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[Drizzlehell]

"Analog horror is a subgenre of horror fiction and offshoot of the found footage film technique, often cited as originating online during the late 2000s and early 2010s[...] Analog horror is commonly characterized by low-fidelity graphics, cryptic messages, and visual styles reminiscent of late 20th-century television and analog recordings."

When you think about it, this sounds like a perfect way to describe many horror games that came out around that era:

The original Silent Hill

Spoiler

Nightmare Creatures 2

Spoiler

Resident Evil

Spoiler

Dino Crisis

Spoiler

There's really something about those low resolution, pixellated graphics, blocky models, low draw distance, and muffled sound quality that makes those games feel more gritty and unsettling. It's almost as if your brain is doing half the work here when it comes to getting scared, because you have to fill in a lot of the blanks yourself by using your imagination, because the tech used here was just too crude for the developers to be able to show you everything. It just feels more scary when the game you're playing looks like it's playing from a busted up VHS tape on an ancient CRT TV, almost as if it was - case in point - a found footage thing.

Now, obviously this wasn't the intention at the time when those games were being made, because back then it was the peak of what was possible with that technology. But, in my opinion, by ageing so much and so ungracefully, they sort of retroactively became something that other artists and developers were trying to imitate when they came up with this subgenera of horror.

And by the way, October is just around the corner, which means it's almost time to psych myself up for some horror content. I'm stoked! Who's with me?

 

[RoboFu]

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Why not boomer-horror, same as boomer-shooter?

 

[RagnarokIV]

Already enough shitty labels and fake genres around.

 

[existensmaximum]

Sorry, I don't see anything analog about them. Everything about PS1 screams digital to me, from the polygons to the CD media, and the huge difference in gameplay compared to the precious video game systems at the time.

 

[GametimeUK]

Survival horror

 

[Northeastmonk]

I’m a fan of those games. Those were great to play. Back when we didn’t classify things and you had to play the game to see the cutscenes.

I guess I don’t mind it. Now a days they turn everything into a debate.

 

[Drizzlehell]

Sorry, I don't see anything analog about them. Everything about PS1 screams digital to me, from the polygons to the CD media, and the huge difference in gameplay compared to the precious video game systems at the time.

PS1 still used analog A/V output, though.

CHECK-MATE

 

[rodrigolfp]

No, they are virtual adventures. Says the creators of the "genre".

Edit: and as it started on PC with VGA cables, nothing analog about them.

 

[existensmaximum]

PS1 still used analog A/V output, though.

CHECK-MATE

Eh, any video can be converted into an analogue signal to be displayed on a CRT. Or vice-versa (analog to digital on LCD etc)

 

[Putyouinmyoven]

This is ding dong stupid

 

[TGO]

No it's just Survival Horror.
And if you're making a Horror Game you need to take note

 

[Trunx81]

PS1 still used analog A/V output, though.

CHECK-MATE

soooo .. if you play the games on newer consoles or by emulation, it converts them into DIGITAL HORROR?

 

[EverydayBeast]

Ps1 games were a mess and were saved by the ps2.

 

[Drizzlehell]

soooo .. if you play the games on newer consoles or by emulation, it converts them into DIGITAL HORROR?

Hilarious. You should consider a career in SNL.

 

[Trunx81]

Hilarious. You should consider a career in SNL.

Been there, done that. Then I stole their lunch. Bad habit.

 

[Doom85]

I guess I don’t mind it. Now a days they turn everything into a debate.

Clearly you don’t remember the fierce debates between SNES and Genesis owners over who got the better Aladdin game.

Disney Classic Games Collection: Explaining the Difference Between the SNES and Genesis Aladdin Games

The classic 16-bit Aladdin game was released on both the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis, but there is a limit to the versions' similarities.

gamerant.com

Such brutal nerd arguments. Such intense flame wars. So…many….bodies.

 

[kvltus lvlzvs]

I'm thinking of playing the Silent Hill games this oct, havent ever gotten into them and they seem like the creme de la creme of the 5th and 6th gen.

Since we're talking about getting psyched up for it, what are other 5th and 6th gen spooky gems?

