So I've been thinking of making this topic for a while, but I've never really been certain how much attention it'd ever actually get. But I've wanted to bring up this guy for a while because he is quite possibly the first real creator of 'horror' games and made some of the creepiest games from the 80s, but he's almost never mentioned in any public form outside of some Commodore enthusiasts or the like. As a horror enthusiast I see a lot of 'History of Horror Games" type articles, and I've never seen one that's covered his works, DESPITE his games maybe very well being the fucking creepiest games from the 80s and a number of the games pre-date others mentioned (really the first one I'm going to tackle pre-dates all other horror games outside of a couple like Haunted House (which is debatable if it'd really count as horror despite the 'haunted' aspect) or 3D Monster Maze).
He was primarily a composer and professional musician who got into game development in 1982 for the Commodore system primarily under the publisher Cosmi. He also took part in programming, writing, conceptualizing, the art, and of course doing the music for his games. He had an interest in making more 'cinematic' game experiences to more gamey-games that were popular at the time and believed games could tell stories and be more on home consoles than simply copying what arcades were doing, and wanted to create different sort of games than the competition was doing at the time. His game debut was the 1983 game, "Forbidden Forest," which honestly deserves a fucking place in horror game history but is rarely if ever mentioned.
You can find a longplay of the game here, and I suggest taking a look at it:
In Forbidden Forest, you play as an archer in the woods who has to stop various escalating monstrosities from coming to get you with but a bow and arrow. On paper that doesn't sound so bad, but the game has some incredibly creepy early sound design, how the monsters come for you can sometimes be quite creepy, I'm pretty certain it's the first horror game with kind of gruesome death scenes, the game is hard as balls, and as the game goes on it gets progressively darker and darker.
Really, it's a kind of gruesome and challenging in a different sort of way game from many games of the early 1980s.
The game concludes with two boss fights, one involving a Snake in the distance that tries to slither up but rather than eat you he shoot fireballs starts to vomit out some weird root-like guts which he tries to plant into the ground, (shoot him and he bleeds, enough and he dies) and if you let him do this or burn you with fireballs it's game over. But that's nothing to the actual final boss fight, where then the music goes almost entirely silent and a strange entity begins coming towards you from the distance that you can only see through brief flashes of lightning as it gets closer and closer from the darkness, and you have to stop it before it comes and gets you.
The fact this game alone doesn't get much remembrance from the history of horror games is a bit unfortunate. Things like 1982's Haunted House may be remembered, or 3D Monster Maze (which was really the first 'actually creepy' horror game), but there's usually a jump after that to Sweet Home from 1989 or War of the Dead from 1987, Project Firestart maybe from 1989, or maybe some old text adventures like The Screamer from 1985 or The Lurking Horror from 1987. But I'd go as far to say this game alone is creepier than almost any game of the era. If interested, you can find an interesting 'making of' article of this game not by Paul but someone who worked on it here.
And he didn't stop his creepy game making with Forbidden Forest neither.
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He followed-up with two not quite horror games, but still fairly odd in their sound design, trying to tell some abstract story, and hard as balls games with various factors that would play into most all of his games. There is a bit of an inept creepiness to them, but nothing outright. Aztec Challenge found success in Europe, which allowed him to continue making these sort of games for a while.
He then made what is maybe the closest thing to an actual old video game creepypasta in existence, The Trivia Monster in 1985. You know those internet stories about some old forgotten game that has something creepy in it? This is basically the living version of that.
You can find a long-play of this game here.
In The Trivia Monster, you play a trivia game for up to 4-players. there are over 2000 possible questions, split into six categories (how-bizz, sports, science, history, the arts, & grab bag). There's never really an in-game reason why you're answering questions, but the manual mentions something about the winner gets to have lunch with some bigshot, so there's that.
So you go answering questions, you have a time limit and the answers have to have correct capitalization and such. Like this guy's other games, the sound design is rather creepy. But more so, when you get answers wrong something strange begins to happen. Weird sounds begin to occur (this game has maybe the creepiest sound design in any of the games by the guy), something peers at you from the darkness, the door begins to chip and crack, until eventually if someone gets the answers to the trivia questions wrong too many times, well...
The lights suddenly go out, the door opens and some monster enters through the door as the music is blaring. The monster creeps up on the 'loser', they disappear and suddenly you hear a low-processed but-makes-it-more-terrifying blood-curling scream, The game then continues on as if nothing just fucking happened. The player's just gone and the other players continue playing the game not even acknowledging what just happened or that a player is now missing or was even ever there.
