What was the first video game that scared you? It doesn't have to be a horror game. Maybe you didn't even play it -- plenty of ads freaked me out as a kid.
Replies
Silent Hill.
aug 25, 2025, 8:08 am • 0 0 • view
epic mickey when i was 6 years old 😭
aug 24, 2025, 8:49 pm • 0 0 • view
Dead hand in Ocarina of Time(re:deads too, but specifically dead hand), Skulltullas, especially the half turned guy in the skultula house. Wallmasters. OoT had some childhood nightmares. The big eel in Mario 64 too. That guy spooked me
aug 24, 2025, 1:53 am • 1 0 • view
I saw a friend play the opening of Resident Evil 2 on the N64 when I was a kid, and I had to tell him to turn it off when Kendo gets eaten by zombies in the gun store. Took me another 15-20 years before I got back to playing through OG RE2 for myself.
aug 23, 2025, 7:56 pm • 0 0 • view
Friday the 13th on NES. Never knew when or where Jason would show up.
aug 24, 2025, 1:43 am • 3 0 • view
I had a couple nightmares about Jason's mom. I used to wake up and think I saw her head resting on the table in my room.
aug 24, 2025, 9:13 pm • 1 0 • view
Whoa thats intense!
aug 25, 2025, 3:48 am • 0 0 • view
aug 24, 2025, 8:28 pm • 12 0 • view
The Last of Us, specifically stalkers and clickers. It wasn't a jumpscare either, the sounds they make and the way they behave is terrifying to me. I've always been very quiet, but hearing them echolocate and hunt me down genuinely gave me nightmares
aug 24, 2025, 1:48 am • 0 0 • view
So I’m sitting in my room playing System Shock 2. It’s 2 in the morning and I am crawling through the intestinal corridors towards the end and have been jumped a couple of times by the giant translucent purple spiders and am a bit on edge.
aug 24, 2025, 3:16 am • 7 0 • view
A very large wolf spider decides now is the perfect time to climb up the wall behind my monitor, which is very close to that wall. I only did not scream because I had enough control to be aware of my parents sleeping.
aug 24, 2025, 3:18 am • 8 0 • view
Absolutely the first resident evil I couldn't play the game with the Lights off
aug 26, 2025, 1:06 am • 0 0 • view
Dragon's Lair. Just the attract screen, I never played it, but I was scared to fuck by skeletons and Dirk the Daring getting turned into one when you run out of lives kept me away from the local arcade for quite some time
aug 23, 2025, 4:32 pm • 4 0 • view
Fatal frame 2. I lost track of time playing it and suddenly it was 2am and I was alone in a dark room "Huh. Guess I should get up and turn on the light. But....what if -something- happens to me on the way?"
aug 24, 2025, 12:01 am • 2 0 • view
The time limit ghost from spelunky always freaked me the fuck out when my brothers played, it was the atmosphere... Dont remember if it was the first one, i cant remember tbh
aug 23, 2025, 9:40 pm • 12 0 • view
Either that or the first fake ridley statue in super(?) metroid
aug 23, 2025, 9:46 pm • 0 0 • view
Silent Hill, those damn little knife kids in the school
aug 23, 2025, 2:53 pm • 12 0 • view
To add, I was *19* when I played that game. I had guts of steel until that fucking game
aug 23, 2025, 2:54 pm • 9 0 • view
Doom when I realised enemies I couldn't see could still see and attack me
aug 24, 2025, 5:05 am • 4 0 • view
scary IRL too, to be fair
aug 24, 2025, 10:35 am • 2 0 • view
This asshole from Space Quest 4 (it's a time travel game that's why it says space quest 12 at the top)
aug 23, 2025, 3:13 pm • 19 0 • view
Yes, he and the Droid of Death were particularly stressful.
aug 24, 2025, 12:14 pm • 1 0 • view
Definitely this, although it quickly changed from fear to stress/anxiety. Not fun to replay that intro sequence.
aug 23, 2025, 3:38 pm • 2 0 • view
I am old as hell but this is the first one I remember being freaked out by. Even now, clinical descriptions of death freak me out way more than graphic photos and videos.
aug 24, 2025, 2:34 am • 9 0 • view
happy mask salesman freaked me tf out in majoras mask I was 10
aug 24, 2025, 11:24 pm • 0 0 • view
Agree. Lots in that game is unsettling.
aug 25, 2025, 10:41 am • 1 0 • view
Has to be The Sims 1, my brother accidentally killed The Goths in a house fire and I was forever scared of the grim reaper
aug 23, 2025, 5:29 pm • 14 0 • view
Plenty of NES games did it for me, even as a kid I became a fan of horror, wasnt supposed to see most of it yet but enjoyed the atmosphere and monsters of course. -Friday the 13th (that music in the cabins) -Shadow Gate (that death screen!) -Wizards & Warriors III (intro was scary)
aug 23, 2025, 7:51 pm • 0 0 • view
7th Guest, late at night in complete darkness.
aug 24, 2025, 2:31 am • 4 0 • view
7th Guest for me too. My mom thought "oh he likes Myst he must like this too..." And got me the game. I did NOT like it.
aug 24, 2025, 11:02 am • 3 0 • view
Searching for the next air bubble in the underwater Sonic 1 + 2 stages used to fill me with an arcane fear
aug 24, 2025, 8:59 am • 1 1 • view
Definitely Nightmare Buzz from the 1995 Toy Story game. youtu.be/MnahfzHysxo?...
aug 23, 2025, 3:36 pm • 10 1 • view
Echo Tides of Time. They add drowning and sharks in the deep in the 2nd level.
aug 23, 2025, 2:46 pm • 50 1 • view
And how could I forget, THIS is the kind of music playing for you in the cute dolphin game: youtu.be/32S2oJuANxo
aug 23, 2025, 2:52 pm • 48 1 • view
Look at that smug fuckin dolphin, that face would have scared me as a kid.
aug 23, 2025, 6:42 pm • 22 0 • view
Check this shit out if you didn't play the first one
aug 24, 2025, 10:16 am • 12 0 • view
Hah! When I played Ecco on Dreamcast the sudden attack of a shark jump scared me like nothing else 😂
aug 24, 2025, 6:49 pm • 0 0 • view
Honestly, after learning the backstory to Ecco I feel I wasn't scared of those games enough.
aug 25, 2025, 12:34 am • 0 0 • view
Ecco is nightmare fuel through and through.
aug 24, 2025, 1:47 pm • 0 0 • view
Yes :D Ecco had so much terrifying stuff in it! Can't wait to see if they keep it for the new game...
aug 25, 2025, 11:22 pm • 0 0 • view
Finding Nemo on the GameCube had a scene where you had to swim through a minefield and it scared the shit out of me as a little kid and I have a fear of the deep ocean to this day lmao
aug 23, 2025, 2:50 pm • 3 0 • view
Any of these. I hated this game SO MUCH as a child that every time my brothers would play it, I would leave the room. THEY LOOKED SO STRANGE, LIKE IT WOULD APPEAR IN MY DREAMS! (My 4y/5y self complaining)
aug 24, 2025, 4:17 pm • 0 0 • view
The original MediEvil. I probably would have appreciated the chirpy, colourful remake back then.
aug 24, 2025, 1:56 pm • 3 0 • view
7th Guest pixel art never got to me as a kid but something about the fmv clown with the blood balloon did a goddamn number on me
aug 24, 2025, 5:29 am • 8 0 • view
yess this and 11th hour. CHUCK HIM IN THE SOUP
aug 24, 2025, 4:12 pm • 1 0 • view
Turtles in Time. I was 3 years old and not ready for the Dinosaurs.
