2023 gave us a ton of amazing horror games to play! Games like Dead Space, Resident Evil 4, Killer Frequency, and Alan Wake 2. However, I’d argue that 2023’s most horrifying game went overlooked by many when it first released in October, myself included! Which is a massive shame since in terms of pure horror, I’d say this game manages to out class even Alan Wake 2 in someways. The game I am talking about is none other than the 1-bit indie horror game, World of Horror.

If you have been plugged into the indie horror scene, especially if you’re a PC player, then you have probably heard of and played World of Horror at this point. The game has been in Early Access on Steam for awhile now and has gotten quite the following. As a console gamer, I had been eagerly awaiting the game’s console release for awhile now! Sadly, the fact that it came out just a few days before Alan Wake 2 caused me to skip it when it first released to consoles, and it’s taken me until 2024 to finally play it. That being said, it was certainly well worth the wait as this is both an extremely unique and extremely terrifying game! And one very much not for the faint of heart…

World of Horror is a 1-bit RPG roguelite horror game inspired by the works of author H.P. Lovecraft and Mangaka Junji Ito. This combination might sound rather bizarre on paper but it’s actually what makes the game so unique, so let’s break it down! ‘1-bit’ refers to the game’s art style mainly. The game is extremely pixelated and generally only has 2 colors on screen at a time. By default, the game will be in black and white but you can change up the colors if you’d like! You can also technically make the game 2-bit by adding just a touch more color. This is the style I went with, using a pallet of black, red, and white and it’s what you’ll be seeing in screen shots I took! The game has very few actual animations beyond the small animation that plays when you are exploring, enemies moving slightly on the combat screen, and a few moving things in the environment. However, there are a handful of times where there is some more animation! This contrast from the rest of the game gives these moments much more horror to them and goes to show that not only was this style chosen to make the game more unique, but also to make the game more scary. This also shows that the game’s sole developer, Paweł Koźmiński, knows what they are doing when it comes to crafting horror! Which is why it’s no surprise that they managed to blend this style perfectly with a story inspired by H.P. Lovecraft and an art style inspired by Junji Ito!

The Lovecraft inspirations are very clearly seen when it comes to the fact that the game’s main plot is about stopping Old Gods from coming back and invading the world, the fear of the unknown, and how a lot of elements involve more telling and less showing. That being said, when the game does decide to show over tell, it does so with terrifying affect, using that Junji Ito inspiration for a lot of the game’s monsters and their overall designs! And this is where I actually am going to pause and give a bit of a warning for the rest of this review.

World of Horror‘s visuals are easily the game’s biggest draw. It’s how the game caught my eye after all! However, it can also be what pushes most people away, and understandably so. This game is horrifying to look at! I have played a lot of horror games in my time but none of them have managed to rock me like this with visuals alone. So! I am going to give a warning here. While I won’t be showing the most gory and freaky images here, I am still going to be showing a lot through screen shots. And while I do recommend that you guys try and stick around to see if the game and its style is for you, just know that things are going to get a little freaky from here…

With that out of the way though, let’s finally talk about the game and how it’s played!

As I was saying before, World of Horror is an RPG roguelite of sorts. The game is built around quick hour to hour and a half long runs where you have to solve five mysteries around your small town before you die, go insane, or the chosen Old God is fully summoned! This, combined with how overwhelming a basic screen shot can look, might make the game seem extremely tough but thankfully that isn’t the case at all! The game actually does a great job easing you into the game play and explaining how everything functions without completely throwing you into the deep end. That being said, this game is a roguelite, meaning you are probably going to fail a few times before actually beating the Old God that’s being summoned. But once again, World of Horror does an amazing job of easing you into everything by not only having a great tutorial but having a ton of difficulty options to make the game as easy or as hard as you want.

