I'm Scared: A Pixelated Nightmare

          Video games are a fantastic medium for the horror genre. The experience of controlling a character walking down a dark corridor is much more visceral and terrifying that watching someone on a screen or reading about it in a book. I haven't been truly scared by a film since The Ring came out in 2002. I can say, with some bruises to my ego, that I am still a little creeped out because of I’m Scared: A Pixelated Nightmare.

Video games are a fantastic medium for horror. There is something about walking down a dark corridor rather than watching someone or reading about someone doing it that makes the experience much more terrifying. I haven’t been scared by a movie since

            I’m Scared, which you can download here, is a first-person horror game developed by Ivan Zanotti.  The game starts with a completely silent screen onto which text appears as if it is being typed in real time. It seems to be a basic tutorial at first, but ends with the ominous words, “I’m extremely sorry. I didn’t really want to do that. Forgive me.” The player then awakens in a bare room with a table, a wardrobe, and a table. Once out of the room, the player wanders around, looking for a heart with which to open the door. None of this sounds scary written out, but in the moment it is chilling. Your footsteps sound like thunder when you walk. The low-quality graphics and low draw distance make everything fuzzy. Then, White Face shows up.

            I’ve never been more terrified by the prospect of wandering around looking for keys than I was during I’m Scared. The horror is perfectly paced. It doesn’t rely too heavily on jump scares like a lot of recent horror films, but it also doesn’t burn so slowly that it becomes boring like the rest of the recent horror films. I don’t remember a single scare chord in the whole game. All I remember is the hissing and the laughing that foreshadowed White Face’s arrival. The sound design in the game is impeccable. It’s jarring, creepy, and uncanny with its choppy synth qualities. I’m Scared is a game that knows that louder isn’t scarier. A soft electronic hiss and a squishy moan beats a roar any day.

            In tandem with the lo-fi, retro sound design is the graphics. I’m Scared has Superman 64- level graphics; just replace green smog with inky blackness. Contrary to popular design theories, higher graphics could have ruined this experience. The poor graphics are a great source of horror. Again, low draw distance makes it so you can only see a foot in front of your face. The blocky, dare I say pixelated environment naturally morphs common objects into unnatural shapes. The solid colors, which look like the result of a game developer overusing the bucket on MS Paint, serve as a perfect canvas for when the blood starts appearing. It all feels like, well, a nightmare; dark, confusing, and dreamy.

            Both the poor audio and poor graphics serve to remind us just how creepy early gaming could be. One the most unsettling piece of music to me, to this day, is the song that plays in Lavender Town in the original Pokemon games. There’s something about poorly recorded pieces of media that creep us out more than well-produced pieces of similar narrative quality. Look at Paranormal Activity. That movie is objectively idiotic with unlikable characters played by actors slightly above community theater, but it is still regarded by many as terrifying. There’s a fifth sequel coming out this year. That is not a typo.

            There’s not a whole lot to say about this game other than it is spooky as hell. The controls are all simple and fairly standard, and there’s not really a lot to do. The game is all atmosphere; a brooding and somewhat archaic experience similar to what Lovecraft might have made if he knew anything about video games. It’s also free, so I’m having a hard time really finding flaws with it. The low production value works in its favor, much in the same way as its popular predecessor Slender. It’s a prime example of how graphics don’t need to make a game more realistic to be effective. It’s also a lot of fun to play in the dark.