aug 24, 2025, 1:36 am • 0 0 • view
A Goosebumps point and click adventure game on PC. Had werewolf escape scenes that gave me nightmares.
aug 23, 2025, 4:31 pm • 4 0 • view
I was convinced that if you stayed in the Wolf's Den long enough, then it'd see you in the window and get you. I incorporated that and other things in my retell horror fanfic "The Black Magic of the Werewolf" over on Archive of our Own.
aug 23, 2025, 11:31 pm • 3 0 • view
I played the original resident evil at a friends house as a kid. The itchy tasty scene left me opening my closet every night for months.
aug 23, 2025, 4:37 pm • 2 0 • view
The sound design in The Sims 1 was specifically designed to scare the piss out of you when anything went wrong. Also the butler in Tomb Raider.
aug 24, 2025, 12:12 am • 5 0 • view
This game has a sequence where a mummy is stalking you through a pyramid that simply had no business in a PC game for 8-year-olds.
aug 23, 2025, 4:08 pm • 59 1 • view
core memory unlocked
aug 24, 2025, 8:53 am • 1 0 • view
When you’re trying to put out the fire and the worm laughs at you
aug 24, 2025, 12:40 pm • 2 0 • view
Loved this game
aug 23, 2025, 11:30 pm • 3 0 • view
There was a ghost in the window in Werewolf Village that scared me. Of course, running away from the werewolf scared me too.
aug 23, 2025, 9:42 pm • 14 0 • view
My answer was the sewer in this game where some stock-audio monster effect chased you and I never, ever went down there again.
aug 24, 2025, 4:39 am • 1 0 • view
YES THIS!
aug 24, 2025, 4:04 pm • 1 0 • view
Hell yeah this ruled
aug 23, 2025, 5:08 pm • 4 0 • view
Operation Neptune. My friend Amy and I played through it on her computer in the early '90s. You start encountering these hideously deformed lumpy brown fish near the end of the game, then you see how Substance X is responsible for mutating them. It filled me with fear and dread and sadness.
aug 24, 2025, 8:19 pm • 1 0 • view
when i was 5 i was terrified of the Duck Hunt dog's laugh when you lose. i think it was because the speaker on my grandparents' tv was sort of fucked up, it sounded so viscerally evil. i remember i'd dive for the power button on the NES as soon as i missed the last shot so i wouldn't have to hear it
aug 23, 2025, 11:04 pm • 0 0 • view
Mansion of Hidden Souls on Sega CD.
aug 23, 2025, 4:55 pm • 3 0 • view
Resident Evil. Wall to wall jump scares lol.
aug 24, 2025, 1:41 am • 2 0 • view
Silent Hill 2. I was a grown man playing in broad daylight, walking through the prison, and I went up onto a platform in the courtyard thinking "this is a really short guard tower" but then I saw the noose and realised it was a gallows and that just freaked me the fuck out and I needed to go recover
aug 24, 2025, 2:09 pm • 6 0 • view
Definitely Manhunt from Rockstar. The cover was too much for me at age six.
aug 24, 2025, 1:35 am • 0 0 • view
#ALLAH is not a liar
aug 23, 2025, 5:13 pm • 0 0 • view
Probably the first Tomb Raider, where some creeps started shooting at you out of nowhere and the controls were so clunky that you felt defenseless 😅 Some scary monsters later in the game too.
aug 26, 2025, 4:12 am • 1 0 • view
Urban Assault, a weird rts shooter game from the 90s that came with a joystick my dad got me with our first computer… I was scared of the alien ships but also obsessed lmao
aug 23, 2025, 7:52 pm • 0 0 • view
Plenty of adrenaline spiking jump scares over the decades (Sinistar, I hear you), but System Shock 2 was my first drop-the-mouse freak out. Probably a bad choice for my first game in 5.1 surround sound because getting attacked from behind while I was looting a crate did it.
aug 23, 2025, 10:20 pm • 5 0 • view
Loved the first and second one but I did not like the gameplay decision in 2 to have enemies slowly respawn always
aug 23, 2025, 10:58 pm • 1 0 • view
Frogger on C64 at like five years old. My parents sat me in my room to play, but after five minutes I looked out in the hall and they were gone. They’d only stepped outside for like five minutes, but to me it meant “Frogger makes parents disappear!”
aug 23, 2025, 9:54 pm • 1 1 • view
Sesame Street 123 on the NES. There was a counting game where you played as Grover and if you got it wrong the moon frowned and shook its head. The face it makes and the sound it played terrified me as a kid. It definitely gave me nightmares. Loved Sesame Street otherwise!
aug 23, 2025, 3:48 pm • 13 0 • view
I was really scared of Count von Count as a kid 😀
aug 24, 2025, 6:55 pm • 0 0 • view
Hah, apparently you were not the only one who thought this bsky.app/profile/napa...
aug 23, 2025, 11:29 pm • 8 0 • view
That moon TERRIFIED a generation!
aug 23, 2025, 11:42 pm • 4 0 • view
In FF4 when you find Anna dying on the ground (so like right before the “you spoony bard” fight) there’s a stinger that plays that is such a nothing sound effect that nevertheless scared the HELL out of me when I was a child. Didn’t replay that as much as FF6 for that reason
aug 23, 2025, 3:10 pm • 6 0 • view
Oh, Zelda 1. I don’t even remember why. I just had to put it in a drawer, under my pants.
aug 24, 2025, 6:46 pm • 0 0 • view
The first RE. I remember being 10 or so and reading the strategy guide for hours just so I’d be ready for when I eventually would get a PSX.
aug 24, 2025, 2:17 pm • 0 0 • view
SCP-087B Having to force yourself to keep going down a seemingly endless flight of stairs when you don't know what could possibly be down there or if there is an end to it, and death meaning you have to start from the very beginning again really gets the nerves tensed up
aug 24, 2025, 9:54 am • 2 0 • view
The Old Forest in the early version of Lord of the Rings Online really captured the essence of Tolkien. "The air seemed heavy and the making of words wearisome. Just behind them a large branch fell from an old overhanging tree with a crash into the path. The trees seemed to close in before them."
aug 24, 2025, 5:05 am • 1 0 • view
The ReDeads in Ocarina of Time are scary enough that compounding them with my already existing phobia of dark underground water systems made me just not even enter the Kakariko Well until I was in my senior year of high school.
aug 24, 2025, 7:00 pm • 2 0 • view
Evil Otto in Berserk
aug 23, 2025, 2:57 pm • 3 0 • view
the monsters/environments in drakan 2 were widely pretty gloomy and upsetting to me as a kid, but these fuckers made me actually too scared to progress. something like five of them ambush you in a dark pit for the first time and they make the WORST sound. concept art for them didn't help much either
aug 24, 2025, 10:26 am • 4 0 • view
resident evil 2 or tomb raider V
aug 24, 2025, 5:47 pm • 0 0 • view
honestly, the eerie quietness of some Gary's Mod maps. The simulacrum of a bustling city or world but that's entirely void of any life, with an effectively flat backdrop painted on all sides. that uncanny valley felt deeper than Mariana's Trench
aug 24, 2025, 8:57 pm • 0 0 • view
Grant’s intro movie in Jurassic Park (Genesis). Always picked raptor because of it youtu.be/McSeJlNRwd4?...
