Author of adventure/thriller and horror fiction

PHASMAPHOBIA

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When EPISODE THIRTEEN, my found-footage novel about a paranormal reality TV show, came out, I was asked in interviews about sources of inspiration for it. A big one for me was PHASMAPHOBIA, a computer game. This is the scariest, most enjoyable horror game I’ve ever played.

When I first heard about it, I was skeptical. The game’s graphics and game play looked pretty janky to me. You don’t have any weapons, which feels weird when you’re used to playing first-person games that have a combat element. You move slowly. Most of the houses you explore aren’t creepy mansions but instead regular suburban homes. What’s scary about this?

A lot, it turned out. It scared the crap out of me.

Okay, here’s how it works. You’re a member of a team of up to four professional ghost hunters. You travel to haunted houses and explore them to 1) locate where the ghost is, 2) identify the type of ghost based on the evidence you collect, and 3) do optional actions like get the ghost to blow out a candle or get a picture of it. The only problem is the ghost generally remains unseen, so you have to use a variety of detecting equipment to discover physical evidence the ghost leaves. Another problem is the longer you’re in the house and depending on what you say over the mic to the ghost or your teammates–the game uses voice recognition–the ghost starts to get agitated. This is good, as its activity leaves evidence, but bad, in that the ghost may decide it’s time to hunt and kill you. The lights flicker, the door slams, you’re trapped, and you have to hide and pray the thing doesn’t get you.

The detective work is fun, but what makes this game work is the atmosphere of dread–something I tried to bottle in EPISODE THIRTEEN–in this case achieved with darkness and subtly with sound along with your own willing suspension of disbelief. The moment you go into the house, you know you’re on the clock for the ghost getting angry. There are jump scares, but they’re sparse and earned, such as when you’re just about to leave the house and the door slams in your face, signaling the ghost is coming for you. Out of all the games I’ve played, this one comes closest to the experience of reading, where the player’s imagination does a lot of the work. Like watching a horror movie, if you tell yourself it’s only a game and doesn’t matter, it likely won’t affect you much; but if you run with it and let yourself be immersed, it will very likely freak you out.

PHASMAPHOBIA is a classic game that is virtually unique among horror games, though it has had many (poor in my view) imitators. I recommend it if you’re looking for a horror experience you can enjoy solo or with some buddies online.

SONS OF THE FOREST

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I’m a gamer, though I’m pretty particular about it. One game I’ve had a lot of fun with lately is SONS OF THE FOREST, the sequel to the popular survival horror game THE FOREST. It’s savage, offers game play fairly balanced between action and grunt work, and features a lot of weird elements to find, explore, and use.

Picture MINECRAFT set on the island of LOST populated by savage cannibals, and you’ve basically got the concept. The story: You’re a corporate mercenary hired as part of a team to travel to an island owned by an enormously rich family, where elites go to golf, attend luxury spas, and hang out. Your mission: find out why the island went dark and what happened to the family, and while you’re at it, try to survive as everything tries to kill you. Behind all this is a ton of lore about otherworldly artifacts that form a backstory. Otherwise, the story continues elements of the original FOREST, though knowing these is not necessary to enjoy the ride.

The island is pretty big and offers multiple environments and interesting locations to explore. As you start with very little, basic survival is the top priority, as you need to build shelters and other structures that will help you, craft weapons and armor until you find better ones, source food and water, and so on. There is a variety of monsters here trying to kill you, from packs of mud-covered lunatics stalking the woods to tribes of cannibals to horrific mutants lurking in caves. The combat is tense, exciting, and brutal.

My base

One thing I really love about the game is the cannibals, which even more than the mutants puts the horror in this survival horror game. Formerly guests on the island, they’ve been reduced to utter savagery. Their behavior is incredibly realistic. Each tribe has different customs, treats you differently, and you can find them patrolling, hunting, worshipping their grisly idols, and fetching water. From the tents to their totems, their camps are basically made from human body parts, so be prepared for plenty of horror over the idea of being caught by them.

Overall, I’ve run through it a few times, and I’ve loved every experience. If you’re into gaming and want to try Minecraft on horror crack, check it out.

LORDS OF WATERDEEP

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Another favorite for beer and games night at my house, LORDS OF WATERDEEP (published by Wizards of the Coast) is a really fun fantasy board game for 2-5 players. In this game, you play a faction in the medieval fantasy city of Waterdeep, vying for control by deploying agents and hiring adventurers to increase your influence.

This is a fairly easy game to learn and offers enough variability that it’s extremely re-playable. The basic gist is you deploy agents to get resources to complete quests, which earn you victory points and sometimes more resources. Intrigue cards give you special capabilities and ability to put the screw to the competition. Players can also build buildings that offer special resources but charge rent to the owner for their use, adding another dimension.

