SPOOKWARE from Adam Pype and Viktor Kraus is a gift to a broken world. Easily gaining Halloween Classic status, SPOOKWARE imagines if WarioWare’s namesake was less of a stinky capitalist and more of a Jigsaw.
It’s one game of WarioWare with a high score of twenty, with one speed up at halfway. It’s tough! The microgames all only use the four arrow keys, but when you’re slamming all of them to rotate a garage door to stop THE GRUDGE from getting in, things start to get tricky. The horror inspirations range from Slenderman to your standard cow abduction, and after playing for an hour I laughed when I realized on their website there’s only ten in the mix. “10 BLAZING FAST MICROGAMES. EACH ONE SPOOKIER THAN THE LAST ONE!” as game’s page boldly states. I still haven’t been able to beat it.
Look at that little guy!
Adam Pype is currently teasing a follow-up to be featured in the Dread X Collection 3, so as SPOOKWARE’s protagonist so often rumbles, “hellll yeaahhhhh.”
I’m listening to the Monster Mash while I write this, so you have to go find some spooky music, too. I’ll wait.
Okay hi. Boo! Gotcha. Boo again but it’s invisible. Oooohhh.
For the newcomers: Hey there. Let’s get spooky. If you aren’t satisfyingly spooked by the end of this, scoot on back up and check out these links to previous Getting Spooky posts.
These first two are archived from a friend’s site I used to write for, so maybe skip these if you’re not into some wonky formatting from Wayback Machine’s retrieval process:
uh. Just kinda skip around the first 30 minutes of that video for some treats. The haunted ABCs nightmare song with the girl’s possessed friend was a highlight. Oh yeah it’s 45 minutes long bye.
~Spooky Thought 0129: That feeling when it’s 4:09pm the day before Halloween and you haven’t gone out to look for a costume yet. Spooky.~
Oh you want an actual Spooky recommendation? I got you.
Have you ever wanted to feel genuinely unsettled for, oh, let’s say, 100 minutes? The Invitation is a true slow burn, and you’ll be coming up with your own theories about what’s happening long before it decides to offer any answers. Believe me when I say it’s worth the wait.
Guys. I'm here to red-pill you all.
You've never heard the actual Monster Mash. You've just heard a record *about* the Monster Mash.
And while we’re on the topic: Have you ever seen the video of Bobby Pickett lip-syncing Monster Mash? Go watch it, it’s wild. Tell them Boris sent you.
Alright, I can’t look away from the faces. I can’t believe I hadn’t seen him do this until 2017.
Junji Ito rules and I had nightmares the first time I read anything by him.
If you’ve never read anything by Japan’s horror manga master you should do yourself the favor. Feel free to jump in anywhere, but my starting point was The Hanging Balloons. Have fun sleeping!
~Spooky Thought 0088: Here’s a fun game. Hit up this Wikipedia page and watch Halloween episodes of shows you’ve never heard of before. It’s fun! At least, theoretically, it is. I haven’t done it yet. Get back to me and tell me if that was a fun game please.~
2017 has been a good year for horror games!
First up, if you haven’t checked out The Bathroom demo (or now, Gloomy Room) go do that.
Use a translator app on your phone for the Japanese text
Hang around in the opening room for a while
Cry
Next up is Resident Evil 7, which, when played in VR, is the most exhausting horror experience I’ve had with any piece of media.
If you’re not down with possibly literally dying of fright and you want to play as far away from the screen as possible, that’s fine too. I still haven’t finished it because I’m a tiny baby but it’s great and I’ll push my way through before the year’s end.
The Evil Within 2 is cool! I know I’m in a very small camp in thinking that the original Evil Within is a kind of flawed horror classic, but people seem to be liking the second one a bit more. Good!
I’m still in the early chapters, and even though there’s some open-worldiness in this one, the sequel still plays like a tightly scripted action horror game. I stand by saying that The Evil Within is the first game that felt like a true sequel to Resident Evil 4. Hopefully this one lives up to that standard.
Just, uh, don’t pay any attention to the story. It’s utter nonsense. The first one SPOILER ended with you in the back of a truck flying around in a tornado while you mount a turret and shoot a zombie brain monster. This one is somehow dumber.
These are short 20ish minute audio dramas, framed as documented interviews about strange events. A dude reads scary stories for a half-hour, basically. Ever wished The Twilight Zone was an anthology podcast? Your dreams have come true. It creeps slowly into a more interconnected storyline the further you get, but the one-off episodes remain consistently excellent throughout. Some of my favorites are Episode 2: Do Not Open, Episode 10: Vampire Killer, and Episode 34: Anatomy Class. If you aren’t hooked after though… maybe you just don’t like good horror?
One of my favorite short horror stories ever written.
Aaaaaand I guess that’s it? Today’s Halloween and I love it so much but it’s more for me about the general vibe of October it brings than the holiday itself. The 31st is still pretty sweet though. Time for me to put on another weirdly specific costume that I have to explain to everyone who hasn’t made it to New Donk City in Mario Odyssey. Check you guys next year for another one of these.
I’m back, you’re back, and The Spooky is back. Welcome to the Sixth Edition of Getting Spooky. Glad you could make it. Yes, I have seen David Pumpkins. It was good.
If you’re not familiar with how to Get Spooky, I’ll send you to these first: 01, 02, 03, 04. Are you done? Alright, let’s do this all sequel-like. There’s still a whole buncha spooky left to dig up. Get it? Like digging up a spooky body. Like, it could be a skeleton with a worm in it or something. Wow. (more…)
hippochippies 