aug 24, 2025, 1:58 am • 2 0 • view
The screaming Phantasm monsters in Blood scared the shit out of me for years. I shouldn’t have played that the age of 5.
aug 25, 2025, 6:47 am • 0 0 • view
I know it's already made a couple of appearances, but the bit-crushed scream of rage as Sinistar flew at you through space nearly made me lose control of my bowels.
aug 23, 2025, 7:23 pm • 33 0 • view
I HUNGER.
aug 24, 2025, 4:45 am • 7 0 • view
BEWARE. I LIVE.
aug 24, 2025, 9:31 am • 5 0 • view
RUN, RUN!
aug 24, 2025, 6:00 pm • 2 0 • view
I was so terrified of this game!! I would break out in a cold sweat.
aug 24, 2025, 10:41 am • 1 0 • view
Bram Stoker's Dracula for the Sega CD. Not a great game by any means, but the whole atmosphere of the game was really unnerving for me as a kid playing it. Not to mention it was a hard as hell game. I don't think I made it past the beginning of Stage 3!
aug 24, 2025, 12:52 am • 1 0 • view
Alone in the Dark on DOS 😭 I only watched my brother playing but it scared me so much. I was 6 or 7... Knowing only DOS games a that time, I also found the graphics INSANE 😂
aug 24, 2025, 12:29 pm • 15 0 • view
The worst thing was that you were just figuring out how to play the game, managed to block out the first enemy, but another comes either through the trap door or breaks through the window in a kind of jump scare, then proceeds to kill you, and next thing you know a zombie disposes of your corpse.
aug 24, 2025, 12:48 pm • 2 0 • view
I found the fact that you could only move and turn slowly particularly unsettling
aug 25, 2025, 1:03 am • 2 0 • view
Definitely! Just like in a bad dream
aug 25, 2025, 2:35 am • 2 0 • view
The 7th Guest when I was like 8. The CDRom and soundcard kit came with it so of course I tried it.
aug 24, 2025, 6:55 pm • 0 0 • view
Ravenloft: Stone Prophet. There are desert zombies that erupt out of the sand while making this horrifying three-part scream that they continue to do while they fight you. Then when you defeat them, they let out horrifying wails. The game still scares me to this day lol.
aug 25, 2025, 4:38 am • 1 1 • view
Also, Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, first time you go out in the capitol at night and find the streets full of howling spirits and the angry ghost of King Lysandus screaming VENGEANCE. My baby brother would beg me not to go outside in the game by going "No bonjence!"
aug 25, 2025, 4:42 am • 1 0 • view
The first person perspective made it so nerve wracking too.
aug 25, 2025, 7:30 am • 1 0 • view
I remember some ads for Bioshock came out and I was just thoroughly creeped out by the visuals of a sunken city, girls with glowing eyes, and misshapen diving suits. I used to avoid the cover like the plague lol
aug 23, 2025, 3:03 pm • 8 0 • view
I played Halo: CE. Got really late, having a blast with my uncle. We get to that level where you first meet the flood. We holed up in a side room for a long time gathering courage.
aug 25, 2025, 1:12 am • 0 0 • view
Maniac Mansion on the NES. Sneaking into Ed’s room while someone rung the doorbell put a knot in my stomach. I swear the game slows down to evoke the jelly legged fear better.
aug 24, 2025, 12:57 pm • 9 0 • view
Bowser's laugh in Mario 64 was some nightmare stuff to me as a kid. this deep, booming chuckle as i got kicked out of a painting haunted me.
aug 23, 2025, 10:08 pm • 16 0 • view
I played a lot of horror-adjacent PC games as a young child, but the one that stood out was Legend of Kyrandia. I remember an encounter (I *think* the one pictured) where you get petrified if you don’t do things right. It was weirdly creepy to me and I never played past that point. Great game.
aug 24, 2025, 11:42 pm • 1 0 • view
I shit you not, the Bionicle Heroes Piraka intro lmaooo. I think it was bc them kicking in the brick wall was like the first jumpscare I ever encountered. www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZmL...
aug 24, 2025, 6:46 am • 5 0 • view
the gang's on the loose, nothing you can do
aug 24, 2025, 11:18 am • 1 0 • view
Titanic Adventure Out of Time. That Cargo Hold music wouldn't sound out of place in Silent Hill.
aug 25, 2025, 3:05 pm • 0 0 • view
Some Nancy Drew game with wolves or scary dogs
aug 23, 2025, 6:53 pm • 2 0 • view
holy shit wait was the level like a stealth maze kinda thing in the background you could hear the wolf growls this just unlocked a memory
aug 25, 2025, 4:00 am • 0 0 • view
Yes! I had nightmares and my dad took it away lol
aug 25, 2025, 5:55 pm • 1 0 • view
OH Half-Life. Me, a grown-ass adult yelping like a little kid in the middle of the night when I rounded a corner and a headcrab (which I've already seen a ton) jumps out of pitch blackness.
aug 24, 2025, 1:57 am • 9 0 • view
I was fine with DOOM as a kid until the end of DOOM 2. I mean, look at that thing! The sense of scale freaked me out more than anything, I think.
aug 23, 2025, 4:14 pm • 21 0 • view
I really liked how they did this concept justice in doom 2016
aug 23, 2025, 10:54 pm • 2 0 • view
Creature From The Krusty Krab. Whole game kinda has this uneasy feel but I was in the Alaskin Bullworm level where you're eaten by it and you have to escape. I had a cheat on that made Spongebob a skeleton and while playing my Wii crashed and made a loud buzzing sound. Didn't play again for months.
aug 23, 2025, 11:21 pm • 3 0 • view
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time There were places i simply didn’t go because of the redeads. Imagine my horror of becoming adult link and walking into a destroyed castle town full of them 😬
aug 24, 2025, 5:15 am • 4 0 • view
A Nancy Drew game. I did something in the wrong order while investigating a kitchen, natural gas explosion. I walked away and never played it again.
aug 24, 2025, 6:11 am • 0 0 • view
Majora's Mask
aug 23, 2025, 9:52 pm • 2 0 • view
My first horror experience. Couldn't figure out how to detect my sound card on DOS, played the game in total silence and that only made it scarier.
aug 24, 2025, 2:10 pm • 7 0 • view
I found the vibe of some areas in Myst deeply unsettling, which was very much intentional: Achenar’s rooms are gloomy and macabre, decorated with weapons and even body parts (there is even a severed head inside a crate in his Mechanical Age room). His electrified cage, in particular, creeped me out.
aug 24, 2025, 3:18 pm • 2 0 • view
When I was a kid, I borrowed a copy of Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening from a neighbor. After wandering around in my own save, I got curious and loaded up their sister's save - which happened to be parked inside the Moblin Cave. youtu.be/Iw2RekiB1PU?...
aug 25, 2025, 1:04 am • 0 0 • view
Since I loaded in inside the cave, the first thing I heard was the stressful Bow-Wow Kidnapping music and dialogue of one of the Moblins threatening to "get ridda" me. Tame by most standards, but it scared the pants off of Tiny Me and left a lasting impression.
aug 25, 2025, 1:06 am • 1 0 • view
Watching my older cousin play RE4 over his shoulder.
aug 23, 2025, 7:13 pm • 0 0 • view
Star Wars Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight had a level where you were swimming through these huge reservoirs and would encounter these huge red creatures. Played it when I was 6 and I have a major fear of whales to this day.
