I love the weird little world of indie horror games. In what other corner of the internet can you find a horror game about Garfield sitting alongside a game about a killer bowl of ramen sitting next to one of the most legitimately unsettling games I’ve ever played? The world of indie horror is a fantastically weird, creative, and seemingly endless one. As diverse as this space is, there is one thing that many of the games in this world have in common. It’s that they’re (mostly) all available on Itch.io.
If you’re not familiar, Itch.io is a digital storefront similar to something like Steam but made exclusively for indie game developers. Of all the big digital storefronts, Itch.io is one of the most developer friendly platforms out there, which is why its existence has been such a boon for the indie gaming space. One of the nice things from the consumer perspective is that Itch’s developer-friendly nature also means that developers can afford to sell their games much cheaper on Itch than on other digital storefronts. And at a time when everything is so much more expensive than it was a few years ago, this can be a huge help for people looking to get some good spooky games in this Halloween season without breaking the bank.
That said, just randomly looking for a horror game on Itch.io can be daunting. Looking simply at the “horror” tag on Itch.io brings back over 40,000 games. Distinguishing between well-made, worthwhile experiences and games hastily thrown together to get Twitch streamers to scream at can be difficult, if not impossible. As someone who regularly looks through Itch.io looking for interesting games, finding a good game can sometimes feel like finding a needle in a haystack.
But thankfully, you don’t have to wade into the waters of Itch.io by yourself! You have me to guide you!
Below you’ll find five of my favorite games I’ve come across on Itch.io, who I would recommend each to, and some brief thoughts on each. Not only are these games awesome experiences, they’re also dirt cheap. Together, you can pick up all five for less than $20. For less than a third the price of a brand-new game on Steam, you can play through five of the most interesting horror experiences I’ve come across so far. If you’ve ever thought about diving into the world of indie horror, these would make a great and cheap introduction.
Without any further ado, let’s get into the spooky times!
Lost in Vivo
- Developer: KIRA
- Price: $10
- Perfect for: Fans of the first four Silent Hill games or people looking for a videogame adaptation of Jacob’s Ladder
There are a lot of indie horror games that want to be the next Silent Hill game. The problem with this approach is obvious to anyone who has played the later games in that series like Downpour, Homecoming or Book of Memories. Even the later Silent Hill games themselves couldn’t even manage to feel like proper Silent Hill games. The original Silent Hill games feel like lightning captured in a bottle. The combination of the music, the visual style, the bizarre story and voice-acting, everything came together within them just perfectly to make some of the most unnerving and effective psychological horror games of all time. They feel like happy accidents, like something that could never be done again with intent. They are products of a very specific time, a very specific place, and the collaboration of very specific artists. Many talented people have set out to try to make something that comes close to what those original games achieved. And they’ve all failed, some horribly so.
Somehow, despite immensely long odds, Lost in Vivo manages to capture that same lightning in the bottle.
If it wasn’t clear from me starting off with a game that costs half the budget of this entire article, I absolutely love Lost in Vivo. To me, Lost in Vivo is the closest thing we’ve seen in decades to another Silent Hill. And I think the reason it’s successful is that Lost in Vivo doesn’t feel like a game made by someone trying to create the next Silent Hill. It feels like a game made by someone who deeply loves that series and understands how its horror worked, but they instead used that knowledge and understanding to make an entirely stand-alone, separate work of horror using that same artistic mindset. For me to sit here and just say that Lost in Vivo feels like a lost Silent Hill game is reductive of what Lost in Vivo actually is. Lost in Vivo is one of the finest pieces of psychological horror I’ve ever experienced. Period.
Playing through Lost in Vivo often feels like playing through a series of interconnected nightmares. One moment you’ll be navigating through a vast sewer system searching for your lost dog, only to find the sewer slowly turn into a labyrinthine maze of nonsensical spaces. The next you’ll be navigating an abandoned subway station, only to start being chased by the trains themselves. You might find a lost videotape, pop it into a VCR and suddenly you find yourself living out the nightmares of a totally different person. Lost in Vivo is surrealistic horror at its finest, feeling equal parts ethereal and terrifying.