 

[Clear]

Given that computers are digital devices, even down to how they were distributed (CD & DVD), I'd say calling them analog is plain stupid.

The actual qualitative difference in terms of experience is that most of these titles were intended to be viewed on CRT displays, rather than the ergonomically more pleasing but visually inferior LCD flat-panels that became mass market.

 

[_Ex_]

No, they are not "analog". To suggest as such demonstrates a complete lack of understanding between "digital" and "analog". These are analog horror games:

Fatal Frame: The Card Game

Taken from the designer website http://www.fourhman.com/fatalframe/: Based on the acclaimed PS2 video game series by Tecmo, Fatal Frame: the Card Game lets two to four players enter a world of tormented spirits, supernatural cameras and horrifying ancient traditions. Designed by fans fond of...

boardgamegeek.com

Silent Hill: The Card Game

Silent Hill: The Card Game is a cooperative game for 3 to 4 players of pushing your luck in an attempt to uncover the mysteries of the town of Silent Hill. Each player takes on the role of one of the protagonists from the Silent Hill movie and must survive through six major scenes from the film...

boardgamegeek.com

Resident Evil: The Board Game

Enter the Spencer Mansion, home of survival horror. Can you survive the night?

boardgamegeek.com

 

[Manwithoutfear]

Sorry, I don't see anything analog about them. Everything about PS1 screams digital to me, from the polygons to the CD media, and the huge difference in gameplay compared to the precious video game systems at the time.

Probably because the controller was called the "dual analog controller".

 

[brian0057]

 

[Drizzlehell]

Given that computers are digital devices, even down to how they were distributed (CD & DVD), I'd say calling them analog is plain stupid.

No, they are not "analog". To suggest as such demonstrates a complete lack of understanding between "digital" and "analog". These are analog horror games:

Fatal Frame: The Card Game

Taken from the designer website http://www.fourhman.com/fatalframe/: Based on the acclaimed PS2 video game series by Tecmo, Fatal Frame: the Card Game lets two to four players enter a world of tormented spirits, supernatural cameras and horrifying ancient traditions. Designed by fans fond of...

boardgamegeek.com

Silent Hill: The Card Game

Silent Hill: The Card Game is a cooperative game for 3 to 4 players of pushing your luck in an attempt to uncover the mysteries of the town of Silent Hill. Each player takes on the role of one of the protagonists from the Silent Hill movie and must survive through six major scenes from the film...

boardgamegeek.com

Resident Evil: The Board Game

Enter the Spencer Mansion, home of survival horror. Can you survive the night?

boardgamegeek.com

It's more about the style and not literal meaning of the term.

Analog horror is a subgenre that was invented by the internet, after all, so clearly no one is stupid enough to think that you have to experience it through analog devices for it to be "analog horror."

God, sometimes GAF can be so unnecessarily difficult, lol.

 

[GymWolf]

I would not put nightmare creatures in the survival horror genre tbh, it was an action brawler with horror atmosphere.

I barely played the second one but the first one wasn't a survival horror.

 

[_Ex_]

Analog horror is a subgenre that was invented by the internet, after all, so clearly no one is stupid enough to think that you have to experience it through analog devices for it to be "analog horror."

Analog ≠ low fidelity. It's a misuse of the term entirely. The internet is stupid enough alright.

 

[rofif]

Boomer Anal Horror if anything

 

[Clear]

It's more about the style and not literal definition.

Analog horror is a subgenre that was invented by the internet, after all, so clearly no one is stupid enough to think that you have to experience it through analog devices for it to be "analog horror."

God, sometimes GAF can be so unnecessarily difficult, lol.

Its a bullshit terminology that makes zero sense. Like so much of the effluvia of the internet age.

What does the term "analog" mean in this context? Its certainly got nothing to do with the fiction of these games, so the only possible correlation is in how it is presented and experienced. Which again makes no sense as nothing but the relative scarcity of hardware prevents any modern game be experienced via CRT!

 

[Drizzlehell]

I would not put nightmare creatures in the survival horror genre tbh, it was an action brawler with horror atmosphere.

I barely played the second one but the first one wasn't a survival horror.

It doesn't have to be a survival horror, though.

