“Unsorted Horror” Delivers Bite-Sized Dread – Game Recommendation

Unsorted Horror is an anthology that consists of wonderfully short, intriguingly oppressive games that stay with you for quite a bit of time after the credits roll.

If you are familiar with indie games or watch people who play them, particularly ones with a knack for retro graphics and horror aesthetics, you have probably heard of Buckshot Roulette. The game is the brainchild of developer Mike Klubnika, whose focus on low-saturation, low-poly, and high-dread experiences has been producing interesting short games for a few years now. Among them is a collection that found its way to Steam for free, the anthology titled Unsorted Horror.

Analyzing the content without spoiling the fun is a bit of a challenge, and I think you should probably give them a try since they’re free, so I’ll give more general thoughts.

Klubnika’s games serve a good dose of concrete and metal, all molded into claustrophobic rooms and horrifying spaces. The violently indifferent rooms serve as a backdrop for fatal stories of ruin and misfortune, along with the idea of being just a cog in an enormous machine.

Indeed, many of the games are based on following instructions and interacting properly with machines and your environment. It’s a special kind of dread, one in which you are a participant, as every action, inaction, or mistake you make inevitably brings you closer to a usually foregone conclusion.

The narratives in each game also serve as an interesting medium. They’re really spartan, most of the time. Told out loud without context, they might even sound like a silly B-Movie plot. But it gives the experience a tone all the more macabre to see such horrid sequences unfold.

Not a single game in Unsorted Horror pulls its punches. You get to feel trapped and secluded. You get to understand the suffering of people, sometimes directly related to your actions. It’s horrific, violent, and extremely visceral when it needs to be. If anything, the surreal, sometimes silly premises make the results and implications all the more shocking.

It all makes for gameplay that asks you to have very thoughtful interactions, a direct connection between your button presses and desired results. At the same time, the coldness and detachment of the spaces lets you know that you’re unwelcome, and your actions futile. It pulls you in very close, instinctively, just to make you feel all the more alienated and powerless.

Isn’t that what horror is all about?

Any horror-curious gamer should give Klubnika’s anthology a try. It’s a fantastic showcase of a nascent developer. It’s easy to see why he met such success later on.

You can find Unsorted Horror on Steam.

More of our video game coverage can be found here.

Author: Walker M

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