aug 23, 2025, 2:57 pm • 11 0 • view
I tried to take them out from as far away as possible. I don't even remember if they're actually killable.
aug 24, 2025, 7:00 am • 2 0 • view
Rayman 2, specifically the JANO CHASE! Oh god, poor 6 year old me was TRAUMATIZED by this monstrosity! CAVE OF BAD DREAMS IS RIGHT! Just... Just watch the video. www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA7R...
aug 24, 2025, 5:16 am • 3 0 • view
Yay, another person who got traumatized by Rayman games!
aug 24, 2025, 9:58 am • 1 0 • view
My honest answer is the drowning music from Sonic 2. But the first time I played a "scary game" was the last couple levels of Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith. Huge, growling, ambushing monsters. Darkness, thunder, no guns. It's the first time I felt the stress I later felt playing Dead Space.
aug 23, 2025, 5:11 pm • 13 0 • view
I was like 7, playing a old arcade game at the edmonton airport, and after flying around, having no idea what to do, Sinistar spoke and roared, and I died seconds later.
aug 24, 2025, 2:56 am • 2 0 • view
"I HUNGER!" This guy - John Doremus - did the voice. youtu.be/Bx9WIQsQNEQ
aug 24, 2025, 8:34 am • 3 0 • view
"Just recusing dudes on Fractalus... No big deal.. huh.. this one looks a little green...games kind of bori... OH MY F'N GOSSSH!!!" I Fell back and broke my parents 1970's Wooden Kitchen chair we had at our makeshift 'Family Computer desk' in 1985's when I saw this jump scare: youtu.be/-3yEhnB5sL4
aug 23, 2025, 5:46 pm • 10 0 • view
*old me can't type on iPad well.😅
aug 23, 2025, 5:49 pm • 1 0 • view
Wow that is terrifying.
aug 24, 2025, 4:21 am • 2 0 • view
ikr?!?
aug 24, 2025, 4:26 am • 1 0 • view
Mr Nutz. Everything in this game scared me. The music, chara design, the sound when he dies...
aug 25, 2025, 4:55 am • 1 0 • view
The first Tomb Raider did it for me - my fear of heights kicked in big time when Lara had to climb that tower type thing (IIRC - it was a Loooong time ago!)
aug 25, 2025, 5:55 am • 0 0 • view
Halo: Combat Evolved, on the 343 guilty spark level. Up to that point it had been a fairly straightforward shooter but that level made the game go into horror territory in a way that the franchise has never managed again
aug 24, 2025, 1:32 pm • 6 0 • view
Oliver teaches typing. On c64 when I was a kid, when you made a mistake his head got massive and red and it scared the bejeezus out of me. Sadly lost to the dust of time now I've never been able to find a trace of it.
aug 23, 2025, 5:02 pm • 5 0 • view
That damned blue whale that took up two screens. Thalassophobia detected.
aug 24, 2025, 4:45 am • 9 0 • view
I remember not even being able to play past the earlier screens of Castlevania when I was real young. It was just unnerving I guess
aug 25, 2025, 10:16 pm • 0 0 • view
I’ve never been scared by a game. But once a friend called me at ~11 PM on a work-night, just to chit chat, which was weird on all counts. I finally pried out of him that he’d been playing Doom 3, in the dark, & it scared the hell out of him so badly he needed a friend.🥺 Y’all we were in our 30s.
aug 24, 2025, 5:17 am • 10 0 • view
This might be the one for me. I was never scared by games growing up but the flashlight mechanic in Doom 3 was hell. I REALLY did not like choosing between the ability to see or the ability to shoot. I always felt helpless and unsure.
aug 27, 2025, 8:14 pm • 1 0 • view
So many times I thought I killed something, only to switch back to the flashlight in time to see it inches away from my face.
aug 27, 2025, 8:15 pm • 1 0 • view
It was so funny that my friend just scared the shit out of himself- he said it was between the lighting effects and the sounds - all sorts of creepy sound effects. And his whole fam was asleep so I was his phone a friend. 😂
aug 27, 2025, 9:02 pm • 1 0 • view
Kingdom hearts, when all of the heartless come down from the sky and attack the island
aug 23, 2025, 4:19 pm • 1 0 • view
This screenshot in Nintendo Power made me throw the magazine across the room and avoid the page on every subsequent re-read.
aug 23, 2025, 2:46 pm • 273 11 • view
Oh man there was a scarecrow in some 90s game that did that to me
aug 24, 2025, 1:51 am • 4 0 • view
The Ghost Lady from Uninvited (1991) and Beyond Shadowgate (2024).
aug 30, 2025, 9:08 pm • 0 0 • view
Came here to say this, except for the black and white version of Uninvited on Mac 😱
aug 23, 2025, 3:25 pm • 105 1 • view
Yep. It's *that exact screen* that brings back the fear.
aug 23, 2025, 7:05 pm • 29 0 • view
Oh shit, THIS GAME. I played this on my friend's Mac when I was probably eight or nine, and I've thought about it occasionally as an adult, but never knew the name. What a memory, god damn.
aug 24, 2025, 2:56 am • 3 0 • view
OMG. I remember that bit. We played in computer lab, and it effectively terrified a whole class.
aug 23, 2025, 8:16 pm • 7 0 • view
I watched my older sisters play it and it was TERRIFYING. The occasional random skull jump scares were downright evil 😅
aug 23, 2025, 8:21 pm • 7 0 • view
Happy to see this. The first game to give me a jumpscare, which is very impressive in CGA!
aug 24, 2025, 1:40 am • 6 0 • view
oh shit who is this diva?
aug 23, 2025, 5:41 pm • 4 0 • view
It’s from Uninvited. This is the NES version. I never played it, so I don’t know her name. Toooo scary
aug 23, 2025, 7:10 pm • 3 0 • view
I don't know that she has a name. She's one of the first threats in the game. You see a lady with her back turned in a hallway. Approach her, and suddenly skull face.
aug 23, 2025, 11:06 pm • 3 0 • view
how tf did Nintendo Power get screenshots like this anyway? 0: didn’t magazines have to take photographs of actual CRT screens back then? it’s not like there was a direct digital output to capture pixel data from… it was all encoded as analogue video signals back then
aug 24, 2025, 2:18 am • 2 0 • view
I was watching my cousin play this game back in the day, and when this screen popped up, I ran into the other room. I did come back, and was pretty determined to get past her. He was stumped, and I remember suggesting using the candle, and what an absolute triumph that was.
aug 23, 2025, 5:19 pm • 6 0 • view
Oh, nice. What's the source of this?
aug 30, 2025, 9:09 pm • 0 0 • view
The Screaming Skull (1958)
aug 30, 2025, 9:28 pm • 2 0 • view
Oh Lord I'd forgotten about that.
aug 24, 2025, 12:20 am • 1 0 • view
Paging @peachsaliva.bsky.social
aug 23, 2025, 6:08 pm • 0 0 • view
i clicked on this thread to answer "uninvited" and i'm happy to see that even the ads for the game traumatized kids
aug 23, 2025, 10:44 pm • 5 0 • view
NO
aug 24, 2025, 2:00 am • 4 0 • view
I forgot there was a Shadow gate sequel. Heck, there's at least 2 (video related) youtu.be/7vPvlKrE5nI?...
