Driving Games and Other Horrors

Let's wrap up Halloween 2018 by talking about a bunch of creepy games set around a spooky theme: horseless carriages! OOOOoooOOoo S͏̲̥ͅP̮̻̗̘̳̜̟Ò̭̼̦O̰̼͟K̺̖̤͇̺Y̲̹̘̖̫͞
Games looked at:
Haunted Cities Vol. 3: kittyhorrorshow.itch.io/haunt...
Paratopic: arbitrarymetric.itch.io/parat... / store.steampowered.com/app/89...
Dead End Road: dddwares.itch.io/dead-end-road / store.steampowered.com/app/44...
Other stuff:
Haunted Cities Vol. 1: kittyhorrorshow.itch.io/haunt...
Haunted Cities Vol. 2: kittyhorrorshow.itch.io/haunt...
Anatomy: kittyhorrorshow.itch.io/anatomy
Glitchhikers: silverstring.itch.io/glitchhi...
September, 1999: 98demake.itch.io/september1999 / store.steampowered.com/app/95...
The Outpost Nine: store.steampowered.com/app/88...
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This episode was made possible by generous support through Patreon!
/ errantsignal
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[@herppep]

I think the recurrence of driving in horror games is as you said, a means of creating isolation but has just as much to do with the fact a lot of these games are by people from the United States. Where we derive much of our horror from the countries sheer scale. America is terrifying because an hour long commit to work is not considered abnormal, everything in your life exists at a flattening distance.

[@OH-tj4qn]

Moved from a dense city in the Northeast to a sleepy suburb in the Bay Area for work. “Flattening” is the perfect word for it. Before, a commute time Id only accept if I was going to a farm or paintball or something … that was just my commute time to the gym every other day. Horrifying and sanity destroying. Didn’t last three months.

[@cemelusine5264]

I'm always so pleased to find that Glitchhikers still gets a bit of discussion here and there! Never would have guessed the game would travel as far as it has. :D

[@gramursowanfaborden5820]

3 words: My Summer Car. not a horror game, it's more of an eclectic mix of unpopular genres depicting rural 1990s Finnish life as a clueless teenager trying to build a car, but that superficially whimsical tone exaggerates the effect of the spooky bits contained within.

[@ejones9105]

TWO ERRANT SIGNALS IN ONE DAY?! that is spooky.

[@BearOldcastle]

What's going....

[@goforgrim]

Then bring on all the spooks :D

[@walperinus]

horror driving games,,, eventualy every racing game can become an horor game if you play multiplayer long enought

[@passengerpigeonjay]

When you were describing the town you grew up in while talking about the first game and literally pointed to where I went to high school really fit the spooky vibe

[@GeminiTasiri]

Look, I'm not saying that I would watch more Itch.io spotlight videos from you But I would totally watch more Itch.io spotlight videos from you

[@celineyip83]

I've got to say man, I really appreciate the amount of thought you put into your videos. I've been listening on and off to your channel for the last couple months and I love hearing you dissect stories for meaning. If I were a developer I imagine it'd be heartening to know there's a player out there who's paying close enough attention to the story/universe to glean deeper meaning out of it.

[@harrison6082]

I LOVE the graphic art styles of these games. So nice to look at it.

[@TheOnlyRise]

The spookiest part about Dead End Road is the wheel being on the wrong side of the vehicle.

[@TheMaplestrip]

Happy Halloween; this was a great month of videos as always. Thanks you so much! :)

[@mr.sentient7344]

So glad you talked about paratopic, probably my favourite horror games and I'm so happy to see it get more attention.

[@Soundole]

Great collection, with your usual lovely delivery. Thanks for this!

[@tomjack1000000]

Two uploads in 24 hours. Thanks mate :)

[@prophoem9492]

Thanks for the great videos, ES!

[@ShootingStarNeo]

Your inquiry upon the D A R K P O W E R S reminded me of a comic I saw circulating social media about the Birthday Skeleton "HELLO HUMAN CHILD. WHAT MATERIAL GOODS DO YOU DESIRE?" "...A-an X-Box?" "THE CONTRACT IS SEALED."

[@jurgenronaaz4695]

Sounds like something out of a spoopier version of Terry Pratchett's "Hogfather"

[@danieladamczyk4024]

imgur.com/gallery/AnWqp Say nothing except "You welcome"

[@Ikcatcher]

The real horror here: Errant uploading two videos in a day

[@stevenostuni6266]

Speaking of Halloween games, have you ever played Cosmology of Kyoto? It's earned a rep as the only video game Roger Ebert liked, but it's pretty memorable on its own merits. It's an educational, ultra-gory Buddhist horror game for DOS- though you can download it for free online. I love how it takes the point-n-click adventure game template but removes linear storytelling and quest-driven design- Instead you wander around the haunted capital city interacting with townsfolk and demons and getting immersed in some really nasty short horror stories. A word of warning: I played it on my Mac, and anything involving the text parser was super broken (you're supposed to hit Y or N for yes or no, but it often ignored it for me anyway.) If you don't mind wrestling with that aspect, it's a one-of-a-kind spooky game.

