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‘SpookWare’ Offers Horror Micro-Game Madness in the Spirit of ‘WarioWare’
We’ve covered a bunch of horror games that have come up through indie site itch.io in recent years, and pretty much every time we do, it’s something refreshingly different to the usual horror offerings in modern gaming. It might be something experimental, it might be an ingenious take on a beloved genre icon, or it might just bring back the look and mechanics of one.
A particular game caught my eye when it released on itch.io this week. SpookWare, by papercookies (Adam Pype), the developer of the creepy cult hit No Players Online and one of the many participants in the PS1 Horror Showcase. It features a selection of 10 micro-games, all horror-based, that all last for ten seconds each. If that premise sounds familiar, then that’s because it’s inspired by Nintendo’s joyously silly WarioWare series.
As with WarioWare, the execution is simple, easy to understand, but harder to master. Using the directional buttons on your keyboard, you must press them in a certain order and/or at a certain speed. What transpires onscreen when you do this is what makes it a hoot for horror fans.
The micro-games are based on all manner of horror things, such as playful send-ups of certain horror cliches and tropes. Among the highlights are getting a car engine to start before the killer arrives, closing a shutter before a zombie crawls underneath it, spelling out words on an Ouija board, and finding Nosferatu by torchlight. It’s all done in a deliberately goofy manner, and given its influences, it works. If you can beat 20 rounds, you unlock the final level, but that’s easier said than done.
I went into SpookWare expecting to just quickly try it out, but spent a full hour having ‘one more go’. I wouldn’t mind an expanded version of this at some point, but for now, I’m just glad it exists at all.
Oh, and the soundtrack by Viktor Kraus is delightful.
You can download SpookWare here. There’s no set amount to buy the game for, rather it is ‘Name Your Own Price’.
All of us here at Bloody Disgusting are deeply saddened to learn that George A. Romero Foundation Founder and President Suzanne Desrocher-Romero has passed away.
GARF shared in a statement on socials, “It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of Suzanne Desrocher Romero. Suzanne passed away of natural causes on June 24 at her home in Toronto after a prolonged illness.”
The statement continues, “Suzanne was the fierce leader of the George A. Romero Estate and The George A. Romero Foundation. She worked tirelessly to preserve George’s legacy. Her work at the foundation will continue to inspire and live on for generations to come. The family asks for privacy at this time.”
Desrocher-Romero founded GARF in 2018, after her late husband’s passing in 2017, and has been a fierce advocate for his legacy and the arts. It was her mission to “strengthen horror as a serious field of global study,” and she was a tremendous fighter on behalf of Romero’s works and supporting new filmmakers inspired by his legacy.
It was Desrocher-Romero who spearheaded the recovery and restoration of The Amusement Park, and, as the person in charge of the George A. Romero estate, worked closely with author Daniel Kraus on completing unfinished novels like Pay the Piper and The Living Dead. She most recently celebrated the restoration of her favorite of Romero’s zombie films, Day of the Dead, and was hard at work producing the upcoming film Twilight of the Dead.
That passionate advocacy led to Suzanne Desrocher-Romero becoming family to Bloody Disgusting as well.
2023 marked the start of an ongoing partnership between Bloody FM and GARF on The Dead, a scripted audio series spanning multiple seasons that saw Desrocher-Romero working closely with the Bloody FM team and mentoring the series’s contributing writers with GARF. To say her loss will be felt internally is an understatement.
“Anytime George Romero is mentioned is good, because what we are doing is to provide a healthy legacy. We’re uplifting his legacy, we’re supporting the archive, and we’re also supporting the Horror Study Center. So, all of these three things are what the Foundation is striving to do. As far as I’m concerned, the more we say George Romero’s name, the better it is,” Desrocher-Romero recently told BD.
It’s the perfect encapsulation of her unwavering enthusiasm for supporting Romero’s legacy and the horror genre, and just a glimpse at how much she contributed to preserving it. She is, in short, an inspiration.
We send our deepest condolences to Suzanne Desrocher-Romero’s family, friends, and GARF.
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