There are so, so many good indie horror games out there. Often it’s too many to sift through. Some of these experiences can even be found under $10!
That’ll be the metric for this article. We’ll sift through the endless depths of the Steam store and curate a list of awesome indies that won’t break the bank. You’ll find a range of indie horror games, from all subgenres to enjoy. From traditional walking simulators, to run-and-hide, to avant-garde puzzlers, there’s something for everyone.
These will be listed in no particular order, and are all worth your time, independently of where they’re ranked on this list. Here we go.
#1 Christmas Massacre. Steam Price: $7.99 USD.
Ok you know our beloved Puppet Combo would make this list. It couldn’t be a list of cheap indie horror games without them.
Christmas Massacre is exactly what it sounds like. You play as Larry, an otherwise unassuming man in a Santa suit. He’s a pretty normal guy aside from the Christmas tree in his apartment that tells him to murder people.
It’s gory, it’s campy, its Puppet Combo. Christmas Massacre is actually more stealth-inclined than most of Puppet Combo’s slashers, asking you to sneak around and murder your victims without being spotted. It’s a cool inversion of what most Puppet Combo games are about–YOU being the victim and avoiding the killer.
Christmas Massacre actually plays like a sort of “time attack” game where you rush through these small levels, murdering people as fast as you can to get a high score. It’s really wild. There are also some unlockable weapons and costumes, all of which are nice rewards that you knock out in about an hour or so. It’s goofy and fun.
You can buy Christmas Massacre on Steam
#2 Like Clay. Steam Price $0.99(!!)
This is a cool one and one that I think is really undersung.
It’s a first-person psychological thriller about tracking down a friend who joined a cult. You head to the cult’s compound–an apartment-style living space with common rooms and worship spaces. You arrive to find it empty, and you must piece together clues as to what became of your friend, and the cult as a whole.
It’s a slow and eerie game that unfolds before you as you read notes and listen to audio logs of the cult’s activities. They worship a god called Shor and the worldbuilding around it is surprisingly well done. You’ll spend lots of time listening to cultish sermons and learning about the internal politics of the cult in your search for answers.
Towards the end, you’ll encounter some enemies and small puzzles, but the gloomy atmosphere is more than enough to warrant a playthrough. Like Clay does a great job with subtle scares while maintaining an air of unease for its entire runtime.
It’s also ridiculously cheap. Even for an indie horror game, you rarely find one for $1, and especially one with this level of love and production value. Check it out.
And it’s only a buck! You can buy Like Clay on Steam.
#3 Chilla’s Art The Closing Shift. Steam Price: $5.99
Ok just like Puppet Combo, you know that Chilla’s Art was going to pop up here somewhere. They’re so well known in the indie horror scene and all of their games are excellent and reasonably priced, so of course one of them had to make this list.
The Closing Shift is a barista simulator with a horror twist. It’s what I consider to be Chilla’s Art’s best game, and sees the player working the closing shift of a coffee shop while a stalker hunts you.
You spend most of the time memorizing an entire whiteboard full of latte recipes to serve to customers while working the register and drive-through window. You get lulled into the routine of work as you pull shots of espresso and steam milk, totally letting your guard down as you pull shots of espresso and grab food from the counter.
It’s when you completely forget that you’re playing a horror game that the scares ramp up and catch you unaware. It’s an awesome, insidious experience that’s worth checking out.
You can buy The Closing Shift on Steam
#4 Welcome To The Game II. Steam price: $9.99
The precursor to the fantastic Dead Signal, Welcome To The Game II is a similar dark web sleuthing experience.
Tasked with rescuing a woman whose kidnap has been live-streamed on the dark web, you must dig around shady websites searching for codes to determine her location.
But sneaking around the dark web can attract some dangerous actors to your location. Not only do you have to watch the clock as you surf the web, you must also leave the desk to secure your apartment from intruders. Lock your doors and windows, kill the lights, and employ different tactics based on who is hunting you to survive the night.
It’s unforgiving, as a mistake can cost you the entire run, which can take a few hours to finish the game. You need to be on your game if you want to survive until morning. It might be a little too much for some, but the tension and dread in Welcome To The Game II is nearly unmatched. It’s home-invasion horror at its finest.
#5. Horns of Fear. Steam Price: $4.99
This one is a trip. A top-down nightmare that sees you investigate a mysterious mansion in search of the paranormal. You explore a huge, wickedly dark environment. Learn about its inhabitants(while surviving against a few of them!) all while solving a good spattering of puzzles.
The art style is remarkable here, with a mansion filled with hard lights and sharp shadows. Environments are packed with detail that evokes the old point-and-click flash games of the early 2000s. And that’s to say nothing of the death scenes, which are fast, gorey, and numerous.
You’ll meet and speak with characters that feature multiple-choice dialogue sections. And while the writing is passable, it’s a great addition that makes Horns of Fear feel complete in its storytelling. There is something that feels honest and brutal about Horns of Fear, and it’s well worth checking out.
