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

after having no internet for months upon months, i can say that i actually cried when I saw I topped..
Yup you got it, you can check it on "yourname"/Achievements at the top bar ^^
author=Liberty
Pretty sure that Red Balloon counted. It just wasn't on the list so I forgot about it counting for an achieve. Now, am I missing anyone else?

I'm sorry if this sounds late but did my game meet the requirements? I don't know if I got an achievement or not.
I was thinking to the developer personal locker; and submitting at link to the zip file in the event like the link we submitted in the Game Page Workshop event.

Thanks for the badge!
Unfortunately, you can only offer one choice when it comes to events, and that's either the event locker or gamepages. Some people prefer game pages - which what we tend to go for since you can have multiple uploads on them and it cuts down on faff for when you put the game on the site. The event locker is usually used for the very short game events, or other stuff like music.
author=TungerManU
Wasn't there also an extension, if my memory serves me right?


Yes. I think it reopened for 20 minutes a few hours later. I wasn't aware that it would reopen and my computer was turned off when it reopened.

author=TungerManU
That said, you probably shouldn't have updated the original download after the event ended. If you wanted to upload an updated version of the game, you should've made a new download so that the contest version would remain available.


Your point is valid and thus I think gamepage isn't the best location to store download for an event. The locker (with its "date added" field) is a much better storage location for event donwloads because only the judges need that specific version. On the gamepage, the developer wants to provide the best version to the players and not confuse them with multiples versions.
Pretty sure that Red Balloon counted. It just wasn't on the list so I forgot about it counting for an achieve. Now, am I missing anyone else?
@Irog No worries! It was more of a observation for the event in general, honestly don't recall most of it... Wow, October was almost three months ago D:
Thanks again Kloe.

Luiishu, your music is great and adds so much to the game. Your are also a friendly team player who share ideas and adapt to the needs of the project. And remember, you're the one who gave the game it's well chosen title.

Red Balloon of Happiness was a team work. Every one in our team did a great job briging his contribution to the project. I think we should either all get a badge or none gets it.

author=Luiishu535
I believe that the Submit button disappeared since we missed the deadline.

Indeed

author=StarSkipp
Yeah that was a common problem throughout the competition. Some of the judges were a few days late in downloading and we all ended up playing different versions of the same game. It was mostly bug fixes and added dialogue here or there though, so it wasn't too problematic. Best to keep the contest version separate in future.

Sorry. My bad. As I missed the deadline, I thought to be out of the contest and went on finishing the end game events (to make the ending reachable). In her streaming, Liberty played the unfinished version but by then I already updated the download.
author=TungerManU
That said, you probably shouldn't have updated the original download after the event ended. If you wanted to upload an updated version of the game, you should've made a new download so that the contest version would remain available.


Yeah that was a common problem throughout the competition. Some of the judges were a few days late in downloading and we all ended up playing different versions of the same game. It was mostly bug fixes and added dialogue here or there though, so it wasn't too problematic. Best to keep the contest version separate in future.
I believe that the Submit button disappeared since we missed the deadline.
Well, rules are rules (that's why they're called rules). xD Personally though, I think that Irog, Avee and Frogge deserve the achievement since they really put in the effort into making something decent and worthwhile. Without them, there'd be no game to play. I just composed the music (which turned out pretty bad, I think) and I'm pretty sure that the game would turn out just as good, if not better, without it. xD

Thanks for the condolences though, buddy!

EDIT: Thank you too, Kloe!
Kloe
I lost my arms in a tragic chibi accident
2236
Awww, yeah, I'd be sad if Red Balloon didn't get an achieve, it was really fun and spooky.
Aww..
I hope you can still get it.
I didn't get an achievement. Actually, no one in my team got one (Irog, Avee, Frogge and myself). :O

Now when I think about it, I do believe that we missed the deadline by 30-60 seconds, so that probably explains why none of us got one.

Sorry for the confusion! ^^

EDIT:

How unfortunate (deadline was set to 12:00 AM). xD
Cap_H
DIGITAL IDENTITY CRISIS
6625
I see! Thanks
I know it took a while (sorry about that!) but the badges are finally out. If you're missing one and should have gotten it, let me know!