I worked part-time at Big Lots this summer. One day I had to reduce the price of a shipment of calendars. To my surprise, most of the calendars were about internet culture. Some of these were pets like Grumpy Cat and Doug the Pug, which seemed like a good deal to me because pets are inherently good and deserving of the world. But the other types of calendars were from the horror game Five Nights at Freddy’s. This game, in case you don’t know, is where you play as a security guard in their office in a parody of Chuck E. Cheese. Your job is to check the security cameras, where animatronics led by the namesake Freddy Fazbear can be seen roaming the restaurant. The trick is that they want to kill you (they’ve already killed someone) and every time you protect yourself by monitoring the dark corridor by turning the lights dim or closing the doors to keep something out, you use up the battery that keeps you from being able to scan the security cameras for know where the animatronics are. If you run out of battery before the end of your shift, Freddy or one of his friends will catch you and scare you into announcing their presence with music from a music box or jumping in your face and yelling if you get caught when I’m checking the security camera. The game is super effective despite being simple, and for someone who doesn’t play video games often I can tell you that it took me some time to win the game. Imagine my shock when a customer in his 30s and 40s came in to buy a game calendar for what I assume was his little boy. How can children be such passionate fans of such horror?
I think part of this is because the characters in the game are easily traded. They are distinctive anthropomorphic animals, making up many popular characters used for mass production and based on a familiar cultural institution in America. I’ve heard of middle school girls who would destroy their Barbie dolls in an attempt to show how mature they’d become by turning their backs on their childhoods. I think it’s possible that young fans of the game want to do the same thing by turning a place that led them to innocently frolic with other kids their age into a warped nightmare that makes them feel grown up resisting Five Nights’ sinister story, proving not they are more afraid of the dark and can bear to sugarcoat the robots their parents paid to entertain them. The fact that the game has turned into a series of five installments and has a film adaptation in the works produced by Blumhouse Productions is testament to how popular it is.
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Mmmonster
Mmmonster is an adorable mobile game where you play as a monster that tries to eat children undetected. The stealth gameplay is highly addictive as you lure kids with candy and dodge torches from guards. It’s also free, but includes microtransactions for unlockable costumes and the ability to remove ads. It’s a charming, puzzling little game that’s perfect for the holidays and for kids of all ages.
Hello Neighbor (PC, Android, IOS, PS4, Xbox One, Switch)
Watch it on the marketplaces: PC | android | I | PS4 | Xbox One | Switch Hello Neighbor is a suspenseful stealth horror game perfect for kids. The object of the game is to sneak into your neighbor’s basement and discover his horrible secrets, without being caught. The neighbor isn’t stupid though, he’ll learn to keep you out of his house by setting traps. So he tries not to enter his house the same way every time. The items he collects can be used to solve puzzles. In general, the puzzles aren’t very good and the game can feel frustrating at times. Hello Neighbor’s concepts and gameplay are fun, but playing through the 3 acts and solving puzzles is not. Little kids love playing Hello Neighbor as a free roaming sandbox game! they are not necessarily interested in beating him. – Gameplay Video
– See It On Steam Tattletail is similar to the Five Nights At Freddy games but is different enough that it is still unique. The year is 1998 and every child wants a Tattletail doll (influenced by the classic 90’s Furby doll) for Christmas. Playing as a kid, you decide to go to the cellar and open the Christmas presents early. Discover the Tattletail doll after opening one of your presents. This chatty doll won’t sit still or be abandoned, so now you’re forced to take care of it. If you don’t take care of your Tattletail doll properly, it will make lots of loud noises and wake up the scary Big MaMa Tattletail doll. In addition to taking care of your Tattletail doll, you also have to complete a variety of fun tasks every night. As a bonus, if you collect all the Easter Eggs you will unlock the game’s true ending. Tattletail only takes a little over an hour to beat and is fairly easy. The game is only $5 and most kids will enjoy it. – Gameplay Video
Scary games to play in the dark
Even an ordinary game becomes scary when played in the dark. Our list of scary games to play in the dark includes some familiar favorites, often with a twist to add a scare factor, and some new games you may not have heard of before. Make sure everyone knows that these are simply games, as they can cause some people to feel real fear.