Why are indie horror games targeting children?

I f you’ve paid any attention to children’s stuffed toys, you may recognise the character Huggy Wuggy. He’s a multi-coloured, usually blue, fluffy and slightly disturbing creature with long arms. Children have become obsessed with the character which is odd considering his source material is far from child-friendly. Poppy’s Playtime is a game about a worker returning to their old job at a toy factory and learning that the toys have come alive and are trying to kill them. While chapter 1 is essentially a tech demo, chapter 2 is a lot more graphic with scenes like the death of Mommy Long Legs where she gets her leg stuck in an industrial grinder and is crushed while screaming bloody murder. This may seem weird to an outsider, but if you’ve been following indie horror this wouldn’t surprise you. Since 2014 with the introduction of Five Nights at Freddy’s, indie horror games have started targeting a younger demographic. Hello Neighbour, Bendy and the Ink Machine and Baldi’s Basics are all games with horror elements that intentionally or otherwise have gained a fan base of young kids. Like Poppy’s Playtime, all of these games have elements that most parents wouldn’t let anywhere near their children like serial killers, kidnappings and dead children. From the outside looking in, Tag wonders, how did indie horror become as grisly as this?

Children’s Horror

Children being interested in horror is nothing new. In 1996 Cartoon Network released Courage the Cowardly Dog. Arguably, this show determined to give children as many nightmares as it could. It was very popular and became the highest rated premier on Cartoon Network, ran for four seasons and is looked back on with fondness for most of its audience. Going back a few more years, Goosebumps came out in 1992 and in between then and 1997, R.L.Stein wrote 62 books and the franchise continues with movies, TV shows and reprints.

control their darker feelings — a good coping mechanism. It’s a chance for them to experience a really potent fantasy and almost live it, without any of the consequences.” game enjoyment, they’re fine.” When asked which company they liked the least, one said “Due to all the allegations, Blizzard” but in terms of gameplay they both agreed on EA Sports which wasn’t too surprising given their view on microtransactions. If you’re curious about the allegations discussed, Blizzard got sued for sexual harassment charges. The company had to give $18 million due to it being a recurring issue for the company.

What’s Next?

Although this all sounds bad, it’s important to remember that there is a reason almost 60% of us like gaming. While there are a lot of micro transactions and glitches made purely for cash grabs, there are still games being developed by big companies that are met with praise by many players. Last year’s God of War: Ragnarok is almost unanimously adored, evidenced by its 94/100 score on Metacritic. Everyone loved the violent gameplay and how it mixed with the rich story and gave a satisfying conclusion. For more casual players, Kirby and the Forgotten Land is a simple fun game that serves as the first three dimensional Kirby that feels the same as other mainline titles. It has a slightly less impressive 85/100 on Metacritic. Point being, even though bad games exist, we have a choice as to whether to play them or not. As implied, companies only make cash grabs if they grab cash! As buyers, if we avoid microtransactions and halffinished games, then we can shift the market and make the industry better for players if we support the games that deserve it. The dark age of gaming is a possible future, but not an unavoidable one.

Journalist: Frank Grover

Designer: Oscar Cardno

Photographer Rebecca Walters

The horror genre is no stranger to kids. Brothers Grimm, anyone? Red Riding Hood and Rumplestitskin for starters? Plus, many nursery rhymes have a disturbing origin, like Ring a Ring o’Roses and Humpty Dumpty. Children liking horror is nothing new, so why the trend now among indie developers? One theory is the social element. If you are into the creepy stuff you are deemed as more mature and cooler. This is especially true with things like Bendy and Poppy’s Playtime as they take common childish things like cartoons and toys and turn them into horrific monsters, essentially subverting those comforting elements. If you need more evidence of this, look at Minecraft horror maps. Everyone knows Minecraft. It was immensely popular when it came out but dipped in popularity when its fanbase thought it was childish, then we started playing again. However, during the dip in popularity, there was a phase where people used Minecraft to make stories meant to disturb the player. Most of them were created by kids using the game they liked and then using it as an outlet; in a similar way to tween girls butchering their Barbie dolls to show they’re ‘over it’.

Lindsay Knight, Head of Children’s Books for Random House Australia, speculated another reason being “Scary stories play an important role in children’s emotional education, allowing them to identify and

The idea is that young children don’t have much too worry about. Their grades are irrelevant, they are rarely badly injured and have all their meals made for them. Life is easy back then, right?? This comfort makes them unfamiliar with fear so when they go online and find a YouTuber screaming while getting chased by a lanky blue monster, they have a new exciting feeling. After that kids want more of it. What separates horror games from real life fear is if it ever gets too much they can put it down and think about something else. This presumably makes scary media actually good for kids since it allows them to learn about fear in a safe environment.

So, children have been into horror for as long as they’ve been allowed to consume Hansel and Gretal, Rapunzel and indie games are just the most recent form. Essentially many indie games are just copying the success of others, mostly Five Nights at Freddy’s (FNAF). It should be noted that most of these games don’t delve into anything children wouldn’t be able to handle. While there is typically blood over the walls, children are often desensitised to that kind of stuff. FNAF has dark lore involving a child-murdering serial killer, however very little of it is explicit and children are more likely to be scared of the animatronics themselves and not why they exist. This is often met with disappointment rather than praise. In the recent FNAF security breach, people were disappointed or a lot of reasons, including the depiction of the new killer Vanny. In the advertisement campaign, Vanny was a young woman, dealing with the previous killer manipulating her, bringing out a split personality. In the game her appearance was greatly nullified, causing her to lose her edge, making her more child friendly, seen most obviously in the poster where she is holding a kitchen knife; but in game she just wanders around skipping like a little girl. This has led people to say making the horror child friendly ruined the game for them.

Indie horror games are targeting kids now whether we like it or not. The question is, who is the real winner?