Chilla’s Art is an Indie Horror studio consisting of two Japanese developers. They came on the scene in 2018 and since then have been releasing a steady flow of tightly wound urban horror. Chilla’s Art has grown quite the audience of players and streamers, with big names having made videos on most of their games, and many streamers experiencing their titles to promote their work.  The social media attention and steady delivery of games have given Chilla’s Art a great following.

They are an enigmatic studio, that doesn’t communicate much with their audience and only gives a few updates before a new game is released. That lack of direct communication hasn’t hurt their growth though, as each release is anticipated and celebrated by fans of their work.

As their popularity grows, the budget and quality of their games do as well, and recently we’ve gotten some of their best offerings.

What is Chilla’s Art’s style?

Play any of Chilla’s Art’s games and you’ll quickly pick up on a few themes. Most are small-scale, urban horror, deeply entrenched in Japanese culture and folklore.

Being Japanese developers, Chilla’s Art has a rich history and mythology to inspire them. Aka Monto takes inspiration from the Japanese legend of the same name and sees players sneaking through an abandoned school while being stalked by the creature.

You’ve also got Onryo, which tasks you with exorcising a curse. This one is obviously steeped in Japanese culture and folklore and is a good representation of Chilla’s Art’s ability to tap into that.

Missing Children is a more grounded take, as you investigate the disappearances of several kids in a small town. While a little more straightforward, there are themes of the afterlife as you visit some Japanese shrines and spend time with a community that’s grieving.

More recently,  they’ve shifted away from folklore-inspired stories to more low-fantasy stories. A good example is the excellent Parasocial, which follows the story of an up-and-coming streamer who is being stalked by an obsessive fan.

Or there is the Karaoke, which centers around two friends who must evade a killer who’s followed them on their way home from school. There’s nothing paranormal in these entries, but they retain the intimate thriller aspects that are standard fare of all Chilla’s Art games.

The intimate quality of their games always comes through in the setting. Whether it’s a school, a neighborhood, a coffee shop or an office building, these areas are always small-scale and tightly designed. As most of their games are short affairs running between one or two hours in length, the settings reflect that in terms of size.

This allows Chilla’s Art to hone the atmosphere of their games. In the convenience store, you spend most of the game behind the counter of…well…a convenience store! In Night Security, you patrol the nondescript halls and conference rooms of an office building. In the Closing Shift, you work the register of a coffee shop.

You become deeply familiar with the backdrop of these games, and that creates environments that should feel safe, but as the game progresses, feel increasingly hostile. Rather than forcing you into traditionally scary environments, Chilla’s Art gives you safe, nondescript places, and then takes that safety away from you.

What makes Chilla’s Art games scary?

Chillas Art manages to make slow-burn thrillers on short runtimes. Maybe that sounds contradictory, but it’s achieved through great pacing and thoughtful use of traditional scares. Let me explain.

Most of their games only feature one or two good scares, usually right at the end. So even if a game is an hour long, you’re soaking in the tense atmosphere for forty minutes straight before the action picks up. This slow swing of buildup-tension-release is not very common, as most games deliver that release in much shorter intervals.

I think it’s a strategy that works in Chilla’s Art’s favor. The most effective horror allows itself to sink its teeth into you before really biting down.

In the Karaoke, you spend plenty of time simply playing karaoke and running out to the lobby to order food, with nothing happening. But occasionally someone might walk past your room, or linger at the door for just long enough to make you nervous.  When finally the killer arrives to stalk you around the halls, it’s terrifying because things have been so mundane up until that point.

In the Closing Shift, you spend most of your time playing Barista-Simulator, following recipes, and making sugary espresso drinks for impatient customers. You put your head down and get into the rhythm of the gameplay for long enough that you almost forget you’re playing a horror game before you’re floored by a sudden and terrifying reminder.

Showing such restraint in their scares separates Chilla’s Art from much of the other indie horror out there, especially Western devs.

There’s another component that adds to the scares, and it’s the graphic style. Chilla’s Art generally uses a glossy, low-poly art style with realistic face-mapping on their character to create an eerie, uncanny vibe. While the lighting is always very modern, they employ a lot of hard edges and cover everything in VHS filters.

It creates a sort of dreamy atmosphere that feels uneasy and lonely. You can never fully connect with the weird NPCs you interact with, and you can only stare at their weird, stretched faces. It puts you on edge in a small way that builds up over time.

Take all of this and bind it together with some admittedly questionable English translation, and you’ve got yourself dreamy, tight, creepy experiences that hold off on the scares until the atmosphere has sunk in, and you’re primed for a jumpscare.

What Chilla’s Art game to start with?

Most of their catalog can be divided up into “paranormal” or “not paranormal”

If you want to experience their best paranormal offering, I’d say check out Missing Children. You get to see Chilla’s Art really hone in their atmosphere here, with long stints of exploring dark neighborhoods and empty homes, culminating in some awesome dread towards the end.

If you’re looking for a killer-thriller, absolutely check out The Closing Shift. This game feels like the best overall Chilla’s Art experience. A small environment, a tight story, and a surprisingly addictive (and distracting) gameplay loop that completely disarms you before the horror ramps up at the end.

If you want to see all of what makes Chilla’s Art Games incredible be boiled down to a single list, check out the 5 best Chilla’s Art Games Ranked.