#33. Dark Valentines: Indie horror and the 2020s

It's Valentine's Day(ish, still, shush) and so naturally the Indieventure trio have turned our attention to… horror games! Yes, we're really on-form with our historic refusal to do normal seasonal celebration episodes, as it's recently occurred to us that it's been about a year and a half since we last did a dedicated horror deep dive. And since resident goth-at-heart Rebecca is steering the ship this week, and the only thing she craves more in games than a relatable love story is a good spookening with a side-order of existential dread, this theming makes total sense, trust us.

Since our Season Zero horror episode focussed on the stone-cold classics of the indie space, we've decided to make this episode specifically about the cool indie horror games and gaming trends that we feel have emerged in the first half of this decade. (Also, do you ever think about how the 2020s are half over already? Surely that's the scariest thing of all.) 

We've got it all covered here: liminal space horror, hidden object horror, mascot horror, retro horror, even non-horror games that borrow liberally from the horror aesthetic! Because it's love day and all naturally we touch on the up-and-coming genre that is romantic horror too, which just as naturally leads to a discussion about queer horror. There's also some chat about the indie horror developers whose work is codifying the whole scene for this decade, as well as some of the formerly-indie devs who've broken out into AA and AAA spaces thanks to their earlier work.

It's a whistlestop tour but we take in all the hits, and if there's an essential work of indie horror from the past five years you think we've missed, please do let us know – we love a good recommendation!

We end as ever with our hyperfixations, and Rachel has been watching all of the various Real Housewives series, and we mean all of them, no city has been spared as long as it has a ready supply of disgustingly filthy rich families willing to entertain and amaze reality TV aficionados with their antics. Liam is still on a roll with hunting down cool recent indie releases following our last episode, this time in the form of Spirit Swap: Lofi Beats to Match 3 To and Rift of the Necrodancer. And Rebecca has some big feelings to share following her recently-completed first-time playthrough of Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, which means she has now finally finished the whole main story of the franchise (but somehow still has a lot of supplementary materials left to go before she's really done-done).

Our music was written and performed by Ollie Newbury! Find him on Instagram at @newbsmusic. Meanwhile, you can find us at indieventurepodcast.co.uk or wherever you listen to podcasts, and don’t forget that you can now join our dedicated Discord too!