Resident Evil and Silent Hill have revolutionized the horror genre in the gaming industry. What made these games successfully elicit blood-curdling screams from gamers is how each is able to create a tense atmosphere through its art direction that builds into the game’s hair-raising climax.
While the iPhone and Android smartphones do not have the engine of a game console, there are nonetheless game apps with impressively scary art direction that maximizes the limited hardware capacity of both units. If you’re looking for a great paid or free video game app with excellent graphics and atmosphere, then you ought to download the games listed below.
Year Walk (for iPhone)
Based on a Swedish myth in which man attempts to get a glimpse of the future in mysterious ways, Year Walk is a perfect example of how the game’s art direction and music creates a unique and esoteric experience for gamers like no other. While it works as a puzzle game, Year Walk relies on its spooky atmosphere to make gamers feel uncomfortable yet strangely attracted to the game.
Murder Room (for Android)
Another point-and-click puzzle game, Murder Room is a first-person game that starts with you trapped in a room with a chainsaw-using serial killer. The point of the game is to escape the room by interacting with different elements found in the room and figuring out how you can use them. The design of the game heavily draws from graphic-novel style art that fleshes out the gore and blood. The difficulty of the puzzles in the game only make Murder Room even more compelling, if not frightening.
The Woods (for iPhone)
In this game, you play a newbie investigator assigned to uncover the secret of the creepy forest. The well-rendered graphic design of the mist-filled forest add to the haunting vibe of the game. More importantly, the open-world and non-linear gameplay gives gamers a feeling of hopelessness and despair just like being trapped in a big forest. The game is best played using the latest iOS devices with retina display for better graphics.
Eyes: The Horror Game (for Android)
Your character breaks into an abandoned house and recover money hidden in different objects of the rooms. However, this is never easy especially when you have ghosts lurking around the house! If one of the ghosts makes contact with you as you look for money, it’s game over. The scary part of the game comes when the ghosts see you and creep in closer as there is nothing you can do but run as fast as you can. The sparse lighting inside the house make these tense moments even more agitating.
The Abandoned School
Part survival-horror game, part point-and-click game, all in black and white! The Abandoned School is about schoolboy who visits the desolated school to uncover the truth of about the death of his brother and girlfriend. The photo-realistic graphic used in the gameplay is accompanied by discomforting audio to set the tone. Aside from interacting with objects and solving puzzles, the game takes advantage of Android’s device magnetic sensor in which you can tilt or shake your phone to get past certain obstacles.
Have you played any of the games above? Any other scary game apps that we failed to mention here? Share them by commenting below!
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