[@scotchbox]

Thanks for the contentsplosion recently!

[@gmckart]

This is awesome man, definitely going to checkout Paratopic

[@Rugeon]

Cool stuff. Thanks for doing what you do

[@sihplak]

3:12 A surprising amount of my favorite content creators here on KZbin have turned out to be fellow Hoosiers, so that's been pretty cool to see!

[@StudioGhibli]

Picked up Paratopic. Thank you for the video. :)

[@Mackinstyle]

Glitchhikers is the game to have come closest of any game to capture the pure essence of my childhood experience of late-night drives as a kid when I was old enough to be in the front seat but young enough that a midnight drive was surreal.

[@doyleharken3477]

Two Chrises in one day? It's Halloweenmas!

[@RenessanceFilms]

Growing up in a village of 500 people, I find it funny to hear you call a town of 20.000 'small' :P

[@advisorv]

The concepts in Ghost Lake remind me of Tartarus, and the Dark Hour in general, in Persona 3

[@DeDean16]

Oh god I have my driving test next week. I'm sooo gonna have nightmares about that now! :P

[@xD-lt1mq]

2 vids? pog to the champ

[@GmodPlusWoW]

8:40, *"COFFEE OR PISTACHIO, MORTAL?!"*

[@CIP3RM]

I'm surprised you didn't cover that in-development game Beware, the Russian horror driving game.

[@milk_bath]

Yeah I kept waiting for him to start talking about too!

[@AsatorIV]

It's not Russian, it's Czech. Not everything east of Germany is Russia. That said, I am surprised he didn't mention it, too.

[@CIP3RM]

@@AsatorIV blyat

[@damazywlodarczyk]

Yeah, he forgot about the most interesting one.

[@milanstevic8424]

it's weird... I thought he was just warming up for it.

[@timothymclean]

I also grew up in a small town in Indiana, the county seat of its county. But I was close enough to Chicago (and my family visited there often enough as a kid) that I didn't really feel trapped by its smallness, so not sure how close my experiences would be to yours there...

[@nfistfu]

That hitch-hiker near the end reminds me of the aliens from Rescue on Fractalus.

[@savag3salad813]

OMG 2 videos in one day from Errant?!?! I'm obviously dead and in an afterlife far better than heaven!

[@Redem10]

I've been haunted by the ghosts of space flight simulators

[@jdw72090]

You should definitely do an entire episode on lo-fi horror games

[@neddles33]

Bell book and candle is an A grade rainy Sunday movie

[@RawbeardX]

time for spoopy!

[@adachezero]

There's a work in progress game called "Beware", I think, which involves a spooky car chase at night. Check it out!

[@8BitHorse]

Boy, I hope that ice cream was good.

[@Donyoku]

You know it'f funny that these horror games are about driving, driving is why I do to de-stress, I'll set up some podcasts and just go

[@CrashThompson]

Oh hey, you're a Hoosier? Indiana represent. :P

[@Crocogator]

What in the world is happening! My dude, this is a lot of content all of a suddens. Edit: Thank you for saying PSX.

[@GreatJoe]

To be honest, no game scared me quite as much as Dirt Rally's nighttime stages. The car, interface and your co-driver all implicitly ask you to drive fast and drive well just by virtue of being there, but you're always just two head-on collisions from becoming blind, with never quite the amount of night vision to react to the oncoming dirt road.

[@V_y-r_e]

What you did with Paratopic wand I felt that you captured the essee what they do nextreme amounts of atmosphope you review it next.

[@hugo59208]

A Gran Turismo Horror game now there's a one billion dollar idea

[@Robert399]

I'm surprised how big a deal Halloween is in America. In Australia, primary school kids spend 1 evening begging strangers for sweets. Spending a month celebrating it would be like spending a month celebrating a bank holiday.

[@briankoontz1]

We used to be like that too before despair caused us to make every major holiday last at least a couple weeks and some minor ones last a few days. The more fun, escapist, "unreal" days we have the less reality we have to experience.

[@LadyDeSelby]

Most people don't actually spend a month celebrating it. Just people on the internet who like scary weird things and are annoyed that people won't celebrate those things any other time.

[@bastienmillecam3183]

As a European, the small town anxiety of 20,000 really cracks me up

[@DiabloQFDB]

Lol, I was expecting this to be about Forza Horizon 4 and you explaining how you are weirdly scared of and don't get driving games.

[@steampunkerella]

oh, another video. look at that

[@marciturani6416]

BEWARE is good too

[@RyanDB]

Huh. I grew up in a town of fewer than ~10,000, but I never thought of it as a "small town", or experienced any sort of anxiety over it. Maybe it's because I'm from the UK, and everything is closer together over here?

