World of Horror from Ysbryd Games immediately captures your attention. With its vintage 80s PC style, disturbing use of black and white imagery, and obvious Lovecraftian influences, there’s a whole lot of potential here. World of Horror has a unique real world backstory too, one that’s just as fascinating as the horror it’s title alludes too. Weirdly enough, World of Horror was created by a Polish dentist, Pawel Kozminski, who used nothing but MS Paint to make the game. This of course explains why it is incredibly, almost hauntingly familiar instantly when playing. Kozmiski, also known as Panstasz online, made World of Horror as a hobby project and is noticeably inspired by classic horror themes as well as Japanese ones, notably the work of Junji Ito. If you’re interested in horror and you enjoy Japanese culture, it’s almost impossible not to have heard of Ito. He attended the Toronto Comic Arts Festival last year and the lines were practically out the door with people waiting hours for a chance to meet the legendary artist.
But Panstasz has taken things a step further, combining influences like Ito and Lovecraft into a black and white rogue-like RPG title that forces you down the darkest pathways imaginable. You don’t just read World of Horror like a visual novel. You are forced down pathways you don’t want to go, kicking and screaming all the while. Decisions have repercussions, and as you play and build your character, things worsen around you, slowly oppressing you and racheting up the tension in abrupt and often shocking manners. At one point I walked around a corner and discovered a dead police officer, just lying in the street. World of Horror never outright shows everything, but you see his boots with blood pooling around them and you’re given three simple options. Check his wounds for clues, escape before more people arrive, or steal his gun. Seriously, steal the gun off a dead cop before anyone sees you. And considering how vicious combat is, I stole the gun. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to actually equip it, and when I encountered a particularly vicious enemy, I was politely informed by the game that I didn’t have enough time to switch weapons during combat and promptly died.
That’s what’s great about World of Horror. It’s completely unforgiving. Make a mistake and die. Stay to fight when you shouldn’t and die. You’re just a person with limited resources trying to fight unimaginable supernatural entities, and you don’t have much of a chance. It’s a game that encapsulates everything that Lovecraft instilled in his work. How far we might go if pushed and how our minds might snap under the pressure if we tried to go too far or understand too much. World of Horror uses classic-style computer visuals to distill successful horror concepts into an experience that terrifies you with the slightest of shifts in pixels, and it’s an absolutely spectacular accomplishment.
World of Horror’s gameplay is an interesting design. You have complete control over where to go and what to do from the menu, but the game guides you through the five mysteries as you try to solve them. After each successful completion of a mystery, someone mails you a key that will eventually help you unlock the lighthouse outside of town. But getting there is a challenge. Choose a mystery, proceed, and you never know what’s around the next corner. You might convince some masked cultists or Japanese schoolkids to join your cause. You might rescue a dog, or find the rotten, reanimated corpses of the entire Class of 1971 melded together into an unholy horror waiting to attack you by the seaside. You know, everyday sorts of stuff. Along the way, you pick up followers, learn spells, and obtain items, all of which may or may not help you depending on your choices and the randomization of the game itself. There’s no guarantee you’ll need everything or everyone you get, or that any of it will help you survive.
Between mysteries, it pays to stock up on items and rest, as virtually every combat encounter drains both your stamina (hit points) and reason. Run out of either and you’re done, either dying horribly or going mad. Even here, the visual care taken with World of Horror is impressive. Your character’s image slowly takes wounds, much like the avatar from Doom, and as you take baths, rest and recover, your visage visibly improves. It’s the tiny details that matter and World of Horror never skimps on them.
Of course, if you only have a little while to play, you might not have a chance to finish whichever mystery you’ve chosen. In that case, you’re welcome to save your game and come back another time, but beware! World of Horror isn’t the friendliest of games and that includes its save feature. If you have to pack it in, you pay the price. You lose all followers you’ve gathered and every spell you’ve found and memorized in the game so far! This is an absolutely vicious way to force people to keep playing and it’s absolutely fantastic. The first time you go to save, you’ll hesitate. You’ll look at the clock. You’ll try and figure out if there’s enough time to play for a few more minutes. And then you’ll resign yourself to your fate, knowing that at least you get to keep your items, even if you’re probably going to die immediately upon returning to the game the next time.
Eventually, you’ll settle into a groove with World of Horror, trying to survive, acquiring items, and solving the mysteries. At that point, you realize that the gameplay is a bit repetitive, but the events are so jarring and random that the game stays fresh for quite a while. While there’s no overriding narrative that weaves everything together, you get a jarring sense of unease that permeates the whole game, all the way to the lighthouse and the culmination of your bloody efforts. What character you pick doesn’t really matter, but even then, you can choose outfits and other options just for sheer preference. The longer you play, the more you realize how nuanced and deep gameplay really is in World of Horror and you start to appreciate the incredible work that Panstasz has managed virtually entirely on his own.
In addition to the excellent mechanics and uniquely disturbing visuals, the chiptune soundtrack manages to hit all the notes of a classic as well. With hints of Silent Hill and an oppressive atmosphere, World of Horror manages to sound creepy without overusing sound effects or music. Horror is about ambiance as much as about writing or visuals and the music in World of Horror sets the tone in just the right way.
The mysteries you get are random each time, and you definitely won’t see every story and event in one playthrough so there’s a fair amount of replay value here. In addition, keep in mind that World of Horror is still in early access on Steam, and the full game will be released later this year for all major consoles. Additional content is coming and Panstasz has enlisted another writer to help flesh out the final project. Eventually, they will be adding a full 20 different mysteries (currently there are 12) with over 200 randomized events and there are already 5 playable characters and two hidden ones. A playthrough of all five random mysteries takes between 1.5 and 4 hours generally so that’s a lot of gametime to experience everything. Even considering the game isn’t finished yet, you’re getting a solid, complete work in its own right. There’s really no question that World of Horror is an amazing experience if you like any of the themes and it will continue to evolve and add more content.
For $15, World of Horror is well worth your time. Its unique designs and concepts merge fantastic horror with modern roguelike sensibilities and a throwback to the golden age of PC text adventures in such a way that it becomes an entirely new and exciting beast. For those of you that don’t like text adventures and reading, keep in mind that there’s no real action here other than turn-based combat though, and this is not a standard game by any means. Everything is static images with the occasional bit of frame by frame movement, often presented in a surprisingly disturbing manner. But for those who can handle the terror, World of Horror is a welcome and spectacular entry into the growing number of independent games available.
This review was based on a digital copy of World of Horror provided by the publisher. It was played on Steam with a gaming computer, but essentially requires almost no resources to run. World of Horror is also available on itch.io. All screenshots are of actual gameplay using the Windows 10 Game overlay and images were cropped for easier legibility. If you like what you see, chances are good that you’ll love the works of Junji Ito and H.P. Lovecraft so check them out!