 

[Clear]

Let me put it another way; Sometimes a particular style or subgenre can become associated with how it was distributed and thus became popular.

So, the term "Giallo" for a subgenre of mystery/horror movies largely coming out of the Italy throughout the 1970's got its name because the mystery novels which form its historic inspiration, were distributed in yellow jackets, Giallo meaning Yellow in Italian forms a link between this cinematic oeuvre, its country of origin, and its source of derivation.

Now try and build that sort of correlation with what's being called "analog horror" in this instance. Oh snap! You can't.

 

[Drizzlehell]

Its a bullshit terminology that makes zero sense. Like so much of the effluvia of the internet age.

What does the term "analog" mean in this context? Its certainly got nothing to do with the fiction of these games, so the only possible correlation is in how it is presented and experienced. Which again makes no sense as nothing but the relative scarcity of hardware prevents any modern game be experienced via CRT!

Well, no, because it also needs to be made in the style of those old games. If you hook up a modern console to a CRT then it's just a modern console hooked up to a CRT, but something that was made specifically in the style of analog horror does have a certain aesthetic to it as well, one that's reminiscent of old games like the ones that I mentioned in the OP.

What I'm suggesting is that those old games were inadvertently the progenitors of this subgenre, much like 90s shooters were the progenitors of modern boomer shooters.

 

[Drizzlehell]

Let me put it another way; Sometimes a particular style or subgenre can become associated with how it was distributed and thus became popular.

So, the term "Giallo" for a subgenre of mystery/horror movies largely coming out of the Italy throughout the 1970's got its name because the mystery novels which form its historic inspiration, were distributed in yellow jackets, Giallo meaning Yellow in Italian forms a link between this cinematic oeuvre, its country of origin, and its source of derivation.

Now try and build that sort of correlation with what's being called "analog horror" in this instance. Oh snap! You can't.

That's the magic of subgenres, they can splinter off in many different directions.

It's telling that you can have something like Giallo films, as well as other subgenres like slasher, psychological, or even more obscure stuff like mondo films, and movie buffs generally have no problem accepting them as things that exist. But the minute you suggest something similar to gamers and try to define a more specific subgenre of video games, then the response will mostly consist of either shitty jokes or unreasonably angry rejection of the idea.

 

[RagnarokIV]

"Analogue horror" is the most reddit sounding shit I've heard all day.

 

[Clear]

Well, no, because it also needs to be made in the style of those old games. If you hook up a modern console to a CRT then it's just a modern console hooked up to a CRT, but something that was made specifically in the style of analog horror does have a certain aesthetic to it as well, one that's reminiscent of old games like the ones that I mentioned in the OP.

What I'm suggesting is that those old games were inadvertently the progenitors of this subgenre, much like 90s shooters were the progenitors of modern boomer shooters.

No. The stylistic commonality of the titles you mention is that:

(1) They were all derivations of pre-existing cinematic forms. Silent Hill from Jacob's Ladder, Res Evil from post-Romero Zombie cinema. etc. But these are all distinctly different sources, and beyond being part of pop culture in the mid-late 90's are not coherent.

(2) All the games mentioned* existed pre dual-analog control schemes which of course has major impact on the way the in-game camera functions. Although again there's this mixture of titles that use pre-rendered backgrounds, and some that don't. The former naturally imposing on the creators the need to coherently match up controller inputs to shifting orientations and perspectives to the player's on-screen avatar.

The problem with the second point is that its got nothing to with horror or these games per-se. They come from a transitional period where developers were learning how to adapt to how the increased options for visual presentation and graphic fidelity impacted fundamental things like controller inputs. Remember this is coming off the back of the sprite/playfield era where there was no ambiguity between screen relative and camera relative inputs as orthographic projection makes the point moot.

Sorry my rejection of the term isn't "angry" or unreasonable. Its simply that it to me seems like using sloppy jargon to munge together a whole bunch of games that happened to launch around the same time (on mostly the same hardware) under an umbrella term that crucially isn't related to that specific time period.

Is something like Paul Norman's Forbidden forest from 1983 an artifact of "analog horror" too because it was released on the c64?

