It Is Wednesday: What Is Horror?

It's been a while since I did an It Is Wednesday column musing about the game industry and game design as a whole. Let's amend that.

I was talking about The Shadow Over Cyberspace with someone recently, and they suggested I bill it as "Cozy Horror." I'm really not sure it fits, though. I'm not sure what label it fits into, honestly -- even horror.

Is it cozy? You spend the whole game walking around a very cozy house, generally not in any sort of physical danger, doing web research and talking to people online. There's definitely a warm sense of nostalgia for the 1990s here, and for the sleepy suburban bedroom communities of a very boring decade. But at the same time... your body is falling to bits, your mind's becoming plagued with visions, you're learning terrible truths about the world, and an emphasis is put on society as a whole circling the drain.

Is it horror? There's a handful of jump scares but it's not meant to be a fright fest. The only blood in the game is a brief moment in described narration, so there's no gore. This ain't an 80s slasher movie and nothing is chasing you down Slenderman style. But it's certainly about horrible things, distant and hard to think about or slowly and insidiously pulling your life apart.

Is it cosmic horror? Absolutely, it relies very heavily on the Cthulhu Mythos. But unlike most cosmic horror, the vast and alien entities you must come to terms with are very human, with human flaws and human dreams. They're terrifying and strange and no good can truly come of this, leading to various unpleasant outcomes even at the best of times -- but they're not unfathomable.

Is it a mystery? Conspiracy lurks around every corner as you live your own personal X-Files episode. Shadow governments, cover-ups, corporate wrongdoings, schemers and manipulators and puppetmasters in the shadows. Lone rebels trying to uncover truths best left covered. But it's not building to some grand whodunnit reveal; it's just about soaking in secrets that already transpired years before you showed up. You don't discover some bold truth and save the world with it.

Is it science fiction? Oh, certainly; it's modempunk, the retro tech flavor of cyberpunk, where everything is clunky and weird and consumer-driven and corporate, but all that jank is being put to dark purposes. And one dude literally wants to start space colonies! But it's also got a layer of New Weird to it, which defies purely rational explanation and demands acceptance of unknowable truths.

In the end... I think the vibe I'm going with is "Ominous." It's a very ominous story. It's like digging a hole, but you never hit bottom, you just keep going. But with just a hint of light that maybe, maybe, you can dig your way out and find some compromised path to safety.

We're living in ominous times. Maybe more high-pressure world-crushing horror isn't what we want. But it's what I made, so here we go.

Trailer drops tomorrow.