aug 24, 2025, 2:09 am • 0 0 • view
This is the wrong one! This is the real Beyond Shadowgate youtu.be/QTrI-43PhjY
aug 24, 2025, 2:10 am • 5 0 • view
Skeleton not scary enough? Give it a gun!
aug 24, 2025, 3:09 am • 2 0 • view
Huh! I didn't know it was also a sequel to Uninvited and Déjà Vu! Interesting! Though some of the deaths in the one I shared are very funny, especially the one with the old lady and the 4th wall breaking one at the end.
aug 24, 2025, 4:18 am • 0 0 • view
I also mapped Beyond Shadowgate for my site, VGMaps.com: The Video Game Atlas. Here's the Loch Ness area, the same area as in Uninvited: vgmaps.com/Atlas/PC/ind...
aug 30, 2025, 9:13 pm • 2 0 • view
I unboxed Beyond Shadowgate here, it's worth a look if you enjoy the NES "MacVenture" games. www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsG0...
aug 30, 2025, 9:11 pm • 3 1 • view
It’s so funny how such a simple picture can scare us so much when we’re little! This intro picture for The Immortal terrified me when I was a kid.
aug 23, 2025, 11:03 pm • 9 0 • view
It's wild how much horror can exist in 8-bit form.
aug 24, 2025, 5:04 am • 6 0 • view
I had that issue too! While I don't think I had quite that strong of a reaction. It definitely gave me the heebie-jeebies.
aug 24, 2025, 4:16 pm • 1 0 • view
We need more kids games that terrified the shit out of us
aug 24, 2025, 3:21 pm • 1 0 • view
They STILL get me
aug 24, 2025, 4:15 pm • 1 0 • view
Oh me too!!! I hadn’t played a Zelda game until Season after watching a friend play that part in the city where you can switch time.
aug 24, 2025, 10:00 am • 1 0 • view
That screech sound effect is killer
aug 24, 2025, 6:16 pm • 1 0 • view
That’s when your soul leaves body
aug 24, 2025, 6:17 pm • 0 0 • view
Ocarina was mine too. There’s some legit scary baddies in that one.
aug 24, 2025, 3:58 am • 12 0 • view
Those were both mine lol bsky.app/profile/rene...
aug 24, 2025, 3:18 pm • 2 0 • view
Defcon 5
aug 23, 2025, 3:07 pm • 4 0 • view
Metroid Prime, oddly enough. Just wasn't used to games with that kind of atmosphere at the time.
aug 27, 2025, 2:39 pm • 0 0 • view
Mountain King. I was terrified of getting caught and eaten by the giant spider. (Other early scares were Haunted House and Ghost Manor on Atari 2600.) youtu.be/mtCq53IouHk?...
aug 23, 2025, 3:02 pm • 20 0 • view
Mountain King and Ghost Manor on 2600 for me, too. Then, Forbidden Forest on C64. (MK cameo in our upcoming movie…….)
aug 23, 2025, 8:58 pm • 3 0 • view
Oh man, Forbidden Forest and the worms that come from the ground to randomly eat you got me a lot. I forgot about that game until reading this just now!
aug 26, 2025, 5:18 am • 1 0 • view
(Actually, my bad - the worms are in the sequel game. Still scary though!)
aug 26, 2025, 5:27 am • 0 0 • view
The sequel is NUTS. And has some of the best game music, period.
aug 26, 2025, 7:14 pm • 1 0 • view
Pretty sure the original Luigi’s Mansion was the first. Don’t think it ever outright sent me running, but the demonic “NINTENDO” from the start up screen followed by the game’s genuinely spooky aesthetics kept me on edge
aug 24, 2025, 2:07 pm • 2 0 • view
This one is extremely personal but Luigi’s Mansion 2 scared the shit out of me as a kid. Sometimes it was the atmosphere, sometimes it was a jumpscare they’d throw in during a cutscene, but for me, the Ice Face boss is the one I remember being scared of the most.
aug 23, 2025, 11:51 pm • 0 0 • view
This thing fucking terrified me as a kid with how it laughed at you upon making a mistake and I remember not being able to beat it, not because it scared me, but because the fight was just too hard. I had to ask my parents to beat it for me. I’ve never done this again and I can beat it fine now.
aug 23, 2025, 11:51 pm • 1 0 • view
F.E.A.R. really worked on me. I might have been scared by things before it, but I don't recall them clearly.
aug 23, 2025, 11:00 pm • 3 0 • view
;-;
aug 23, 2025, 9:59 pm • 28 0 • view
Every Boo saying "Ghost don't DIE! Can you get out of here alive?" for the ghost hunt star scared tf out of me at 6 🫥
aug 24, 2025, 12:05 pm • 6 0 • view
3D Monster Maze was too terrifying to play alone when I was 5, fuck that fucking T-Rex and his haunted-object-in-a-creepypasta-ass game
aug 23, 2025, 8:33 pm • 10 1 • view
The demo of Metroid Prime Hunters, when a Metroid first clung to my face in first person.
aug 24, 2025, 4:22 am • 0 0 • view
in super mario bros 2 theres a mask ("phanto" for those in the know) that gets angry and chases you around when you pick up a key. and that used to freak me out. all i want to do is borrow a key and this thing wants to *kill me*? hurt my feelings really
aug 23, 2025, 6:49 pm • 52 1 • view
YEAH!!!! Phanto was scary!!!
aug 23, 2025, 9:05 pm • 5 0 • view
Yeah, Phanto was my first spook too
aug 24, 2025, 5:25 am • 1 0 • view
I was all prepped to write another response but I’m glad I scrolled the comments first. This. This is the answer. That thing haunted my dreams.
aug 23, 2025, 11:16 pm • 1 0 • view
The gag is that you are a shrunken scientist in a lab trying to get big again - there's a bottle of 'spirits' and of course, a spooky ghost comes out of the bottle to chase you!
aug 24, 2025, 3:00 pm • 1 0 • view
Resident Evil on OG PlayStation
aug 23, 2025, 11:17 pm • 0 0 • view
I found Majora's Mask so terrifying that I literally gave it away.
aug 24, 2025, 5:39 am • 0 0 • view
This might be the one for me.
aug 24, 2025, 4:41 am • 10 0 • view
This it for me too. Holy shit. 😭
aug 24, 2025, 1:07 pm • 4 0 • view
Oh my god, deeply repressed memory - what a horrifying pull!
aug 24, 2025, 4:15 pm • 1 0 • view
See I was gonna say Super Metroid but that's just because I forgot about these assholes. These have to be the earliest scare for me.
aug 26, 2025, 10:17 pm • 1 0 • view
I'd forgotten how scared I was of these things as a kid, because it didn't stop me from playing the game a bunch! I'd just throw the key all the way to its destination so the mask would leave me alone.
aug 24, 2025, 12:47 pm • 1 0 • view
I nearly pissed myself the first time it swooped in!
aug 24, 2025, 10:39 am • 1 0 • view
aug 23, 2025, 11:10 pm • 38 0 • view
Genuinely HORRIFYING
aug 24, 2025, 4:16 pm • 0 0 • view
Oh, this mf 😨😨😨😨😨😨😨😨
aug 24, 2025, 12:44 am • 4 0 • view
Who Framed Roger Rabbit on the NES. The weasels continue to pursue you like Michael freaking Myers. Stressed me tf out! Also Hugo 3, when the witch doctor runs up and puts Hugo in a cage. Really any game that just starts to beep and boop at you when previously there was only silence.
