The art of horror.

Instructions

The art of Horror Since the dawn of humanity humans have been afraid of the dark, afraid of everything out there. And as humans evolved so did our understanding of it, we developed stories about the dark, painting on cave walls to warn the young of the predators that lurked in the darkness. Fast forward to 2026, we now have valuable things such as Wi-Fi, the microwave, the ability to delete browser history and of course, the horror genre has grown largely. We now have popular games like Five Nights at Freddys, Poppy Playtime, and the well-known rat shaker. All of these games have shaped the horror community, but what makes a horror game good? And what makes one bad. The first horror game I ever played was LSPLASH’s Doors. A game with the simple structure of trying to escape past door one hundred while battling various demonic entities. To this day I am still playing doors and have a maxed-out account. The game is fun to play, has a fair share of jump scares and is well-paced. But it is not the scariest game I have ever played, that award goes to strangely enough, Portal. Now you may be asking, how is a puzzle adventure game the scariest you’ve ever played? To which I respond that this is not the part of the video where you ask questions, please shut up. But what makes a horror game, well horror? Every horror game features the dark. Our character stranded in the darkness waiting for the jumpscare. But what makes the dark so scary? I’m sure we’ve all heard about how the two biggest fears humans have been death and darkness, but humans are scared of neither of those, we are scared if the fact that we have no idea what’s in the darkness, or where you go when you die. So, we make stories about it, we’ve invented religion and heaven and for better or worse created games about the fears themselves. Let’s use an example, Fnaf. Five nights takes the fear of darkness and unknown and deals it out in a fear pie perfectly. Creatures emerge from the darkness. Just, staring at you. If you can’t stop them, you get horrible jumpscare, and if you can then you spend a terrifying shift until 6. The FNAF team made this perfectly, balancing out fear and tension of what was coming and high paced moments when foxy ran down the hallway. To quote a Minecraft modding youtuber by the name of RAT, horror games aren’t scary because of the monsters themselves, the game is scary because you have no idea what is in the darkness. Sometimes the scariest part of a game is the lack of monsters, or rather the only monsters in that type of games are the scariest ones you can imagine. Sometimes adding a monster too early ruins the part that lets you imagine what could be behind the door. Poppy Playtime chapter one does this perfectly. Poppy Playtime might be one of the most controversial games in horror history, with the first few chapters being pieces of art and the next two being ones that leave angry comments at me no matter how I put it. But chapter one is perfect, you go around an abandoned facility with not much of an understanding what’s happened. You learn the game mechanics and then suddenly a big blue fella comes and chases you through the vents. This is absolutely terrifying as it emerges from the dark after the first half of the game you’ve been imagining it doing just that. This was amazingly paced and is a great example. Valve, the masters of horror, heck the intro is enough to scare the heebie jeebies out of me before the game even starts. When I had my first playthrough of Portal I was having fun, the satisfaction of solving puzzles while you hear the funny dialogue is the best fun! I remember when turrets were first introduced, cute little robots that did their best to fill you with bullets. At one point in the chamber, you can duck into a tiny crack in the walls, and you find a small room, filled with crazed ramblings etched onto the walls. She’s watching, they see you, and the most fear inspiring one; the cake is a lie. When my tiny twelve-year-old Chell walked into that room I was scared to the point of nausea and sweat. The subtle music that played when you walked into that room, the small message that things weren’t what they seemed in the bright white lab, the schizophrenic writing on the walls. It struck me and filled me with fear, and that is the beauty of horror games. It’s not about the monsters you create; it’s not about the jumpscare. It’s about the unknown, the fear of ignorance. Horror games teach you about how powerful your imagination truly is. But the main thing to remember when playing a horror game is to have fun. Laugh and scream with terror when the monster chases you down the dark hallway, hold your breath when you walk in the shadows. Since the dawn of humanity humans have been scared of the dark, and in this day and age we have conquered that fear, next time you play a horror game, make sure you’re having fun. Because that’s what people create amazing thing for. You.