But there’s ultimately beauty in that terror. Be it the incredible and calming music that plays in the game’s save rooms, or the palpable love that the player character feels towards their lost dog, Lost in Vivo has moments that are genuinely moving. But it also has some of the gnarliest and most effective bits of horror I’ve ever seen in a game. Lost in Vivo is able to flip between the two with shocking ease and pulls off both with incredible results. It’s also a game that’s packed to the gills with replayability and bonus content. There are lost tapes to discover that each contain a short standalone nightmare to play through, multiple endings to find (some far less uplifting than others), new game plus modes, and even an incredibly cool hidden minigame to discover. Lost in Vivo is such an incredible value for only $10. If you can stomach the more gruesome elements, Lost in Vivo is flat-out one of the best horror games I’ve ever played. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Inunaki Tunnel
- Developer: Chilla’s Art
- Price: $3
- Perfect for: Fans of classic Japanese horror flicks, urban legends, and found footage movies
There are few things that I love as much as I love learning about weird urban legends and modern-day folklore. Growing up, I devoured books on local ghost stories (shoutout to the Haunted Ohio series by Chris Woodyard) and would constantly scour the library for books on hauntings, monsters, and other assorted weird shit. Do I believe in ghosts? Nah, not even a little bit. But do I love reading about the weird stories behind hauntings and all the urban legends that pop up around them? Oh yeah.
In particular, I really love Japanese folklore and urban legends. Maybe it’s a side-effect of growing up playing as many Japanese survival horror games as I did, but there’s something about a good Japanese ghost story that just hits harder. I think a lot of that may be that Japanese horror tends to veer heavier towards the psychological side as opposed to a lot of American horror, but I find there to be a melancholic dread in a lot of Japanese horror that I find really haunting and effective. So, when I learned that there was a short indie game based upon the Japanese urban legend of Inunaki Tunnel made by a pair of Japanese brothers who make games under the name Chilla’s Art, I knew I had to check it out.
Inunaki Tunnel is a notoriously “haunted” traffic tunnel in Fukuoka Prefecture. Much of the myth behind the tunnel is due to its notorious history of being involved in multiple murders, as well as the supposed death of multiple workers during the construction of the tunnel itself. The story behind Inunaki Tunnel has gone on to inspire artists such as Junji Ito and Takashi Shimizu and is probably one of the most well-known Japanese urban legends outside of Japan. It also makes the perfect setting for a quick little horror experience like this.
In Inunaki Tunnel, you play as an urban explorer who sets off on a journey into the titular tunnel. The entire game is played in the first-person perspective from the lens of a camcorder viewfinder like a found footage movie. Over its brief one-hour or so runtime, you’ll explore the abandoned tunnel, solve some very old-school survival horror-esque puzzles, and eventually make your way into the forgotten and lost Inunaki Village itself. Depending on your actions there, you’ll get one of two possible endings, which also leaves this one open for a replay if you’re looking to see everything that is hidden within it.
I wrote about Chilla’s Art and my love of their games a little while ago when talking about their viral hit Closing Shift. And while that and their other big viral hit The Convenience Store are both great little indies, for my money, Inunaki Tunnel is my current favorite from their catalog. With most of their games being in this same price range, I strongly encourage you to give their catalog a quick look through to see if anything else pops out at you. I’m yet to play a game from this developer that didn’t leave a great impression on me, so they are absolutely one to check out if you’re looking for even more spooks after you finish up everything that I’m listing here.
Anatomy
- Developer: Kitty Horrorshow
- Price: $3
- Perfect for: People looking to experience a surreal, fourth wall breaking, slow-burn nightmare
My recurring nightmare is a place. The details of it change from dream to dream, but there are a few consistent elements to it. There’s always a window. Sometimes it’s a window masquerading as a television screen. Other times it’s an entire wall. The size and shape may change, but the important thing is that there’s always a window. And there’s always someone (or sometimes, something) on the other side of that window watching me. Maybe its family watching and commenting on how silly I look as I slowly drown in a chamber filling with water. Maybe it’s some wolves stalking me as I sleep and plotting amongst themselves on what they’re going to do after they tear my throat out. Whatever shape it takes, there’s something watching me from behind the window. And it doesn’t like what it sees.