I really like this one, as it’s complex enough to be challenging but simple enough you can roll through it without a lot of mental juggling. One of those games whether you win or lose, it’s always a good time.

WINGSPAN

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From Stonemaier Games, WINGSPAN is a terrific engine-building board game for 1-5 players aged 10 and up. This game has earned a jaw-dropping 5,300 reviews on Amazon with an average 4.9 rating. I played it last night for the first time and found it lived up to the praise. It was loads of fun.

In this game, you and the other players are bird enthusiasts tending wildlife preserves, where you’re hoping to attract a variety of species of birds to live in habitats. In each turn, you can take one action, which is gain food tokens from a bird feeder dice tower, lay eggs, draw new bird cards, or play a bird card on a habitat.

It’s the kind of game that’s kinda complicated until you play a round or two, and then it all comes together. Gradually, you build an engine that starts producing real points. More food, more birds with different capabilities, more eggs.

I really enjoyed this one. The production quality is charming–the eggs, bird houses, the facts about real bird species on the cards–and the birds have such unique capabilities that no two point-generating engines you build are likely to be the same. The competition is also pretty stress-free, as other players can’t mess with you. You’re really playing against yourself and against them at the end, when all the points are counted up.

Overall, WINGSPAN is a fun game that is competitive but also not competitive, with a really strong charm factor.

PHASMOPHOBIA

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Developed by Kinetic Games and offered as an early access game, PHASMOPHOBIA is a single-player or online coop psychological horror game in which you play a paranormal investigator sent to determine whether a given location is haunted and if so by what type of entity. This is one of the most unnerving games I’ve ever played; it’s a real experience.

The game is designed with a heavy atmosphere, limitations, and special tools. The atmosphere is brooding due to it being a rainy night and the ghost effects, and the overall effect is incredibly immersive. Limitations include being fairly slow, a time limit before the entity becomes aggressive, and weak light sources. Tools include EMF readers, a spirit box in which you can interact with the ghost via voice recognition, thermometers, and night vision cameras. The challenge is to use these tools to identify 1) where the entity is in the house and 2) what type of entity it is without angering it to the point where it starts hunting you, because then you are in serious trouble. Psychologically, the time limit, the unpredictability of the entity–including noises, messing with the lights, appearing in a corporeal state, footsteps, moans, moving objects, and slamming doors–builds an incredible amount of tension. Not to mention when you call out to a teammate who doesn’t answer, because he or she is, well, dead.

Do your detective work, record your evidence, and get out alive to reap cash rewards you can use to buy more advanced equipment. Fail, and you join the entity in the spirit realm.

Recommended for horror buffs. Available on Steam.

GENERATION ZERO

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GENERATION ZERO is a new video game that challenges you to survive an amazing open-world set in Sweden in the 1980s–a country in which everyone is either dead or disappeared, and an ecology of killer robots roams the towns and countryside. Your task is to collect supplies and weapons while completing missions to fight the robots, find out what happened, and stay alive.

I’m a sucker for co-op games with great game play and plenty or ambience and lore, and GENERATION ZERO delivers. I can see it maybe becoming monotonous over time for single-player play, but when playing with friends, it’s loads of fun. Stylistically, it’s like running around combating robots in a series of Simon Stålenhag paintings. The world is huge, beautifully rendered, and filled with numerous houses, vehicles, and military installations to explore and plunder. The atmosphere is just terrific, and there’s a lonesome 80s vibe to the whole thing, with the ability to customize characters and listen to electronic music rendered in full 80s nostalgia.

The game play is challenging and exciting, though there’s a lot of travel, juggling missions, and inventory management. Finding bullets is tough, and you’re constantly scavenging for ammo, which comes in many types and must fit your particular gun. You can only carry so much, so you have to make choices about what weapons and items are handy and which you’re going to keep in your inventory. Finding guns is hard at first, though over time as you get into military installations you’re more likely to find good weapons and attachments (such as scopes), from sniper rifles to rocket launchers that have a beautiful effect on target.

Now I have to talk about the robots, which are really cool and come in different types and capabilities. These range from air drones that alert all nearby robots of your presence to little eerie spider robots to giant behemoths that lumber around and are really, really hard to kill, and more. You can use stealth to spy on them or avoid them, you can lay ambushes with explosives and flanking, and you can snipe them in weak points that are more likely to kill. The robots can be very challenging to destroy, prone to sudden bursts of speed, and explode in beautiful splashes of sparks. The closer you get to cities, the more likely you’ll find great loot, but the robots become far more numerous. A friend and I tried to get into an airbase and spent a half hour in an impossible fight against a horde of robots, including several giants that just rain missiles constantly.

Overall, GENERATION ZERO is a beautiful, addictive, and fun game. Highly recommended, especially if you’re into co-op games like LEFT FOR DEAD.