[@Crispman_777]

spoopy

[@xpinchx]

Where in Indiana? I used to live around where that arrow pointed, I'm just curious lol.

[@dearleader7647]

8:36 That's not ice cream.

[@ianmartin2428]

Yo can we get a cage match with errant signal and reycuvick

[@ozapy]

3:13 and I thought that a population of 8000 was big...

[@josesolis1319]

You from Indiana too? I feel ya.

[@DaisyAma488]

What was that unnamed game with the amazing VHS filter in the first 30 seconds?

[@ErrantSignal]

September, 1999. It's free! I linked it in the description. It's only five minutes long and it's more... offputting than outright scary, but also: It's free!

[@DaisyAma488]

Errant Signal The VHS filter is the best I've ever seen and I love it. Hope it gets used for something bigger someday then. Reminds me of hbomb's essay on the power of VHS. Somehow the distortion is letting the low fi graphics reach a sense of realism for me. Powerful stuff.

[@RisingChaosWriting]

Heads up Errant Signal, the video for Anatomy is not on the errant signal playlist on your channel. Or at least not for me. I was able to find it on your page so it's just missing from the playlist.

[@ErrantSignal]

Thanks for the heads up! That should be fixed now!

[@kabelabel6118]

Where do you find these games? It's a genuine question. I'd like to be able to consistently find awesome little indie games like this. I mean, I assume these aren't too well known. And while I do know a few unknown games, due to the fact that these are hard to find, not many. Hell, some of them are so hard to find, that even if you google their name it won't come up. "Platform" is my favorite free online game, but to find it you have to write "Platform the game" in google, not just "Platform". And even then you have to scroll down to find the website. And there's a different game called Platform too, which makes it even more difficult. I don't even remember how I found it.

[@iam9991000]

One place is itch.io.

[@niclasbelrra]

Check this: itch.io/games/newest/released this: store.steampowered.com/search/?sort_by=Released_DESC&category1=998 and this: gamejolt.com/games/new?status=complete every day/ week/ month.

[@politure]

You can also follow horror let's players, good ones will often play spookier indie games. My favourite is John Wolfe.

[@lucas56sdd]

Any of these games less than three hours?

[@troin3925]

8:23-8:36 They reused music from Outlast 2!

[@symanthahoward5238]

Eyyy! Fellow Hoosier here! Did you make it out?

[@InsanityPlusOne]

Just do halloween stuff all year dude, Bojack Horseman did it in january and it's already in october so that's only 10 more months to fill.

[@DrMcCoy]

"Small town", "20,000" To my mind, that's at least one order of magnitude off to still be counted as "small".

[@ErrantSignal]

Okay I went and looked it up and apparently I was way off - not an order of magnitude off, but still off. The town was home to 5,300 people as of the 2010 census. For some reason I remembered the town's population being 20k, but apparently that was the number for the *whole county*.

[@agustinhoj6347]

Why do these indie horror games look like they have been enhanced with -8 msaa

[@RGcrasyRG]

Glad to see some of the shitstorm games here.

[@EggBastion]

YeYeYeYeYe! You look okay, GET IN!

[@TheBloodswordsman]

Does anyone else find it far more interesting to hear Errant Signal talk about horror games, rather than playing them for yourself? No? Just me?

[@irish3641]

I C E C R E A M

[@PaxPirate]

What was the funny game in the beginning with “Eat Shit, money.” called?

[@ErrantSignal]

It's Castle Wormclot, one of the four games in this year's Haunted Cities Volume 3. The link should be in the description if you need it!

[@PaxPirate]

@@ErrantSignal Ah - I am blind! Thank you so so much! This might be my Halloween night entertainment!

[@CIARUNSITE]

I'm not much of a horror game player, but I love me some good capitalism bashing. Eat shit, money. LMAO.

[@briankoontz1]

Wealth and capitalism aren't the same thing. Capitalism is a structure of ownership and relations to the means of production. Many theorists believe that under socialism there would be *more* wealth generated - the big difference is that that wealth would be shared to a much greater extent.

[@sfglim5341]

Ok

[@rocko7711]

🥰😍🤩😘

[@xbb1024]

How is Indiana the mid west? I think I'm missing some cultural context here.

[@terbowzone137]

If you want a scary-ish driving game check out Distance on steam. It has great gameplay, great music, and would be great to play around Halloween.

[@katherinedraken]

do Fallout 76

[@GurdevSeepersaud]

Ugh I respect the heck out of your thoughts but Paratopic has to be one of the worst games I've ever played. A meager 40 minutes of playtime that's constantly being interrupted by these sleeping-inducing car rides and stops each of its vignettes at the point where things are just about to get interesting. I bought it on sale and I still feel like I wasted my money. I've enjoyed Anatomy, the PAGAN series on itch, and Fatum Betula and would recommend all of those games instead if you like 1st-person low-budget horror games.