I hate this place. But just as importantly, that place hates me.
Anatomy is the closest thing I’ve ever experienced in my waking life to my recurring nightmare. Anatomy is about a house that hates you. But not just you, oh no. The house hates humanity. The house hates us for building it. It hates us for abandoning it. It doesn’t hate you for anything you’ve done in particular. You’re just the unfortunate soul who happened to walk through the front doors after the house woke up to this hatred. Lucky you!
Anatomy is one of the most interesting pieces of horror I’ve ever experienced. I think a lot about how different mediums can convey horror, and Anatomy fully utilizes the medium of video games to deliver a type of horror that could never be accomplished in another medium. A horror game breaking the fourth wall isn’t unheard of, but I often find it more cheesy than I find it effective. That’s not the case with Anatomy. Fittingly, the way that Anatomy breaks the fourth wall makes it feel just as alive as the house within the game does. Much like I wrote about when I reviewed FAITH: The Unholy Trinity, this makes Anatomy feel like a cursed object. Playing Anatomy makes me feel like I stumbled across something ageless and forbidden while I was just innocently looking for cheap indie horror games.
It makes me feel like I’m dreaming. Like I’m dreaming and I’m waking up in a room I’ve been in many times before. Only this time, the window is my computer monitor. And on the other side of my monitor, Anatomy is looking back at me. And like always, it doesn’t like what it sees.
Milk Inside a Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk
- Developer: Nikita Kryukov
- Price: $1
- Perfect for: People willing to throw $1 at a very short but effective dose of experimental horror
Milk Inside a Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk is a visual novel that is ostensibly about running down to the corner store to buy some milk. While that’s a rather pedestrian setup for a visual novel, there is absolutely nothing pedestrian about Milk Inside a Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk. Nothing at all.
Milk Inside a Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk is an extremely surreal and unrelenting visual novel about a girl struggling with PTSD, anxiety, and a seemingly near total detachment from reality itself. Much like how Anatomy perfectly captures the feeling of a recurring nightmare, Milk Inside a Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk perfectly captures the feeling of a fever dream. The visuals, the music, the dialogue, everything within this visual novel comes together as a near total assault on your senses. While I am someone who does struggle a bit with anxiety, I cannot speak to whether this is a realistic portrayal of this kind of mental illness as I fortunately do not know what that is like. However, despite how aggressively it pushes back on the player at every turn, I can say that I did find this to ultimately be a very empathetic take on what it’s like to struggle with daily tasks because of unseen demons in your own head.
Despite that empathy, Milk Inside a Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk is not a particularly uplifting piece of horror. There is no happy ending here. This is very much about putting you into someone’s shoes and making you feel their struggles, not about having you help them to overcome those struggles. It is absolutely not a game for everyone (both for gameplay but also content reasons), but Milk Inside a Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk is a very unique experience. Much like Anatomy, it uses every tool of its medium to create what is ultimately a very effective piece of horror. It’s just also the kind of horror that you should be fully aware of what you’re getting into before diving in.
While it’s not for everyone, if this sounds interesting to you, I’d recommend checking it out. For only $1, the risk is relatively low. There’s also a sequel with a similarly long and trick title (Milk Outside a Bag of Milk Outside a Bag of Milk) if you wish to take this story even further.
A Quick Word Before the Final Game
If you’re following along with this list, you should have about $3 or $4 remaining from your original $20 depending on whether you’re interested in Milk Inside a Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk or not. The final game that I’m going to talk about is totally, 100% free. If you choose to you can pocket that remaining $3 or $4 and still walk away with this fifth and final game for absolutely nothing. However, I have a different recommendation.