Now, my quick description of the game and its game play might make the game sound kind of basic overall. And that’s because, technically, it is. Every run will, technically, be the same. You will have five mysteries to solve before you can make your way up the Lighthouse and stop the Old God. This will not change between runs, beyond the fact that if you pick the easiest difficulty you only have to solve four mysteries over five. However, if you’re at all familiar with roguelite games, then you know that this isn’t a problem at all! While the basic set up will always be the same, there are a ton of things that will change between runs. Things like which character you play as, what each mystery will be about, which Old God you’ll be fighting, and lots more! And the fact that you are basically constantly unlocking new things with each and every run, even the ones you fail, makes the whole experience extremely addictive!

When starting up a new run, this will be the first thing you are brought to.

As you can see at the top, the game recommends the first option if it’s your first time playing. This option lets you play out one of the game’s mysteries. Said mystery has you exploring the school looking for the items needed to complete a ritual to send back the scissor wielding monster stacking the halls. It’s perfect as it gives you a taste of the random events when exploring the school as well as some of the problem solving needed for certain mysteries. Not to mention the fact that regardless of if you manage to complete the ritual or not, you will always have a battle with the monster chasing you which gives you a chance to experience the combat as well, something we’ll touch on later!

The option right below the first one is basically another tutorial set up. This option has you playing the main game and picks arguably the best starting character on the easiest difficult with a random Old God to face off against. This is the game giving you the “safest” way to play and it’s the best way to ease you into the game proper. With the threat so low you are given the chance to really learn how the game works. That being said, there is still a very good chance you’ll fail the run, I certainly did my first time! But again, it’s all about learning the in and outs of the game and taking it slow. Especially since when the game opens up to the main area after you select a mystery to follow from your apartment it can be very overwhelming!

Once you are out on the town like this, you are free to explore and do what you want! Of course, you are going to want to follow the plot of the mystery as well, and to do that all you need to do is explore the area the game has circled for you! This is how a lot of the game’s mysteries work. You select one and investigate the areas the game tells you to until you reach the end of said mystery. Most mysteries will also have a side objective. These tend to range from investigating a certain area a few times, throwing away a couple items, or listening to some gossip. This isn’t how all mysteries function in the game though! As you finish more runs the game will start unlocking far more complex mysteries that take you to specific areas like the mystery used in the tutorial, but most function like this. And while that probably sounds a bit boring, I can promise you it is not!

World of Horror keeps this game play loop fresh mainly because investigating an area will trigger a random event in said area. These vary a lot and are usually area dependent. Not only that, some events are character and Old God dependent as well! Even after all the playing I have done I am still encountering new events I have never seen before. Of course, you’ll be seeing plenty of repeats, but it’s going to be a bit before they start getting stale, especially since most events come with a choice. Said choices generally result in a skill check like you’d see in a table top game. Which skill is being checked depends on the choice and the game won’t tell you which choice checks what. There’s quite a bit of trial and error when it comes to this game, something that would probably annoy me if the game wasn’t structured for multiple quick playthroughs. Because it is, a lot of the events feel far less cheap since I know I’ll have another chance at them soon enough. Let’s take a moment to talk a bit more about these events though since they are kind of the main thing you’ll be experiencing in the game!

Succeeding or failing an event generally depends on your stats as the game normally will have a skill check for you. Failing these checks can be really tame or extremely bad! Most of the time you’ll just lose some Stamina or Reason, the two bold number values down in the bottom right of the screen around your character portrait, or it’ll raise the Doom. The Doom percentage is at the top of the screen and it’s almost constantly going up. It’s basically a timer since when it hits 100% the Old God you are fighting will finally be awakened, resulting in a game over. It’ll raise up slowly each time you investigate an area or rest to regain some Stamina and Reason. You can lower it through events, finishing mysteries, and lots of smaller ways, but there’s no way to truly stop it from going up. And as you probably guessed when your Stamina or Reason hit 0 you’ll get a game over as well!