aug 24, 2025, 6:11 pm • 0 0 • view
There is a moment in "Titanic: Adventure Out of Time" where a character is electrocuted and it *terrified* me. I was maybe 10 or 11 at the time.
aug 24, 2025, 1:32 pm • 1 1 • view
Fuckin' Eternal Fuckin' Darkness
aug 24, 2025, 12:27 am • 7 0 • view
I mean, I was an adult when that game came out and it still really scared me. They absolutely knew what they were doing with that game.
aug 24, 2025, 12:39 am • 3 0 • view
Prince of Persia. Not scared like terrified, but it was so tense. every jump, every trap. Because Mac version from 1992 had some really graphic depictions of prince's deaths and little didn't get used to them.
aug 24, 2025, 9:00 pm • 2 0 • view
You've never known true FEAR unless you've tried (& likely failed) to outrun a SPYDROTH TARANULUS in QUEST FOR THE RINGS before it dropped down & devoured you! . Never mind that it was represented by an 8bit pixel avatar. It was still scary AF! #Odyssey2
aug 24, 2025, 10:44 pm • 0 0 • view
Fly 2 Band of Thieves - Episode 4 where you had to sneak up on the main boss of the area. Creeped me out as a kid and I couldn’t do that mission. Always had friends do it for me at first.
aug 25, 2025, 2:46 am • 0 0 • view
Myst, lol. I took their advice and played in a dark room with headphones on. I was 13 and the first thing I found was a note addressed to me, couldn't shake the "someone's watching me" feeling for AGES haha. (I was 13.)
aug 23, 2025, 4:48 pm • 43 0 • view
The book brothers freaked me out for a good decade until I played it again. They were still creepy.
aug 24, 2025, 4:22 am • 0 0 • view
I always felt someone was gonna jump-scare me w/Myst. Very ominous.
aug 24, 2025, 1:58 am • 0 0 • view
Riven when you first spot a person hiding from you! I was so on edge that they could sneak up on me while I tried to work out a puzzle.
aug 23, 2025, 9:48 pm • 15 0 • view
The jumpscare children get a lot of people.
aug 24, 2025, 12:26 am • 9 0 • view
I fondly remember a friend calling us up because of that game. She'd gotten most of the way through, didn't know which brother to trust, and was terrified of choosing wrong. She knew we'd already played the game and called us for help.
aug 24, 2025, 12:25 am • 2 0 • view
The fondness is because it's one of the few times I can remember someone else getting their head stuck into video games as deeply as we did.
aug 24, 2025, 12:25 am • 0 0 • view
This was mine too! The puzzle where you have to lower yourself into the ground with the tree, I was 7 or 8 and I was terrified I'd be stuck down there
aug 24, 2025, 8:34 am • 0 0 • view
banjo-kazooie with the shark, for one. but falling into the pitch black emptiness of the oceans north of icecrown in wow...that made me realize i had thalassophobia lmao
aug 24, 2025, 10:48 pm • 0 0 • view
Not a horror game, and pretty niche, but this game freaked me out: www.myabandonware.com/game/passeng... It probably didn't help that I was freaked out by the comic earlier!
aug 24, 2025, 7:37 am • 2 0 • view
mario 64 ds that fucking piano (wrong version in gif but whatever)
aug 24, 2025, 2:48 am • 6 0 • view
Toy Story 3 for the DS... I'm not joking. The part where Woody's friends were taken, and he had to sneak out of the house to save them, creeped me out cause I was alone, and the music scared me. I thought it was a stealth section, and that Andy and his Mom would find me💀
aug 24, 2025, 4:36 am • 0 0 • view
I tell this story whenever possible since it's one of my enduring gaming memories, but the T-Rex in Tomb Raider made me drop my controller in fear
aug 24, 2025, 1:53 am • 2 0 • view
Playing Kirby’s Adventure as a kid. After defeating what I thought was the final boss, King Dedede, a cute looking penguin. Only to discover I had to fight this demonic looking final boss, Nightmare.
aug 23, 2025, 3:14 pm • 15 0 • view
Yoooooo!!!! SAME!!!!!
aug 24, 2025, 10:07 pm • 1 0 • view
In terms of games I never actually played, Phantasmagorias advert ising always freaked me out a little bit. "It's infected your brain."
aug 23, 2025, 7:40 pm • 0 0 • view
In the DOS Nightmare On Elm Street game, Freddy would start picking off the kids on the character select screen if you took too long Freaked me out back in the day but also got me hooked
aug 24, 2025, 6:41 am • 7 0 • view
idk if I'm just f**ked up, but that sounds hilarious. in a dark way
aug 24, 2025, 8:40 pm • 2 0 • view
Don't know how old I was, but when the Neversoft Splash Screen came on for Spider-Man 2000 (PS1), I immediately hid under my bed from fear. Later, Venom game me nightmares. After finally making it all the way through, Monster Ock made me shut the game off. Took days to try and play it after that.
aug 24, 2025, 4:38 am • 0 0 • view
I had a demo disc for the Dreamcast that included House of the Dead and I remember being really freaked out by it and shutting it off immediately. I was probably seven at the time.
aug 23, 2025, 8:39 pm • 2 0 • view
Probably the bottom of the well in Ocarina of Time, or maybe Rock Tunnel in Pokemon Red
aug 23, 2025, 3:01 pm • 4 0 • view
aug 24, 2025, 6:16 am • 27 1 • view
OM NOM NOM NOM! 😆
aug 24, 2025, 11:34 am • 6 0 • view
This
aug 25, 2025, 6:04 pm • 1 0 • view
OMG SKI FREE MEMORIES UNLOCKED ⛷️
aug 24, 2025, 7:08 pm • 1 0 • view
Mansion of Hidden Souls for Sega CD freaked me out for some reason. It didn't help that the system was on a spare tv in the partially finished attic and I only had time to play at night. The lunesta ads are like if the lost souls came to collect and kinda bother me even now.
aug 23, 2025, 10:03 pm • 3 0 • view
Mr. Bones on Sega Saturn is the first one that comes to mind lol there was something about those cutscenes especially that freaked me out as a kid. Looking back now, of course, it’s very funny to see how cheesy that game actually is.
aug 23, 2025, 3:02 pm • 8 0 • view
Crash Bandicoot Warped, the dinosaur chasing you in Bone Yard
aug 25, 2025, 1:44 am • 0 0 • view
Seahorse Hide’n Seek on the Commodore 64 freaked me out something fierce as a kid. You rush to find a hiding place as creepy fish that make terrible noises try to find you and eat you. The calming song in the background still gives me ptsd sometimes, lol.
aug 26, 2025, 5:16 am • 0 0 • view
Red Faction (2001) - You descend down a tight lifeless tunnel where you're told a monster lies in wait ready to eat you at the end. Little me couldn't move forward after the bad drops this line: "This is the feeding chute, Parker. Something is hungry."
aug 23, 2025, 5:22 pm • 9 0 • view
Dino Crisis scared the shit out of me.
aug 23, 2025, 7:33 pm • 4 0 • view
That was a legot kinda scary game ad a kid
aug 23, 2025, 9:02 pm • 0 0 • view
you're probably gonna laugh, but Cyberia. just the death sequence and the music that played when it happened freaked me out. plus I have mad anxiety over not getting something right the first time.
