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 ratcheting up the tension in abrupt and often shocking manners. At one point you walked around a corner and discover 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, you’ll likely steal the gun. Unfortunately, you have to actually equip it, and upon encountering a particularly vicious enemy and failing to do so, you will be politely informed by the game that you don’t have enough time to switch weapons during combat and will promptly die.
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 uses an interesting design approach. 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 things. 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, even as your body slowly becomes disfigured and you squirm uncomfortably while looking at yourself.
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 and entertainment. 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 ambience as much as about writing or visuals and the music in World of Horror sets the tone in just the right way.
The Switch version of World of Horror is the same as the current Steam and Itch version but if you played the early access version a few years ago, a lot of content has been added. There are a number of different mysteries that are randomized in each game, 20 in all. Events are also randomized and there are 11 endings to achieve and 14 playable characters, leading to a huge number of combinations for gameplay. The updated version of the game adds 2 bit color as well, shifting to two different colors and making the game’s menus and imagery stand out even more (as if it wasn’t disturbing enough). Achievements have been included in the final build, as has a bestiary and some other neat extras. You can even change color palettes whenever you’d like to. The menu system is still challenging to learn but everything that you highlight has a text description and the low-tech approach to the game really highlights how disturbing things are effectively. Sure there’s no real action here, just a turn-based system that’s clearly RPG-based, but that doesn’t matter. Each run of World of Horror is disturbing and spectacular and it’s hard not to keep going even after you solve five mysteries and save the world.
There are some downsides to the Switch version as well however. It’s clear that World of Horror is designed for a mouse and keyboard and it is difficult to move the cursor around the screen with the controller sticks. In addition, the screen seems particularly cluttered in undocked mode on the Switch because of the sheer number of windows full of text that you’re using. That’s not to say that the design is bad, but it’s intentionally incredibly old-school, partly from style and partly due to the limitations of MS Paint. There’s really no guide or handholding here so if you don’t figure things out, you die fast too, especially if you’re not paying attention to Reason points or the Doom percentage. And finally the introductory Spine-Chilling Story of School Scissors also doesn’t seem to save your character which means that you’ll be starting over once you move on to the next scenario, which is a bit frustrating.
For $20, 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 a Nintendo Switch in both docked and undocked modes and played equally well on both. World of Horror is also available for PS4/PS5 and for PC on Steam and itch.io.
Nate Van Lindt has been a gamer since the days of yore (aka Commodore 64), and has played a bit of virtually everything out there. He's also an avid comic book collector, both vintage and current, and reads a fair amount of sci-fi and fantasy. On top of that, he watches a fair number of movies and TV shows as well. Oh, and he has a family, a full-time job, and lives somewhere in the urban wilds of Southwestern Ontario, Canada, foraging for old video cables and forgotten game soundtracks.