Description

It's that time of the year again~ Halloween month! Yay! Now, usually we tend to have a fairly open game making event where everyone just makes a game that may or may not have to do with horror, but this time around I figure let's go hardcore into that goodnight.

It's time to create a frightening time~

This event is all about creating a horror game!

What is a Horror Game?
By definition horror as a genre tends to follow the Survival Horror trope - drop your hero into the middle of something terrifying and horrific and force them to try and survive. There may or may not be allusions to various myths, legends and classic horror tropes, and a lot of the time there's different endings (even though most are split into good/bad/death/death/death ones).

A good horror game leaves the player guessing when the next scare is coming, gives hints as to what the scare is and what should not be interacted with, but also allows for not showing the horror too closely. They use sound direction, music and atmosphere over cheap dark-screen tactics and can leave you worried about whether you should check that table or not.

Some games don't include gore. Some do. Some horror games focus more on story or characters, whilst others drop you down as a nameless, faceless person striving to fight against the mysteries of the dark (think Slenderman). Either way, they're often quite short games in comparison to normal ones, and quite a few have a lot of replay value.

Event Rules
In this event you will be creating a horror game, using some of the provided choices below.

You must pick ONE (or more) of the list below to be in your game:
- Fading Dreams
- Bloody Smile
- Twisted Memories
- Mysterious Present
- Broken Future
- Hopeless Tomorrow
- Forgotten Past

You must also include at least TWO (or more, if you wish) of the following:
- A red balloon
- Empty picture frames
- Broken glasses
- Demonic Possession
- Cloves of garlic
- An iron sword
- An old music box
- Golden key/s
- A cursed cellphone
- An eyeless teddy bear
- Blood-stained wedding dress
- A poisoned cup


Submission Rules
The submission rules are as follows:
- Full game or demo is fine. Demos should be over 10 minutes long, though.
- You may start on October 1st!
- Time ends Midnight of the 30th of October. Games must be submitted to this event page by then! Please plan ahead by having game pages created by that point. (To make sure you see the right time on the page in your time zone, go to account settings and change your hour offset to fit your area. This will change site time to be your timezone and the dates in the top-right corner of the event page will reflect this.)
- Games should be stand-alone and not require extra additions (like downloading RTP files or the like).
- Games should follow the event rules.
- You may use a team if you wish, but it's not necessary.
- Any engine allowed.
- Games MUST abide by site rules.

Judging
Those who managed to submit a full game or demo at the end of the event will get a participation badge.

Games will be judged by a group of judges who will decide the top three games. Those top three games will get a badge each, from 1st place to 3rd place.





FAQS

Does it have to be a straight horror game? Does it have to be scary?
Well, the main idea is to make it a bit scary, but there are games out there that blend cute and scary quite well, so if you can do something like that I see no reason you can't make a blended horror. It doesn't have to be straight horror genre, either. It's fine to make a mix of genres, just make sure that horror is the main one.





Third Place


Cara by Edus1998



Second Place


Xenos by markofthewind28


First Place


A Ghost's Lullaby by Lucy_Fox



Honourable Mentions (in no particular order)
_ (underscore) - Best Use of Sound and Demon
Halloweeb - Best Use of Animu
Polixiuhs - Best Facade of Normality
A Night at Hotel Deuce - Best Quick Time Events Against Creepy-Ass Sprites o.O;
Red Balloon of Happiness - Best Frogge is Not Actually a Girl BTW
Super Girl Squad - Best Dungeons and Dragons Rip-Off ;p
Mom - Best Game that Didn't Make it in Time


Background art by Mezamero of deviantart

Details

  • 10/01/2016 12:00 AM
  • 10/31/2016 04:00 AM
  • 10

Achievements

Registration

You must be logged in to sign up for A Halloween Horror.

Teams Members Entry
The Ghost of Christmas Kloe
Team Scary
this'll be my first horror game... best game on here!
Team Scream
it's been halloween since july 5th
Wanna see real horror? Check out my gam mak!
A Ghost's Lullaby - The one that isn't scary at all
Team Name
OzzyChanz & MioTheOne
blathnat the impaler
Team Jumpscares Sucks
Monster Mash!
Made a Horror game in less than 4 days.
The scary thing is how much other stuff I SHOULD be doing.
HopefullyFinishing
Hey guys I've been here for five minutes what's going on
Somewhere or Bust!
Sure, why not
cesber the friendly ghost
HELLO YES THIS IS FROGGE HERE TO MAKE A GAME WHERE EVERYONE DIES
Donald Wins the Presidency
team spoopy
Team get notifications
Probably Halloween Game
Do nothing or die trying
Because Survival Horror can still be RPGs!
TwoD Studios
Teem Zeebree, it's a demo.
Team Vengeful Sols
hIROMU
The doll maker
Totally not making a game
Punkk makes a Surreal Horror Game!
The Music box
NoBody´s MagiK
AfroSoft
aHH Project
H16
Should be working in main game but
forest overlay == instant win
Marshmellow
Rainbows and Unicorns
Get spooped, plebs
Bats in the Belfry
#goingtofail
No game, no team, only candy corn
I might try this
Sup Bro
I like working under pressure, haha! -faints-
10 days to try beat SnowOwl :(
RWBY
Hossi Games
Mummy help me project
Irregularity
ManiacMax's Team
Manacade

Posts

Okay... added a scary music track to my ambient loop.... game is now slightly scarier xD (I hope)
But my motivation is slipping away.... wait for me! Don't leave me! T______T
pianotm
The TM is for Totally Magical.
32388
OzzyTheOne
Realization: I might not finish my game in time.