*possible exception being Nightmare Creatures

 

[Drizzlehell]

No. The stylistic commonality of the titles you mention is that:

(1) They were all derivations of pre-existing cinematic forms. Silent Hill from Jacob's Ladder, Res Evil from post-Romero Zombie cinema. etc. But these are all distinctly different sources, and beyond being part of pop culture in the mid-late 90's are not coherent.

(2) All the games mentioned* existed pre dual-analog control schemes which of course has major impact on the way the in-game camera functions. Although again there's this mixture of titles that use pre-rendered backgrounds, and some that don't. The former naturally imposing on the creators the need to coherently match up controller inputs to shifting orientations and perspectives to the player's on-screen avatar.

The problem with the second point is that its got nothing to with horror or these games per-se. They come from a transitional period where developers were learning how to adapt to how the increased options for visual presentation and graphic fidelity impacted fundamental things like controller inputs. Remember this is coming off the back of the sprite/playfield era where there was no ambiguity between screen relative and camera relative inputs as orthographic projection makes the point moot.

Sorry my rejection of the term isn't "angry" or unreasonable. Its simply that it to me seems like using sloppy jargon to munge together a whole bunch of games that happened to launch around the same time (on mostly the same hardware) under an umbrella term that crucially isn't related to that specific time period.

Well, now you seem to be focusing more on cinematic influences of those original games and the mechanics of their gameplay, when I was speaking more about the audio-visual aesthetics and style.

Going back to my boomer shooter comparison, most of the classic FPS games from the 90s were also way more crude in terms of how they controlled or what kind of QOL features were possible at the time. But when you fire up any modern shooter that tries to imitate those old games, most of them will have things like free mouse look, jumping, crouching, and a bunch of other mechanics that were simply not present in the games that they were inspired by. The main focus is on recreating the look and the vibe and that's exactly what analog horror largely attempts to do.

Is something like Paul Norman's Forbidden forest from 1983 an artifact of "analog horror" too because it was released on the c64?

Sure, I suppose. I mean, I haven't played that games, but there are some other games that also used the visual style of 8-bit era of gaming for this more grungy horror aesthetic, such as Faith: The Unholy Trinity, and that sure qualifies in my opinion.

 

[coffinbirth]

Words have meaning though.

Call them what they are... 32-bit.

 

[nkarafo]

Saw the title and thought it was about something interesting like how the gameplay or style of these games can be considered "analog" somehow and what does that mean. That kind of conversation where someone tries to explain a new point of view.

But no, it's about the video signal and some cables.

I mean why you single out the horror games? Weren't all games and genres "analog" in the same way?

 

[DGrayson]

Why not boomer-horror, same as boomer-shooter?

Easy, boomer shooter isnt and will never be a thing.

Retro shooter is and retro horror makes sense also.

 

[anthraticus]

Yea, the term boomer shooter is beyond dumb and had to be thought up by some kids that don't even know what 'boomers' are even. I guess it stuck cause so many gamers are newshits themselves, but it's retarded.

AND anyone who uses the dumbass term like the Drizzling shits posting pics of that cringe

 

[Krathoon]

The Haunted PS1 Discs are totally based off of this. The low tech adds an authenticity to the horror. Like finding a disturbing old video tape.

 

[Gojiira]

No Analog Horror refers to movies/film. Silent Hill etc are Survival Horror, thats their genre, they arent in anyway linked to the concept of Analog Horror.
Now could a first person game be built around the concept? MAYBE.

 

[fart town usa]

I could see the OG SH because it's all 3D and super limited with draw distance, etc. It's definitely the most similar to the team that makes Murder House and those other video nasty inspired games. Awesome team BTW.

Not the other games listed though, especially not NC2. Don't get me wrong, I love that game but its just a dumb horror/action title.

 

[fart town usa]

The Haunted PS1 Discs are totally based off of this. The low tech adds an authenticity to the horror. Like finding a disturbing old video tape.

This is the best reply and 100% spot on.

 

[Chuck Berry]

Why not boomer-horror, same as boomer-shooter?

 

[Krathoon]

Some games take it further by acting like it is possessed by some evil entity.