aug 24, 2025, 1:13 pm • 1 0 • view
I think some screenshots ads from Clock Tower, japanese RE 1 and Quake 1
aug 24, 2025, 1:37 am • 0 0 • view
Parasite Eve
aug 23, 2025, 2:46 pm • 13 0 • view
aug 23, 2025, 10:16 pm • 5 0 • view
Check those corners, check those corners. Masterful conversion.
aug 24, 2025, 12:41 am • 1 0 • view
Maniac Mansion, Friday the 13th (NES), Myst.
aug 24, 2025, 4:15 am • 2 0 • view
I don't know why...
aug 24, 2025, 12:23 am • 7 0 • view
Oh yeah, Dragon’s Lair had a bunch of gnarly deaths for sure
aug 24, 2025, 2:08 am • 5 0 • view
Turning the corner and seeing this in what was such an inviting place upstairs was a core memory
aug 23, 2025, 8:09 pm • 32 0 • view
Only for this to be the easiest level in the basement. Real heads know Shifting Sand Land is the actual scariest level because of that goddamn bird and the instant-death quicksand covering half of the level
aug 25, 2025, 4:54 am • 3 0 • view
Horror zombies from the crypt _ Amiga 500. Very bad game, but that death sprite animation + the midi version of Prokofiev's Montagues and Capulets was more than I can handle with 8yo.
aug 24, 2025, 9:43 pm • 0 0 • view
Bizarrely, Dynamite Headdy. I played the first couple of segments quite a lot as a smallie, but the whole aura of that game freaked me out. I still feel deeply uneasy when I hear Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker because of that game!
aug 24, 2025, 4:13 pm • 0 0 • view
When I was kid my dad bought silent hill 1, telling me and my mom how scary it was supposed to be. She got curious and went to the basement and played maybe 30 minutes. She came back looking genuinely terrified, disturbed. I’ve never played SH1 but I’ve considered those games kinda evil since.
aug 23, 2025, 4:08 pm • 95 1 • view
SH1 is designed to terrify parents in particular
aug 24, 2025, 9:03 pm • 0 0 • view
Blake play SH1 it's the best
aug 23, 2025, 4:22 pm • 20 0 • view
I seen the movie!
aug 23, 2025, 4:38 pm • 6 0 • view
Irregardless of the movie's quality, it is 𝙣𝙤𝙩 the same experience. I highly recommend giving the game a try. It's incredible for a PS1 game.
aug 24, 2025, 6:04 am • 0 0 • view
aug 23, 2025, 5:10 pm • 77 0 • view
Aw, come on, the movie is a solid "B" adaptation. it's not particularly accurate, but it nails the vibe really well.
aug 23, 2025, 9:27 pm • 22 0 • view
The movie is good but its a mix of SH1 and SH2
aug 23, 2025, 11:29 pm • 1 0 • view
Seconded. I love the Silent Hill games and I ALSO love the movie, just because it does such a good job of looking and feeling like a Silent Hill game!
aug 23, 2025, 9:29 pm • 15 0 • view
Mate
aug 24, 2025, 10:11 pm • 1 0 • view
It’s a pretty good movie idk what to tell ya
aug 24, 2025, 10:58 pm • 2 0 • view
The movies are equally so
aug 23, 2025, 9:46 pm • 0 0 • view
SH1 scared me so bad it gave me the first migraine of my life, and the only one I had until my late 20s.
aug 23, 2025, 9:53 pm • 0 0 • view
This but me. Went to a friends house and we played this and I was terrified, the horrible fake distance to everything. (Shout out to much later playing amnesia with headphones on, on my laptop, under my bunk bed, all the lights off, Christian upbringing - hated it)
aug 23, 2025, 9:58 pm • 0 0 • view
Only 30 minutes? Damn, she saw NOTHIN'.
aug 23, 2025, 10:55 pm • 3 0 • view
1993’s 3D Dinosaur Adventure for the PC had a “save the dinosaurs” mode where you were supposed to explore a 3D maze to find dinosaurs before a meteor wipes them all out. In the end the sky turns red and full of mushroom clouds. I bawled my eyes out, couldn’t touch the dinosaur game for days
aug 23, 2025, 4:44 pm • 80 1 • view
I had that game! It came with our first family PC, a Packard Bell. And now I’m pretty sure I not only experienced this but blocked it from my memory lol
aug 24, 2025, 12:41 am • 0 0 • view
I played 3D Dinosaur Adventure SO MUCH but never touched that maze mode again after the first time for years because of the immense dread and terror it made me feel lmao.
aug 24, 2025, 8:26 pm • 0 0 • view
YESSS. THAT GAME HAD ME STRESSING!!!
aug 24, 2025, 4:10 am • 0 0 • view
Oh gosh the MUSIC from that mode even still haunts me.
aug 24, 2025, 3:49 pm • 1 0 • view
I remember this. One of my earliest understandings of the stress induced by responsibility
aug 23, 2025, 8:50 pm • 2 0 • view
It's so interesting how kids can interpret the same things differently. I remember playing that exact mode and my small-child thought being "Yes, that's right, good. That's the way it happened, after all."
aug 23, 2025, 10:02 pm • 3 0 • view
Jesus, I forgot about that.
aug 25, 2025, 5:39 am • 0 0 • view
Well that’s trauma you’ll carry with you forever
aug 23, 2025, 4:48 pm • 2 0 • view
I’m pretty sure *i* caused the dinosaurs to go extinct
aug 23, 2025, 5:51 pm • 4 0 • view
I haven’t heard of any dinosaur sightings post-1993 so maybe you did!
aug 23, 2025, 6:18 pm • 3 0 • view
aug 23, 2025, 4:48 pm • 20 0 • view
just beat this game again last week. was such a blast to play through it again.
aug 24, 2025, 4:11 am • 1 0 • view
but srs that's heckin' traumatic, wow, like losing ending in Theme Park levels of haunting
aug 23, 2025, 4:58 pm • 6 0 • view
I still remember being scared out of my teenage mind with a friend late at night playing the text only Infocom game The Lurking Horror. Amazing what blanks our mind fills in.
aug 25, 2025, 12:24 am • 1 0 • view
Not scary as such, but The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes had a creepy vibe to it. The music always made it feel like something awful was about to happen.
aug 24, 2025, 11:41 am • 0 0 • view
Spyro 2 and the killer bushes. Nothing says horror to 7 year old me like a bush suddenly having eyes, rushing you, and attempting to eat you.
aug 24, 2025, 1:26 pm • 2 0 • view
At the same time, these fucking robot sharks too scared me back at the time
aug 25, 2025, 1:11 am • 1 0 • view
yeah those sharks were also scary as well. Think the bushes might have been worse since the sharks you could kind of avoid the area they're in, but the bushes, not so much.
aug 25, 2025, 2:40 am • 1 0 • view
Sword of Fargoal on the Commodore 64, perhaps. A combination of my being young, the "fog of war" concealing tough enemies, and the deep Jaws-like droning that would indicate enemies movement turn (and the drone would drag on if more enemies were about) was very effective in ratcheting the tension.
aug 24, 2025, 8:18 am • 0 0 • view
youtu.be/SZzDwAKaslM?...
aug 24, 2025, 8:18 am • 1 0 • view
I still see them in my nightmares
aug 23, 2025, 9:24 pm • 7 0 • view
gods yes, still panic when i hear and see their shadows...
aug 24, 2025, 8:59 am • 1 0 • view
Dungeons of Daggorath. The minimalist sound design + heartbeat mechanic work brilliantly together.
aug 24, 2025, 7:16 pm • 3 0 • view
The door opening animations from resident evil 1 and 2 were my earliest scares in games. The tension and unease was excellent.
