportunity to be with her and finally act on his hatred, itstarts a volatile relationship with an ending I didn’t see coming until thefinal few panels. The problem here is that that story… feels questionable. As afan of horror, I’ve long accepted that it’s going to show me the darkest partsof humanity, and viewpoints and actions that disgust me. What struck me aboutthis one is that it seems to ignore its violently horrendous protagonist infavour of portraying the manipulative ways of the woman he’s long chased after.At some point it felt less like a jarring story (and something that I’m notsure why it was really tagged with horror instead of drama), and more likesomething written for the most possible shock value.
While I normally don’t care much about translation errors(especially in games with low budgets), they’re especially noticeable when your“game” is nothing but writing, and they were definitely noticeable here.
Final thoughts: In hindsight, I’d have probablyskipped this one. There are stronger stories all around the internet, and theoccasionally changing background art didn’t quite qualify this as a game. Whilesome reviewers have praised the story – which certainly does have its twistsand surprises, and is pretty uncomfortable to read – the last section of thestory I found myself wanting to rush through because I was getting a littletired of it.
Dissolving also is a VN without so many branches, though itdoes have a couple hidden details and an unlockable second part to the story.You begin the game as a young woman visiting her shut-in ex-boyfriend. It’salways been a little odd, but on this particular day things take a turn for theextra uncomfortable when he refuses to come out of his room, just leaving anenvelope with cash and texting some instructions. Soon she uncovers the storyof a cult-like group offering “ascendance” to the web – wouldn’t you want tolive forever?
Despite not feeling a whole lot like a game, I enjoyed thecreepy story in Dissolving. There are just a few secrets, which are hidden inwhere you click on the screen (the ending screen of one of the scenarios givesa hint on how to find them). I ended the playthroughs with some questions, butthe lore hidden within the game was super unsettling and kind of fun. The artand music were a nice touch.
Final thoughts: I actually enjoyed Dissolving. Theextra lore didn’t feel punishing to find and the hints felt pretty clear.You’re able to complete the game without getting frustrated or dedicating a tonof time to hopelessly trying to figure out what to do. If you don’t like VNs,this definitely isn’t a good choice for you – you’re essentially just clicking throughoutit. But overall it was a fun little story that was spooky enough to leave animpression.
Will is in love with Liza. She’s beautiful, smart, perfect…but would she ever be interested in him? Lucky you – you’re at school late andso is she, finishing up her homework before rushing off to her part-time job.You’ve got five minutes to decided if, and how, you’ll confess. What could gowrong, right?
Like At Home Alone, Confess My love has cumulative storyplaythroughs. Each playthrough is short (some can be done in a minute), and asyou add them up you’ll uncover more secrets that lead you to more of thenumerous endings available. It’s actually quite a bit of fun, and with enoughexploration you can easily uncover new things to try for different endings. Myonly real complaint is that some of the timed endings require some heftyguesswork to realize they exist, and I did end up using a guide to findeverything.
Final thoughts: Confess My Love is a nice little mixof cute and creepy, with a nice little twist ending. I rather enjoyedcollecting all the various conclusions. It doesn’t take up a whole lot of time,and is pretty worth it, I think, if you’ve got the dedication to get throughall the endings to find out what really has taken place.
Traum drops us into the end of Mike’s workday. He’s therelate, getting prepared to go home to his family, but on the way out thingsstart getting… spooky. It’s up to you to lead Mike through the office, ahospital, and home, all while strange things continue to happen. To makematters worse, he’s certain his wife is having an affair.
The gameplay is a little light in Traum – you won’t findtricky puzzles, but you can move the character around to explore and engagewith your surroundings. The interactivity helped the jump scares be a bitspookier than something flashing across the screen of a VN, so I don’t reallyhave any complaints there. Overall, the story was spooky and while my chat andI saw the twist coming toward then end, we did spend a lot of the gamewondering what would happen. Even for a story that’s been done before, we gotpretty involved in it.
Final thoughts: If you’re good with light-gameplayRPG maker games, I think Traum is pretty worth it. It’s linear enough that youwon’t spend ages caught up with what to do, but allows for a good amount ofexploration and guessing. The art and music were far better than I expected ina freebie game, and we had a lot of fun getting to the final plot twist.
We’ll be sampling games and doing a few more roundups offree and low-cost horror throughout the year! Got a recommendation? Send it myway!
Order Up! is a weekly column featuring indie-focused reviews, news, or interviews! We like old games just as much as new ones and are always looking for something to check out. Have a game recommendation, a project, or a company you want to talk about? Email me at rae@thegeeklygrind.com or find me on Twitter @ArcanaChance