It's on a level of bizzareness which I think is amplified that this monster, even if the game is named after it I guess, is so detached from everything everything else (even if the game had some kind of creepy stuff before it and odd sound design), added with the fact this is a 1985 game so there wasn't much out there at the time in terms of games with spooks.
In the same year (1985) he released a sequel to Forbidden Forest, "Beyond the Forbidden Forest".Which has some more disturbing death scenes and more of a proper story to it and some certain creepiness, but I do think honestly the original game was creepier. The two face final boss fight in this one is rather cool, though.
Can watch a long-play of it here:
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The other thing he liked making outside of odd creepy games were odd military-esque games. He made a few in the rest of the 1980s, from Defcon 5, or The President is Missing, to a strange one named "Chernobyl: Nuclear Power Plant Simulation", where you manage a nuclear power plant and try to not let it explode. Like his other games, they have a sort of creepy sound design and style to them, but nothing that's outright horror, and are more strategy/management game in their gameplay.
He would combine his two loves of game design he had full creative control on before leaving game development to continue his music career.
You can find a longplay of it here
This game is more like his ventures in Aztec Challenge or Caverns of Khafka in that they're not straight-up horror, but there's a certain eeriness to them and some odd darker tones, along with some brutal deaths and strange management systems.
Like Aztec Challenge, you go through a series of odd challenges that apparently are part of your mission/training. They range in what you'd kind of suspect, IE target practice or opening a parachute, to kind of bizzare like this one where you swim avoiding jellyfish sea monsters in what almost looks like some corrupted sea.
Probably the creepiest one is where you go deep sea diving, you avoid jellfish, sharks, and... Something else. You have limited lighting, the music is minimal, and it's overall around kind of creepy.
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There's a certain appreciation I have for him due to how he challenged game design at the time, and I think his games end up as some of the most interesting games that both released around that era but also on Commodore platforms. It's also been remembered by some system enthusiast, but forgotten by the majority to time. And I think both Forbidden Forest and The Trivia Monster especially deserve some recognition as being honest-to-God creepy and maybe some of the best realized horror games from the 80s. I think they definitely deserve some sort of spot in horror gaming history.
There were a few other kind of creepy games from the era, but I honestly think his works take the cake and his forward interesting but odd interpretation of 'cinematic games' for such limited hardware gave birth to some games that were not only different from much else at the time, but in many ways ahead of their time and yet all at once unlike anything else in the industry. I just kind of wanted to bring this guy and his games up as I find his works fascinating and kind of want to talk about them.
Ever heard of the guy or his games? First time hearing/seeing them? Agree with my assessment that Forbidden Forest and The Trivia Monster especially deserve a place in horror gaming history? What do you think of his games anyway, ResetEra?
He was primarily a composer and professional musician who got into game development in 1982 for the Commodore system primarily under the publisher Cosmi. He also took part in programming, writing, conceptualizing, the art, and of course doing the music for his games. He had an interest in making more 'cinematic' game experiences to more gamey-games that were popular at the time and believed games could tell stories and be more on home consoles than simply copying what arcades were doing, and wanted to create different sort of games than the competition was doing at the time. His game debut was the 1983 game, "Forbidden Forest," which honestly deserves a fucking place in horror game history but is rarely if ever mentioned.
You can find a longplay of the game here, and I suggest taking a look at it:
In Forbidden Forest, you play as an archer in the woods who has to stop various escalating monstrosities from coming to get you with but a bow and arrow. On paper that doesn't sound so bad, but the game has some incredibly creepy early sound design, how the monsters come for you can sometimes be quite creepy, I'm pretty certain it's the first horror game with kind of gruesome death scenes, the game is hard as balls, and as the game goes on it gets progressively darker and darker.
Really, it's a kind of gruesome and challenging in a different sort of way game from many games of the early 1980s.
The game concludes with two boss fights, one involving a Snake in the distance that tries to slither up but rather than eat you he shoot fireballs starts to vomit out some weird root-like guts which he tries to plant into the ground, (shoot him and he bleeds, enough and he dies) and if you let him do this or burn you with fireballs it's game over. But that's nothing to the actual final boss fight, where then the music goes almost entirely silent and a strange entity begins coming towards you from the distance that you can only see through brief flashes of lightning as it gets closer and closer from the darkness, and you have to stop it before it comes and gets you.
The fact this game alone doesn't get much remembrance from the history of horror games is a bit unfortunate. Things like 1982's Haunted House may be remembered, or 3D Monster Maze (which was really the first 'actually creepy' horror game), but there's usually a jump after that to Sweet Home from 1989 or War of the Dead from 1987, Project Firestart maybe from 1989, or maybe some old text adventures like The Screamer from 1985 or The Lurking Horror from 1987. But I'd go as far to say this game alone is creepier than almost any game of the era. If interested, you can find an interesting 'making of' article of this game not by Paul but someone who worked on it here.