aug 23, 2025, 6:58 pm • 2 0 • view
Atic Atac . The soundtrack was the theme to my nightmares.
aug 24, 2025, 9:23 pm • 0 0 • view
DOOM. Yes, that is comical 30+ years later, but it was insanely innovative and immersive if you grew up on Pong and Atari, and the level/monster designs were off the charts. That game freaking worked.
aug 24, 2025, 2:35 am • 8 0 • view
Either the piano in super Mario 64 or an ad for Alien³ for the SNES and Genesis (I'd never seen the Xenomorph from alien before that ad so it always stuck out to me)
aug 23, 2025, 2:51 pm • 10 0 • view
I had to turn off the music when I went in the Old Chateau cuz it absolutely terrified me. Not to mention the ghost sightings that would sometimes happen
aug 24, 2025, 1:45 pm • 5 0 • view
I love these game for that type of thing. This and the part with Darkrai (who used the same music) in pixel art was one the best thing from Pokemon's games
aug 25, 2025, 6:02 pm • 1 0 • view
Castlevania, but I was like four when I first saw it
aug 23, 2025, 4:24 pm • 32 0 • view
I was gonna say "Resident Evil," but this is almost certainly the correct answer and I've just blocked it out
aug 23, 2025, 9:00 pm • 5 0 • view
I suspect my answer would be similar if I had grown up with a NES, but I feel like you may appreciate my earliest terrified memory as a PC kid: bsky.app/profile/jake...
aug 24, 2025, 5:55 pm • 1 0 • view
Maniac Mansion on NES. Specifically the sound effects that play when the nuclear reactor is in meltdown. I heard that shit in my nightmares.
aug 24, 2025, 2:55 am • 8 0 • view
Maniac Mansion, except Uncle Ted behind the shower curtain.
aug 24, 2025, 9:46 pm • 1 0 • view
Jump Start Adventures 4th Grade: Haunted Island
aug 24, 2025, 2:57 pm • 0 0 • view
Prince of Persia. Any of the death scenes but in particular, falling onto spikes. The blood, the dramatic music - quick, restart the game!!
aug 23, 2025, 10:50 pm • 7 0 • view
Same!
aug 24, 2025, 1:29 am • 0 0 • view
Forgot alt: Screenshot of the game Phantasmagoria. In it it's depicted the entrance to the baby's room, with the mouse cursor appearing.
aug 25, 2025, 8:48 pm • 0 0 • view
Rule of Rose
aug 23, 2025, 2:51 pm • 0 0 • view
I believe it has to be the intro for the final boss in Mario Vs Donkey March of the Minis. Seeing Donkey Kong in the top screen freaked me out as a kid. Every time I played this level, I always had to look away. Seeing this now brings back memories of how much it scared me
aug 24, 2025, 12:59 pm • 2 0 • view
Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode for NES. Had scuba levels where sharks would coming flying in from off-screen.
aug 24, 2025, 11:13 am • 0 0 • view
The music in the sunken ship in Mario RPG on SNES got me good.
aug 23, 2025, 4:59 pm • 4 0 • view
Venture. Those Hall Monsters freaked me out.
aug 24, 2025, 5:17 am • 3 0 • view
luigis mansion scared the shit out of me for an embarrassingly long time
aug 24, 2025, 1:41 am • 1 0 • view
That scene in Metroid Prime where you walk downstairs past a long series of glass tanks with Metroids floating in them, grab the Thermal Visor at the bottom of this silo-like building, then the power cuts, the lights go out, and you hear the sound of glass shattering all around you.
sep 1, 2025, 11:58 am • 0 0 • view
Probably the first "Alone in the Dark" for me.
aug 24, 2025, 7:12 pm • 0 0 • view
Silent Hill. Partly due to Harry's first unavoidable! death, by creepy knife wielding children coming out of the fog. Partly due to the radio mechanic forcing you to pay attention to the sound affects. If the sound wasn't so well done, it would have been too pixelated to be scary.
aug 24, 2025, 3:39 am • 13 1 • view
Bloodborne. Once you get enough Insight and you go back to the beginning and you realize that the gods were always there and you couldn't see them until now is wild. It makes you ask either if this is real or if you have genuinely just gone crazy and I don't think a game has done that better.
aug 25, 2025, 1:28 am • 0 0 • view
The Crocomire jumpscare in Super Metroid. Hated backtracking through that corridor ever since.
aug 23, 2025, 9:17 pm • 56 0 • view
I just realized this looks like the Moon Beast from the NES Godzilla Creepypasta. I wonder if that’s where Cosbydaf got some of the inspiration came from.
aug 24, 2025, 4:18 am • 10 0 • view
Sonic adventure, specifically the big the Cat section. I believed the world was so real that when fish started to clip wildly during the fishing minigame i screamed
aug 24, 2025, 3:57 am • 0 0 • view
Forbidden Forest, Commodore 64: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidd...
aug 24, 2025, 10:29 pm • 0 0 • view
The game had blood, lots of monsters, but the kicker for me was a brutally animated (for the time) death scene where a monstrous mosquito drained your entire body into a limp husk. (Not pictured, the rain of deadly frogs was the best I could do in a pinch.)
aug 24, 2025, 10:34 pm • 0 0 • view
Shadowgate Classic for the Gameboy Color. Probably because I stayed up late playing it alone and because of the grim reaper art.
aug 23, 2025, 3:02 pm • 4 0 • view
aug 23, 2025, 3:04 pm • 15 0 • view
Kirby 64. This fight made me shit my pants. The erratic music and slow transformation from just a shape into a biblically accurate angel thing was too much for 7 year old me to comprehend. I loved it.
aug 23, 2025, 11:39 pm • 27 0 • view
Andross’ regular face and robot face in Star Fox 64. i was about 4-5 years old playing it and got to the end of the game with my brother and nearly started crying when i saw him. it still kinda freaks me out to this day.
aug 23, 2025, 4:20 pm • 4 0 • view
aug 23, 2025, 9:46 pm • 21 0 • view
forget the in game, the manual art alone scared me
aug 23, 2025, 10:47 pm • 6 0 • view
This may not look like much, but if you played this game you know. Tunnel Runner. You're in a maze, trying to get out. No weapons, your only option is to run. These guys come at you, their sound getting louder as they get closer.
aug 25, 2025, 7:04 pm • 0 0 • view
Flipping the elephant as a kid and getting hit with a 4th wall break.
aug 23, 2025, 11:37 pm • 4 0 • view
When I was a kid, playing Super Mario 64, the eel in Jolly Roger Bay lunging at me terrified me so profoundly, I could not return to the level again for a few years.
aug 24, 2025, 1:53 am • 4 0 • view
Watching my dad play The 7th Guest. That was a big mistake.
aug 29, 2025, 6:07 pm • 0 0 • view
I noped out at the intro to Gremlins 2 on the Amiga - something about the voice sample and Gizmo’s reaction to it.
aug 23, 2025, 3:55 pm • 0 0 • view
Turok 2 on N64 My older brothers bought it and the black cartridge looked so cool, but I wasn't allowed to play it since it was rated 18. So one night I snuck into the games room and booted it up, but I got too scared immediately and ran back to bed
aug 23, 2025, 4:06 pm • 3 0 • view
Stop-motion Goro in Mortal Kombat 1 intro
aug 24, 2025, 5:09 am • 3 0 • view