#6. Fears to Fathom: Ironbark Lookout. Steam Price: $6.99
At the time of writing, Fears to Fathom: Ironbark Lookout is the latest entry in the fantastic indie horror anthology series. Fears to Fathom is a conceptual series that focuses on stories of survivors. People who have survived home invasions and cult encounters, people who have come only a few inches from death. It’s a really neat concept, and Ironbark Lookout realizes it perfectly. Here, you’re stationed in a fire lookout tower, a normally quiet job, but something evil is happening in the woods below you.
What sets Ironbark Lookout apart is that it feels decidedly complete. It takes time to develop the story and characters while really nailing the atmosphere. There are nice little touches like radio conversations while at your post, or filing a report at the end of the night that while seeming small, go a long way in establishing a cohesive feeling to the game, which aids in the slow build-up of tension as the game progresses.
It has a cohesive story, simple but varied gameplay, fantastic pacing, and great art style, all wrapped up in a cheap indie horror package.
You can buy Fears to Fathom: Ironbark Lookout on Steam.
#7. Devour. Steam Price: $4.99
Devour, oh man. This game is a wild four-player coop horror game that sees you working together to exorcise demons across a variety of locales.
Playing as cultists trying to rescue their possessed brethren, you must collect items for exorcisms, while staying alive and outwitting the monsters that patrol each map.
It’s wild, jumpy-scare-ridden fun. The levels vary wildly in locale and size, from a rural farm-house to a Japanese onsen, to a decrepit asylum, there’s plenty of levels to play, each with its own suite of monsters and main demons to exorcise.
You also have a leveling system that can improve your chances with new perks and passive abilities.
The best part? Devour is still regularly being updated with new maps, cultists to play as, and demons to hunt. While not the scariest game on the list, it’s frenetic, loud, and a ton of fun with friends.
#8. Deadly Night. Steam Price: $9.99
Published by Torture Star Video, Deadly Night takes a page out of Puppet Combo’s book with this low-poly slasher.
You play as Carol, a woman with a tragic past who is abducted after staying at a sleazy motel run by perhaps the sleaziest owner ever. After waking up in a dark house you must use every tool at your disposal to survive.
There’s a surprising amount of story here, with a couple of flashbacks and multiple points of view. Some heavy subject matter is hinted at but never really explored and might have been a better experience without it. But it does fit the grindhouse style.
It’s a slasher game with an economical run time, dark rooms to explore, and a vicious killer to outwit. If you’ve played a Puppet Combo game like Stay out of the House or Power Drill Massacre you’ll know what I’m talking about here. It’s gory and gratuitous but also establishes enough atmosphere to let moments of quiet sink in before ripping them away as the killer tracks you down.
There are some small puzzles to solve common in the escape horror genre of indie games, like finding a way to remove nails from a boarded-up window, or figuring out how to collect water to dowse a fire. They’re easy and fast, wich is nice to breakup the gameplay from simply running and hiding, though there’s plenty of that too. Couple that with multiple endings and post-game unlocks like a re-arranged house layout and you’ve got a fair amount of gameplay for the price.
A succinct, creepy, and trashy grindhouse thriller that’s worth the humble price of $10.
#9. Summer of ’58. Steam Price: $8.99
Summer of ’58 is our obligatory walking simulator of the group. That’s not necessarily a bad thing!
Set in Russia, you explore an abandoned school in search of paranormal events. This is your only goal, as made perfectly clear by the intro sequence.
The environment is small, the school only consisting of about three rooms. You spend the game patrolling back-and-forth, reading notes, and observing small changes to the school. Sometimes, you have to change a broken light bulb or swap a burnt-out fuse.
As the nights go on, you’ll notice increased paranormal activity in the form of people dashing past doorways or radios turning themselves on. Sooner or later you’ll get to the point of every bad horror movie where you have doors slamming shut and ghost girls climbing around on the ceiling.
Look, Summer of ’58 is not the pinnacle of subtle horror, interesting gameplay, or deep storytelling. But it’s a tried and true indie horror haunted house that would be a blast to playthrough with a couple of friends for a night of jumpscares and screams.
There is something pure about Summer of ’58. It just wants to throw scary things at you and let you explore an admittedly awesome environment while it does so.
You can buy Summer of ’58 on Steam.
#10. IMSCARED. Steam Price. $3.99
So, IMSCARED is quite the throwback. This little piece of pixelated indie horror is a perfect example of how less is more. Simple graphics, simple gameplay, but an atmosphere thick with dread, and a story that keeps expanding and twisting around you as you play.
The premise is simple; find keys to escape. But as you progress, the entity within the game will try to trick you. Things will change around you, sometimes, after exiting the game, you might notice a new folder on your desktop with information about how to progress.
It’s wild and was very ahead of its time when it was released in 2016.
The pixelated graphics lend a dreamy, surreal quality to the game. The environments you explore are all blank and nondescript and with your field of vision only a few feet ahead of you at all times, the world becomes shrouded in fog, and it’s absolutely unsettling.
It’s worth a playthrough for its price and to see what it can do with such limited graphics and gameplay. An eerie, foreboding experience you shouldn’t miss.
You can buy IMSCARED on Steam.
There you have it. Ten excellent and cheap indie horror games worth picking up.
This list is by no means definitive but features a nice smattering of horror games from all corners of the wider genre. I hope you found one you like, and for these price points, they’re hard to beat.
