Samantha Lienhard

Celebrating All Things Spooky: Immure (Part 1)

Video games 2 Responses » Tagged with: survival horror

Oct 152025

A few years ago, I picked up a bundle on itch.io that included a horror game called Immure.

Immure is a side-scrolling horror game about a man who finds himself trapped in a strange mansion. After seeing a glimpse of his past, his exploration takes him into another space entirely – an apartment building where a monster roams the halls.

You’ll find items you need to use to get past obstacles and unlock doors, notes that shed light on the events that happened before the game, and places to hide from the monsters. In addition to hiding, you can stop monsters temporarily by shooting them.

There’s another mechanic as well, a mysterious crystal that acts as your light but can also be used to reveal secrets.

What really stood out to me is that you can choose whether to save or destroy the monsters by making use of the information you learn about them, which reminds me a bit of the Spirit Hunter series. I enjoyed it there, and I liked seeing it here, as well.

Now, after playing for about an hour, I finished the apartment section and returned to the mansion, and that’s when I learned that what I actually got in the bundle was Immure Part 1.

Part 2 is only available on Steam, as DLC for the first part, but since Part 1 is free on Steam, I could download it and buy Part 2. However, it seems the remaining parts will probably never be developed, so even playing Part 2 will leave me with an incomplete experience. It’s a shame to see that it didn’t work out, especially since the game seems so promising!

I might still get Part 2 one of these days, but in the meantime, the first part of Immure is an enjoyable horror game worth taking a look at if you don’t mind knowing its mysteries may remain unresolved.

Celebrating All Things Spooky: ZENO

Oct 132025

Earlier this year, I learned about a short horror game called ZENO, so I decided to play it this October!

(I mistakenly thought it was an RPG because of the way it’s described, but it’s really more of a horror adventure game. It was just made with RPG Maker.)

Two young men wake up together in a mysterious facility, with no memory of who they are or how they got there. The door is locked and won’t open until they’ve been handcuffed to each other, after which point they leave and find files telling them who they are – and one of them is a genius psychiatrist while the other is a homicidal maniac.

They have to work together to get out by solving puzzles to unlock each new floor of the facility.

There are threats in the facility, as well, so from time to time you’ll be chased and need to run from screen to screen until you lose your pursuer.

While not excessively dark, the story deals with horror themes like murder and cannibalism. It has some interesting twists and quite a few endings. After I finished the game with the normal endings, I used a guide to get the true ending (although there are still several endings I didn’t seek out).

My one criticism of Zeno was going to be the English translation, since a lot of lines were awkward or used abbreviations (“sth” for “something” was a common one, but a character responding to a very serious revelation with “I C” made me laugh out loud), but after finishing it I learned that in the time since I downloaded it, a newly proofread version was made available. That’ll teach me not to download a game months ahead of time and not check the page again before playing it! I haven’t tried the proofread version, but it should be an improvement.

Anyway, ZENO is an enjoyable short horror game that I was already going to recommend playing despite the translation issues, so now I’m even more confident in my recommendation. It seems there are also some side games, so I may check those out sometime as well.

Celebrating All Things Spooky: Elevator Hitch

Video games 4 Responses » Tagged with: adventure game

Oct 102025

We’ve got another free horror game to discuss today, this time an adventure game called Elevator Hitch.

It’s your first day of work, but when you get into the elevator with one of your new co-workers, it gets stuck before you can reach your destination.

What follows is a highly surreal and often unsettling horror experience.

It’s a point-and-click adventure game, although the controls are a little unusual, using a combination of keys and the mouse. (I also spent several minutes at the start trying to figure out how to move the camera up and down, since the instructions said to use the Fn key and I thought my keyboard didn’t have one. It turns out it does, but anyway, PgUp and PgDn also work.)

The first thing I discovered once I figured out the controls was that I could call for help with the elevator. They said help would arrive, and a countdown appeared. Curious, I let the countdown run out, at which point help arrived… and killed me. Game over within minutes of starting. I then clicked “New Game” and found myself already in the elevator, with the protagonist struggling to come to grips with the memory of dying.

That sets the tone for Elevator Hitch. There are numerous ways to die, each of which counts as a separate ending, but anything you’ve picked up or unlocked before your death stays with you when you start again.

Beyond that unique approach, the gameplay is standard enough for an adventure game. As you check each floor the elevator can reach, you’ll encounter puzzles to solve and obstacles to overcome. Little by little, you uncover more secrets of this definitely-100%-normal elevator and office building.

Elevator Hitch only takes about an hour to complete, but it’s a surreal and inventive horror game well worth experiencing.

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