The Asylum Jam is a 48 hour game jam focused on horror games without negative mental health or medical stereotypes. I was able to play and record all of the games entered into the jam this year in a video compilation series! Below are a few of my favorite games, in no particular order.

Carrots and Cream is an oddly unsettling game about carrots. It starts off with you harvesting carrots from the ground. You pierce the ground with your shovel and uproot each carrot, watching as the read dirt leaks through the hole like blood. It’s weird, you never looked at it like that before, but somehow the color, slight shaking of the screen and dotted greyness makes you see things differently. You get your carrots and grate them into your cream. Then, you become a worm. The worm, like you, also loves carrots. It is looking to make its way through the patch. You must help it as a shovel comes down to pierce its skin. This game is quite strange - it’s almost as if the carrots are your drug of choice and you are battling addiction.

Apart has you searching for strangly specific items in a familiar forest. You see a telephone booth sitting in the middle of the forest. You answer it and a man on the phone tells you that you must find the items on a table nearby in order to escape the forest. There are five items: a bat, a bottle of pills, a teddy, for example. Each time you find an object in the forest you must bring it back to the table. Sometimes, the mystery man will start to tell you a story about the object or why you are there. You must run through the forest collecting these items, as you are not the only person there. Strange whines can be heard if the other thing is near you - and if it touches you then it is game over. You must collect all of the items before you get caught, or you might be stuck in this forest forever.

Axe the Dead has you trying to save people from a haunted burning building. You are a fireman, equipped with your trusty axe, looking to save all of the people! Each level of a building has a number of people on it to collect. Using your minimap, you must find each person and save them before moving onto the next level. Soon, you start to find that fire isn’t the only danger in the house. After making it up a couple of floors, you will start to see blood covering the walls. Light will be scarce and enemies will start appearing. Things like zombies can be fought off with your axe, but other monsters are chasing you around looking to stop you. Floating demonic heads can go through walls and survive even your axe. You must keep trying to save all of the people and make it higher in the building.

The Room has you searching through rooms for a key to the next. You start off in a room. You are looking for a gold key to unlock the door and move onto the next room. There are many places for a key to hide; in a drawer, in a bookshelf, under pillows. You must search quickly and move onto the next room, for the room you are in is not as empty as it looks. You have a detector in your hand that beeps as you move around. The more rapid the beep, the closer you are to a monster. You must avoid the rapid beeping at all costs, so quickly find the key and move on. If the monster gets too close, he will show himself and the game will be over.

AfterLife has you fighting a demonic cat. Your spirit has died and come to a place where spirits are to rest in the afterlife. A seemingly harmless cat is there to show you the ropes. Once you are refreshed, healed and have learned everything you need to know, things take a turn for the worst. It turns out the cat was just messing with you, it isn’t really there to help you. Now you must figure out a way to destroy the cat so you can move onto a spirit resting stage. This cat has far more health then you. You are unable to even attack! you must outsmart the cat - nine times remember, they have more than one life - and move on. Do you have the guts to kill this demon cat over and over?

Korridorer is a super challenging game that has you attempting to do simple tasks while running from bad guys. You have a gun and are in some sort of multi-level building with a few different stairwells. Each level of the building has some basic tasks that in normal situations would be easy to do; things like turning door handles, punching in key codes or putting keys in locks. These things are not so simple when the threat of terror wanders the halls. Some rooms have black demons that appear from the floor. One hit and you are dead. However, they come back shortly after being shot to death. You must quickly do basic tasks and even reload your gun by placing one bullet in at a time - all while trying to escape.This game may look simple, but in reality it is far from it.

Owl Cave Presents: Tourist is a short point and click adventure, all happening in the bed and breakfast in Shilton-on-Sea. You are going to a conference later this evening and really must get ready. You need to gather everything you need and dress your best for the conference. As the day goes on and you get ready, something strange starts happening to the door. Soon you find yourself needing to hide. Whats going on? Who wants to enter your room? The ending to this game is quite surprising, leaving you wanting more.

Jamie Robinson is a very interesting Twitter bot, made for this jam. Something strange is happening to Jamie Robinson, the TV is giving them warnings. These warnings say to stay indoors and turn off their internet. Once you follow this account, you will receive a private message from the bot. Afraid and freaking out, you will start to receive more and more messages. Jamie is looking for someone to help them out. The whole world seems scary right now, yet they are the only one to see it. This ‘game’ is quite unique, as Jamie takes their time to reply like a real person. You might have to wait a couple of minutes before receiving any contact. Jamie is scared - will you figure out what is going on and help them?

Hide the Body is a local two player game that has you chopping up your friend and looking for the body. Two players must decide who they are going to be: the murderer or the police. The murderer goes first, picking up different weapons to dismember the body. They only have 60 seconds to chop it up as much as they can and hide all of the body parts, as well as weapons. This must be done while the other player is not watching the screen. Once that is done, the second player, who is the police, will have to investigate the room, finding all of the body parts and weapons, and place them into a box. If the police find enough of the evidence then they will win, so scatter your body parts around! This game is quite short, having a time limit of two minutes, but is super fun to play.

In The Night is an adorable game about a child looking for their teddy bear. In the middle of the night you have woken up and discovered your beloved bear is missing from your bedside. Unable to sleep without it, you must explore your home and figure out where it is. It is late at night and all of the adults are asleep, so you must be quiet. As you explore around the house, monsters start to appear. These monsters can drop down on you as well as run towards you. You must hide and avoid them at all costs. Once you have found your teddy, race back to your bed and go back to sleep. You know you cannot sleep without your teddy bear.

Who’s There is a game about surviving alone in a house with an unwanted guest. It is your first night alone in a new appartment. Your cat sits lazily on your bed. You hear a noise and go out of your room to investigate. It seems you do not have electricity in your new home yet. Someone has left a note at your door saying they are in your house. They will kill you unless you find all 5 keys in 5 minutes or less. Scared, you must start looking through your house to find these strange golden keys. Maybe sure you check out each area more than once, as the person seems to place things after you look. This game is quite creepy with the person popping up from time to time and changing aspects of your home. Will you make it out with all the keys?

Ledenice is a super interesting game about three short stories in your life. You are in your home town where some creepy happenings have gone on. You are reliving these stories, trying to survive. The darkness kills you, so you must try and stay in the light. You must solve puzzles and destroy monsters to survive. There was a time when a demon was in your shower and haunting the chapel. You must figure out how to stop this demon. The controls for this game are quite unique. Each of your hands requires a separate key to be used, as well as an arrow key to tell the hand what to do. After you have mastered these controls, figure out how to master the demons.

Pavor Nocturnus has you wondering where your girlfriend and dog are. You are exploring your house, it seems like a normal day, yet your two loved ones - your dog and girlfriend Sal - are gone. You look around and try to figure out where they could have gone without their items. Then you notice the collar with your girlfriend’s hair stuck to it. All of a sudden the world changes. Gone are the beautiful pictures, the happiness from your life. Left is how you see things, how angry you are with your girlfriend and dog. This game is very realistic looking, giving it a whole new level of creepiness. How long can you stand looking at the life you live and trying to figure out what is going on?

#AsylumJam #CarrotsAndCream #Apart #AxeTheDead #TheRoom #AfterLife #Korridorer #OwlCavePresentsTourist #JamieRobinson #HideTheBody #InTheNight #WhosThere #Ledenice #PavorNocturnus