And he didn't stop his creepy game making with Forbidden Forest neither.
He followed-up with two not quite horror games, but still fairly odd in their sound design, trying to tell some abstract story, and hard as balls games with various factors that would play into most all of his games. There is a bit of an inept creepiness to them, but nothing outright. Aztec Challenge found success in Europe, which allowed him to continue making these sort of games for a while.
He then made what is maybe the closest thing to an actual old video game creepypasta in existence, The Trivia Monster in 1985. You know those internet stories about some old forgotten game that has something creepy in it? This is basically the living version of that.
You can find a long-play of this game here.
In The Trivia Monster, you play a trivia game for up to 4-players. there are over 2000 possible questions, split into six categories (how-bizz, sports, science, history, the arts, & grab bag). There's never really an in-game reason why you're answering questions, but the manual mentions something about the winner gets to have lunch with some bigshot, so there's that.
So you go answering questions, you have a time limit and the answers have to have correct capitalization and such. Like this guy's other games, the sound design is rather creepy. But more so, when you get answers wrong something strange begins to happen. Weird sounds begin to occur (this game has maybe the creepiest sound design in any of the games by the guy), something peers at you from the darkness, the door begins to chip and crack, until eventually if someone gets the answers to the trivia questions wrong too many times, well...
The lights suddenly go out, the door opens and some monster enters through the door as the music is blaring. The monster creeps up on the 'loser', they disappear and suddenly you hear a low-processed but-makes-it-more-terrifying blood-curling scream, The game then continues on as if nothing just fucking happened. The player's just gone and the other players continue playing the game not even acknowledging what just happened or that a player is now missing or was even ever there.
It's on a level of bizzareness which I think is amplified that this monster, even if the game is named after it I guess, is so detached from everything everything else (even if the game had some kind of creepy stuff before it and odd sound design), added with the fact this is a 1985 game so there wasn't much out there at the time in terms of games with spooks.
In the same year (1985) he released a sequel to Forbidden Forest, "Beyond the Forbidden Forest".Which has some more disturbing death scenes and more of a proper story to it and some certain creepiness, but I do think honestly the original game was creepier. The two face final boss fight in this one is rather cool, though.
Can watch a long-play of it here:
---
The other thing he liked making outside of odd creepy games were odd military-esque games. He made a few in the rest of the 1980s, from Defcon 5, or The President is Missing, to a strange one named "Chernobyl: Nuclear Power Plant Simulation", where you manage a nuclear power plant and try to not let it explode. Like his other games, they have a sort of creepy sound design and style to them, but nothing that's outright horror, and are more strategy/management game in their gameplay.
He would combine his two loves of game design he had full creative control on before leaving game development to continue his music career.
You can find a longplay of it here
This game is more like his ventures in Aztec Challenge or Caverns of Khafka in that they're not straight-up horror, but there's a certain eeriness to them and some odd darker tones, along with some brutal deaths and strange management systems.
Like Aztec Challenge, you go through a series of odd challenges that apparently are part of your mission/training. They range in what you'd kind of suspect, IE target practice or opening a parachute, to kind of bizzare like this one where you swim avoiding jellyfish sea monsters in what almost looks like some corrupted sea.
Probably the creepiest one is where you go deep sea diving, you avoid jellfish, sharks, and... Something else. You have limited lighting, the music is minimal, and it's overall around kind of creepy.
---
There's a certain appreciation I have for him due to how he challenged game design at the time, and I think his games end up as some of the most interesting games that both released around that era but also on Commodore platforms. It's also been remembered by some system enthusiast, but forgotten by the majority to time. And I think both Forbidden Forest and The Trivia Monster especially deserve some recognition as being honest-to-God creepy and maybe some of the best realized horror games from the 80s. I think they definitely deserve some sort of spot in horror gaming history.
There were a few other kind of creepy games from the era, but I honestly think his works take the cake and his forward interesting but odd interpretation of 'cinematic games' for such limited hardware gave birth to some games that were not only different from much else at the time, but in many ways ahead of their time and yet all at once unlike anything else in the industry. I just kind of wanted to bring this guy and his games up as I find his works fascinating and kind of want to talk about them.
Ever heard of the guy or his games? First time hearing/seeing them? Agree with my assessment that Forbidden Forest and The Trivia Monster especially deserve a place in horror gaming history? What do you think of his games anyway, ResetEra?
