Subtractive Design Practices and 2010's New Wave of Indie Horror Games

Horror games underwent a design revitalization around the year 2010, coinciding with the emergence of the walking simulator. These parallel developments occurred in independent games. Notable early games of both this ‘new wave’ of horror games and of the new genre of walking simulators subtract game design elements from established genres, suggesting that design revitalizations in game genres can happen through subtractive design practices. This article explores parallels between type-cases of the ‘new wave of indie horror’ in the 2010s and the originator of walking simulators, Dear Esther, to reflect on these design practices. The article first discusses how The Dark Descent’s design results from subtractive design practices similar to those attributed to Dear Esther. Then, the article compares the design traits of the influential, solo-developed, indie horror titles Slender and SCP-087 to a list of walking simulators’ most common traits, reflecting on how these similarities help the games scare players and how they might have originated from subtractive design practices - possibly associated with the nature of independent game development. Lastly, the article reflects on how different motivations for such experiments can be hypothesised from the examined titles. By exploring this element of ‘design rhyming’ at the genesis of walking simulators and the ‘new wave’ horror games of 2010, the article aims to describe one way of revitalizing game genres through design approaches.