The outcome of each random event will generally affect one of these things, but some will affect your money or stats. Or worse, it can give you a major injury or a curse! While I won’t go into all of the affects that can come with injuries and curses, they are just about always bad. Not run ending by any means, but they will increase the difficulty by a whole lot! Thankfully, failing events rarely cause these, and after so many playthroughs you’ll start to pick up on which do and don’t. A lot of the time, you can basically get out of an event by taking a hit to your Stamina or Reason instead of risking a check. Of course, if you do risk it there’s a lot of good that can come from it! Apart from just recovering Stamina or Reason, or lowering the Doom percentage, there’s a good chance you might get some XP, an item, or even a new Ally to help you out! The risk is almost always worth the reward and I often find myself not doing the arguably smart option of backing out and instead go for the gamble anyways! So even when getting repeat events it’s always exciting. Plus you are generally treated to some terrifying images and flavor text! Always a plus in a horror game.

However, when investigating an area, these random events aren’t the only thing you’ll run into. A lot of the time, you’ll be faced with some horror and have to fight!

Combat in World of Horror is done in a turn based fashion, and much like when you are first presented with exploring the town, it seems a lot more complicated than it actually is. Basically every action has a time tied to it, and you only have so much time in your turn. Which actions you choose to spend your time on really depend on your build. Some characters will be better at raw attacking with their equipped weapon while others might be better at having their allies attack for them! Sometimes you technically don’t even need to attack, using spells and magic instead to fight. Though that normally has it’s own draw backs.

The amount of time something will take often depends on your stats as well. Each time you get a weapon it’ll tell you what stat it works with. For example, the Lucky Bat I’m using in the screen shot above is a Strength weapon so the higher my Strength stat is I’ll do more damage and attacking won’t take as much time! Other actions also depend on your stats though. The Dodge action is tied to your Dexterity stat, and raising said stat will not only make the dodge action take less time but will raise the chance of you actually dodging the attack! Stats are also character dependent. Each character will generally have one stat that starts higher than the rest and one stat that starts lower. You can raise your stats with items and equipment but you’ll mainly be raising them through leveling up. Like I was saying before though, this makes combat seem a lot more complex than it actually is. In reality though, it’s really not that tough to understand. In fact, I found combat to be the game’s weakest element over all.

Despite all these options the game gives you for combat, I very rarely used them. I found that using the dodge action followed by some attacks was always the go to best strategy for a fight. This is a bit of a shame since I feel like fights could be pretty interesting if some of the more complex mechanics were used more. For instance, ghost enemies can’t be harmed the same way most other enemies can. You either need to give them an offering of money or use a basic attack to hurt them. However, you can also use a series of claps and bows to banish them! But figuring out the correct combination of claps and bows normally would take too long and simply giving them offerings was much easier and quicker so sadly I very rarely used the feature. There’s also no enemy that requires you to use the claps and bows which I feel like was a pretty big missed opportunity…

Thankfully, the game doesn’t really need a strong or in depth combat system and still works amazingly without it! When your Stamina and Reason are low, combat honestly gets pretty intense! Not only that, just about every enemy you face is terrifying in looks alone. I honestly had to be pretty careful on what combat image to show above as most of the monsters you fight are so horrifying that I do not feel comfortable showing them but they are really where the Junji Ito inspirations come through. I’ll go ahead and show one more though that isn’t too gory but does have a wicked design!

And that is World of Horror in a nut shell! I specifically didn’t want to get too detailed here because I feel like the game, especially at a glance, can seem very overwhelming. As I was saying before, screen shots of this game can be what really brings people, with the amazing art style and freaky designs, but it can also really turn people away and that’s not just because the look of the monsters might be too much for some people. At quick glance, this game’s UI can be extremely overwhelming! There’s a ton of information on screen just about all the time unless you got a game over or something. These overwhelming screen shots filled with so much little information scattered all around were even a bit much for me! While I was still interested and planned to pick it up, the UI did leave me skeptical about how I was going to enjoy the game given how complex it looked. So rather than going into every single little detail that the game has I think it would be better to present the game like this to help show that it’s not as complex as it looks! The game also does a great job of easing the player into things with its tutorial mystery followed by having the player start the game proper in its easiest form.

