Interestingly, this appears to only work when you're logged in. I was logged out and saw lots of horror games, and was confused.
this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2024
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Oh interesting. Wonder why?
I never understood why itch.io had so many horror games. Once a year I will make a Spooky game around Halloween, but they're never that spooky, just Halloween themed usually.
I think it's because horror's a fairly easy genre to get into. It's the same reason there's a lot of indie horror movies I'd imagine
I dunno, I suck at horror. Every time I try to do horror it turns out. not. that.
Haha I guess it's also an easy tag to apply to nearly anything. Slightly dark theme? Horror. Mildly upsetting? Horror. Involves a monster of some kind? Also horror.
"Horror" is easy. Dim lighting, spooky creature, feelings of powerlessness(such as limited view, limited to no combat capabilities, restrictions like a stamina meter, the like).
GOOD horror is hard. Good horror is the kind that sticks around with you, leaves you feeling uneasy even after the end. That takes talent, creativity, and genuinely, a bit of bravery. It takes understanding what makes us feel afraid. Facing your own fears, making them a reality, distorting that reality into how it makes you feel.
Silent Hill, at least the first three, are exemplary for this, in my opinion. They explore the fear, but also the sadness, the anger, the confusion. Everything fear brings with it. It molds itself around the characters, letting us experience those emotions as they do. They can be genuinely visually unsettling, then swing the psychological side of things right at you.
Hell, you can even have that and hit a bit of a power fantasy. Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth manages to have early moments where the tension keeps rising because you are basically powerless to stand and fight, to manning the guns later on.
Not everyone has the spark for good horror. It's not a bad thing, just means it's not your strength.
My theory is that because the real intention is 'to not see the thing but build suspense of the unknown' makes people think it will be easy because they are designing things not to be stared at intently but only flashed at the user quickly.
For the bottom of the barrel part of it (not good horror) it's also probably the easiest reaction you can get.
A jumpscare can be as easy as a sudden full screen gif. Good luck trying to provoke any other kind of feeling like that.
Because of the number of Youtubers/influencers who play indie horror.
You can use this userscript to hide multiple tags automatically.
32 out of 36 games on the main Browse page are tagged "horror," good grief.
Yes, I use this to hide visual novels, otherwise one would drown in them.
Unfortunately it only works for excluding just one tag, and there are people in the forums, going as far back as 8 bloody years, begging for there to be a proper tag exclusion system.