One of the coolest things about Itch.io is that you can tip a game creator and pay above their asking price for a game. For small indie developers, those tips go a long way. Every game on this list is someone’s passion project, and all of them deserve recognition above and beyond the meager asking prices for these games. So, for this final game, I ask that you take however much you have remaining of that initial $20 and leave that as a tip.
This final game is one of the coolest indie games I’ve ever played, and it costs absolutely nothing. This developer is also currently working on a follow-up that is one of my most anticipated games at this moment. So, show them some love. And, if you can afford to, maybe go back to the previous four developers, and throw them an extra buck or two if you can afford to.
Spread the love around this Spooky Season.
Bloodborne PSX
- Developer: LWMdia
- Price: FREE (though throw your remaining $3 or $4 their way as a tip)
- Perfect for: Bloodborne fans who are still patiently waiting for a sequel or a PC/PS5 port
I absolutely adore Bloodborne. If I were to sit down and think of a list of my favorite fantasy worlds, Yharnam’s horrific mashup of gothic and cosmic horrors would absolutely be near the top of that list. In terms of world-building, Bloodborne is one of the coolest and most “me” things I’ve ever played. Gameplay-wise, I had always kept away from the whole Soulslike genre, but Bloodborne sucked me in and I’ve played every From Software release since. I’ve also read the comics, played the card game, and hell, I’m even forcing myself through finishing up Lies of P because that’s the closest game I have to a proper sequel to Bloodborne even though I’m not even sure if I like that game or not. While we may not have a sequel to Bloodborne, or even a PC or PS5 port that fixes some of the technical issues of the original, we do have something pretty cool instead. We’ve got Bloodborne PSX, a demake of the opening areas of Bloodborne done in the style of an original PlayStation game.
Bloodborne PSX is an amazing love letter to the original Bloodborne. It covers the early hours of the game, from waking up in Iosefka’s Clinic through your battle with Father Gascoigne in the cemetery and everything in-between. And I do mean everything in-between (fear not, a 32-bit Cleric Beast is indeed here). Bloodborne PSX even goes above and beyond and adds in a few surprises and new areas that were a delight to uncover. While it’s not the full Bloodborne experience, and likely can’t be for obvious legal reasons, there’s a substantial amount of meat on these bones. There’s enough game to Bloodborne PSX to keep you occupied for a few hours over a weekend, which is pretty incredible for a totally free game like this.
But Bloodborne PSX isn’t just a love letter to the original Bloodborne, it’s a love letter to the original PlayStation itself. The original PlayStation is a console near and dear to my heart, and I’ve been loving the recent trend of indie games emulating the original PSX’s visual style. The monsters of Bloodborne somehow look right at home compressed down into the low-poly, dithered to hell and back models that were so common in 3D games of that era. The gothic cathedrals and buildings that filled the skyline of Yharnam, once so impressive, have been flattened onto a two-dimensional skybox that still somehow manages to creep me out. The soaring orchestral soundtrack, something that hasn’t left my head in the eight years since release, somehow still sounds great despite being bit-crushed to shit and converted to a midi track. My favorite detail though is related to the original PSX’s super poor draw distance. Anyone who played a lot of 3D games on the original PSX will remember the pitch-black horizons that filled so many games. Even non-horror games like Tenchu: Stealth Assassins had an element of horror to them because of how eerie it was to constantly be always running straight into a black abyss. Here, in Yharnam though? It works. It elevates the horror of Bloodborne and adds a new dimension that wasn’t there originally.
For those reasons, Bloodborne PSX manages to both feel like a sequel to Bloodborne, but also like a sequel to something like Nightmare Creatures (shout-out to my fellow geriatrics who just did the Decaprio point at that one). It’s such a cool and unique feeling game. The love for the source material and the passion poured into this game is palpable and is all over every detail of Bloodborne PSX. And it’s totally free! The best part though, is that the developer is not done with PSX-style Bloodborne projects. Their next project?
I cannot wait. Leave a tip, and help make that dream a reality.
The Cult Classic 
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