Now don’t take this simple design to mean the game itself is simple or doesn’t have much content to it. In fact, it’s kind of the other way around! World of Horror has a ton of content from new characters, backgrounds, mysteries, in game items and locations to check out, Old Gods, and even different game play modes! And thankfully, the game manages not to overwhelm the player here by having all these features unlock at a pretty good pace, letting you really enjoy each new thing coming your way before unlocking something else to get your attention! Most of these new things are unlocked through completing achievements on the in game achievement list. Which you can check out from the main menu to help let you know what to do to unlock more. Granted, quite a few of these achievements and how to unlock them can be very cryptic, I had to look up how to do a few of them, but it’s still a nice feature to have and it’s perfect for giving you something to work towards.

I think it’s probably pretty clear just how unique this game really is! But that does leave one question though. Is it really that scary? After all, the game is mostly static images and text. Can that be enough to make it 2023’s most horrifying game? And you better believe it does! As I mentioned before, I have been trying to hold back a bit on what I’m showing. I don’t want to get into the really messed up stuff even with the earlier warning. But I am going to show a few here, so just be warned and maybe scroll passed these next few images if you are looking to avoid seeing some of the more freaky designs from this game!

With these kinds of visuals and the great story telling of the mysteries, World of Horror managed to scare me to my core in ways no other game has done before. This is the first time a game has ever made me literally lose my appetite! I remember planning on having some lunch after finishing the current mystery I was on but by the end of it I had to push that lunch back awhile because I just couldn’t bring myself to eat… And yes, that is a positive when it comes to the game! In the past I have talked about how I don’t particularly like horror games that focus on gory visuals and simple ‘shock’ scares, games like Outlast for example. So you might be asking why I am able to really enjoy a game like World of Horror despite it seeming to have the same kinds of scares, and that’s because there is a big difference between how Outlast does it’s gory scares compared to World of Horror. And it all comes down to art style.

Most games that go for ‘shock’ horror, horror that is terrifying in that moment but isn’t too scary after that, focus on having realistic visuals and graphics. They lack any real kind of art style. Showing people a man with his hands glued to his face is going to be scary regardless of how you are showing it to people but when you show it to them in a unique style, one that you wouldn’t see in the real world, it manages to scare that much more! It sticks with you because it’s something different. While the odds of me seeing something this horrifying in the real world are, hopefully, very low it still feels much more familiar when you show it to me in a realistic art style. So when I see these things in World of Horror‘s, or more accurately Junji Ito’s, art style it manages to hit so much harder and really rock me to the core! Comparing it to something like Outlast really shows how bland a realistic art style can be for this kind of horror and that’s what I love about the visuals of this game and why I think more people need to try it. Well, one of the many reasons I feel people should try this game!

At the end of the day, I would still probably say that Alan Wake 2 is my favorite game of 2023 but despite that, I cannot deny the fact that World of Horror is the more scary game! With it’s unique art style, design, game play, and presentation, you simply have to pick up this game if you are into horror games! Granted, even if you are, I can honestly understand skipping out on it just from the terrifying visuals alone. As I was saying before, they managed to mess me up in ways other horror game visuals have not. But even then, I would still recommend giving World of Horror a look. While it isn’t being completely ignored, I feel like I heard nothing about this game when it finally fully launched and that is a massive shame! Releasing so close to Alan Wake 2 probably didn’t help but still. And if you are wanting to pick the game up, you have a ton of options to do so. The game is available on PC, Switch, and PlayStation 4 and 5, and it’s only $20, which is a steal given all the content in the game. I have played it for more than 50 hours now and I don’t plan on putting it down any time soon! Even if I probably should if I want to avoid going crazy…

But those are just my thoughts, what are some of yours? Thinking of giving World of Horror a try? Has there ever been a horror game that’s really gotten to you like this game did with me? I’d love to hear your thoughts so don’t be shy!

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