6 Genius Game Mechanics In Indie Horrors
6 Genius Game Mechanics In Indie Horrors
Since the era of the Xbox 360, indie games have exploded into the mainstream, growing in popularity and now filling digital stores with their intimate, focused experiences.
Part of the reason for their success is due to more flexibility and freedom to take risks. Indie games aren't encumbered with the looming task of mass appeal, so their unique selling points are more prominent, often front and centre of the experience.
This space to play with the formula allows horror indies to come up with some awesome concepts, some of which I can’t believe haven’t yet been adopted by their bigger AAA siblings.
Here's 6 genius game mechanics to ratchet up that tension.
Don't look at them - Amnesia
Lovecraftian horror is an incredibly popular subgenre, so it makes sense that swathes of horror minded creatives want to give their go at it. The problem is that it’s just such a hard concept to execute in film and video games, so the genre is fast becoming a museum of not-quite-successes.
One lauded concept is the idea that some things are so incomprehensible to the human mind that you would go insane just by observing them. Amnesia tackles this to great effect by introducing an insanity meter, which rapidly depletes if you look at your enemy.
This gives a whole new dynamic to enemy encounters - you need to know where they are to avoid them, but looking at them hurts your sanity. You end up resorting to the childhood solution of putting your head in the sand, turning away from the monster in the shadows, and hoping it’s just as avoidant as you are.
Watching a playthrough might be a bit weird, someone staring at the corner of the room whilst terrors snarl behind you (sort of like ‘Skinamarink the video game’). From a gameplay standpoint, however, it adds so much, not only to enemy encounters, but to navigation as well; peeking around a mysterious corner is a risk rather than a safety measure.
Warping space - Layers of Fear
This mechanic first appeared in the mainstream limelight with PT, a demo for a AAA game rather than an indie. I’d love to harp on about PT, the Playable Teaser that changed the horror-gaming world forever, but that’s for another article.
I’d like to pay a compliment to Bloober Team here, who saw how effective the looping corridors are in creating tension, and how the behind-the-back architectural changes make you nervous just to turn around.
They put all of this to great use in their debut game Layers of Fear, using PT as a foundation and building a full experience from there. It has its critics - it removed almost all gameplay aspects to just walking around disorienting hallways, seeing creepy things happen in front of you, and occasionally picking up objects. I can appreciate it’s a videogame in the loosest way possible, but what they managed to do with such simple mechanics was pretty hair-raising.
The perfect run - Homebody
I believe The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask is to thank for time loops in video games, and Outer Wilds is one of the more recent games that nailed the concept (it’s not a horror, but honestly, check it out).
One indie game that went way under the radar is Homebody, a puzzle game about a bunch of teens getting picked off one by one by a stabby killer, and you have to stop it by mastering the time loop.
I’m pretty sure we all have that favourite level where we know all the enemy placements, being able to breeze through it with our eyes closed. This game is all about that, learning what happens when and where, and using that to your advantage. Throw in puzzles to open shortcuts, open areas, and avoid certain events, and you’ve got puzzles within puzzles, requiring the ‘perfect run’ to beat the game.
Homebody uses a detective board system where all the clues are saved, so you can refer back to puzzle solutions and hints to best the killer. All wrapped in a nice crunchy retro aesthetic and an ominous story.
Focusing on everything else - Happy’s Humble Burger Farm
Putting the focus on a mundane or seemingly uneventful task seems to be becoming a trend in indie horrors, and I’m so glad it is. We’ve had Night Shift, which is a 20 minute prequel to Stay Out of The House, where you spend this time behind the till in a gas station, Bloodwash sees you doing the laundry, and The Convenience Store by Chilla’s Art, you know…
One that I don’t see getting a lot of love is Happy’s Humble Burger Farm. I'm sure people think it’s a Five Nights At Freddy's clone, but it couldn’t be further from it past the anthropomorphic cow mascot. Disguised as a cooking sim (like the awesome Overcooked series), you are tasked with flipping burgers to complete evermore complicated orders to customers, the twist being that messing up conjures Happy the Humble Heifer to the restaurant, and you don’t want Happy in the restaurant.
Other than fighting or running away, there’s not many other ways to deal with enemies in games, so moving the gameplay focus away from horror creates a nice sense of mechanical freedom, whilst adding an uncomfortable layer to the proceedings, as you have to fight your urge to run from the monster breathing down your neck as you fry that patty.
I’d also like to shout out the other layer to this game that occurs in between shifts - going to and from your apartment, through the desolate streets. It’s perfectly in keeping with the idea that things aren’t as they seem; this is a horror game hidden behind a burger making simulator, so these streets might not just be here for the commute…
Audio focus - Killer Frequency
There was practically no fanfare when Killer Frequency came out on 1st June 2023. I was actually getting ready to buy a different indie when I stumbled upon it on release day, and was so intrigued I took a punt on it. Wow, that gamble paid off.
Set entirely in a radio station in 1987, Killer Frequency puts you in control of washed up DJ Forrest Nash as he becomes the lifeline for the residents of the sleepy town, as they begin to call in for help to escape a murderer.
Exploring the station grants you various items such as maps, manuals and even pizza boxes that will aid in helping the victims to survive. If you should get it wrong, however, there’s no game over screen, they die, and the game continues without them. This adds a heap of tension to every puzzle, every choice, every interaction with a caller.
Add to this an incredibly well realised environment, a cracking 80s soundtrack, and great voice acting for the budget, I’d say it’s well worth a try.
Safe room invasion - Darkwood
There’s nothing like that feeling when the enchanting music eases in, and you can finally breathe again in Resident Evil. Video games always have their impenetrable areas for players to recoup, take stock of their inventory, and save. So imagine a game where the safe room can be overrun by dangerous predators.
Darkwood is a top down horror game about surviving in a post-apocalyptic landscape. In the day, you’re free to roam a randomly generated forest for supplies, strangers, and weapons, and whilst there’s a constant eeriness throughout, nightfall brings the worst of the horrors.
You see, in Darkwood, things come for you in the night, they creep around the house, hunting for you, and if you didn’t have enough time or fuel to get the generator going, you’d best hope the flimsy torch will illuminate any threats.
A lack of soundtrack during these invasions means you can hear every growl, every creak of a floorboard. It ratchets up the tension as you stand behind a poorly barricaded door, feeble pitchfork at the ready, wondering how the hell it’s fair that the developers took the one place of solitude and turned it on its head. To make it worse, sometimes nothing happens, you spend the entire night staring wide-eyed at the door, listening to the howling wind outside. So, so sadistic…
Hopefully, you’ll be adding a few of these to your wishlist, but if you can think of any other indie horrors with unique mechanics, please let me know in the comments below!
Also, if you like this article, I’ve written about the joys of low-poly horror over here.