Time to inject myself with gam mak 2.0

Realization: For me, this is a high probability.
You still have time.

For me, this event is the highlight of the RMN-year. Weirdly enough I don't think I've made a game for it since 2012, though... How did that happen?
We have submitted our gamepage! Now we just wait until it gets accepted :)
Why not end the event at midnight on the 31st? I think that many of us could use the extra Sunday to polish or finish our submissions.
If you put your full mind into the gam mak, you can achieve anything your heart desires in life.
Because Halloween is a busy time for people and it'd be unfair for some to have time and some not to. Also, some people might like the idea of playing games on Halloween night (the games are being made FOR Halloween, after all).

Plan to polish before Halloween.
Agreed.

Also in other news I'll most likely finish on time for Polixiuhs even though it might be tight for QA. I just finished most of eventing and leftover for mapping. I just have some all that stupid glueing together the whole thing.
sadly i'm bowing out of the event, i didn't realize but college starts again on Halloween and i still have work to finish for it ;-; i've had fun making my game and will continue to make it, even though it started out as a game for this event i was inspired to make it longer which i now intend to do. however sadly i failed to make a demo anywhere near what i wanted and i would rather put a solid demo out than something thats full of bugs

gl to everyone on this event~ ill be looking foward to seeing the games you've made
Just a reminder that demos count as well! As long as it has 10+ minutes of play it will count, so~
Cap_H
DIGITAL IDENTITY CRISIS
6625
Can I use one of my other gamepages to host the initial download? Like, I would switch downloads as soon as I get the right one ready.
I'll probably get to do something tomorrow, can set up the gamepage. But we got a national holiday plus my mom has birthday today (so many scorpios).
There's still a few days left, so there's no worry about game pages as long as you can get one up before the end date you should be fine. I'll be keeping an eye on the queue.
author=Liberty
Because Halloween is a busy time for people and it'd be unfair for some to have time and some not to. Also, some people might like the idea of playing games on Halloween night (the games are being made FOR Halloween, after all).

Plan to polish before Halloween.


Was about to agree with the extra time for polishing, but can't argue with this. x3

About 80% now, couple of long events and lots tidy-ups to clear out. The game is about 15 minutes long so would be quite weird to make a demo of it.
Turn on the afterburners, it's hammer time! (then pumpkin time)

(Not sure if I can get a playtester to double check bugs and my Engrish in time though :s)
OzzyTheOne
Future Ruler of Gam Mak
4698
@Kevincalanor

I would like to playtest your game, but I have my own game to finish, ask in the forums, I think you'll find a playtester in no time.
If you've made a game that's 10 minutes in duration, take in account that the player may take twice as long to complete it. Took me an hour to complete Hotel Deuce which was billed as a 10-20 minute game. So don't worry if you think your game is too short, it'll probably be the opposite for everyone else! :o
author=StarSkipp
If you've made a game that's 10 minutes in duration, take in account that the player may take twice as long to complete it. Took me an hour to complete Hotel Deuce which was billed as a 10-20 minute game. So don't worry if you think your game is too short, it'll probably be the opposite for everyone else! :o


And you made a really good game, too! I'm glad it's up there right now. It serves as an example for people who are working on this event: it doesn't have to be overly long or complex, just something short and sweet.



I feel bad so many people are bowing out of this event, but this isn't an event for building a masterpiece. I enjoy that so many people are churning out custom graphics (heck, I am too!), but that can also burn you out. All you have to do is tell a short horror story, not very large in scale, in ten minutes. Heck, someone could make a game that takes place in one room, and with good scary story telling, it'd be interesting enough for ten minutes. If it doesn't last ten minutes, throw in a puzzle, or a riddle, for the players to solve.

Even if you have a half-complete game now and you're thinking of bowing out, just wrap up what you have, slap a "completed" sticker on it and submit it for the event. Or throw a "to be continued" sign on it and mark it as a demo.
Oh I wasn't the maker for hotel deuce, was stating that it took me an hour to finish the game. The players won't know the in's and out's of the your project and effectively developers are speedrunning themselves.

author=Gredge109
Even if you have a half-complete game now and you're thinking of bowing out, just wrap up what you have, slap a "completed" sticker on it and submit it for the event. Or throw a "to be continued" sign on it and mark it as a demo.


Seconding this, there's no shame in releasing a demo. Even if it's messy, you always have a shot at the title xD
OzzyTheOne
Future Ruler of Gam Mak
4698
After much thought and too much gam mak to be healthy, I've come to the conclusion that I won't finish my game in time. But I will polish what I have as much as possible and release it as a DEMO.

I wish ya people the best of luck in these last few days and may the gam mak be with you!
OzzyTheOne
Future Ruler of Gam Mak
4698
Well, I'm probably going to redo ALL the eventing in my game, I approached the eventing in quite a messy way and it's a pain to work with. I am going to keep a copy of the project with the old eventing, in case I mess up.

Ups, double post.