Screenshot: Dungeon Inn I’ve played a lot of management games in my time, but Dungeon Inn is something different. Rather than being a pure management game, it’s really a turn-based strategy/puzzle game hybrid in cozy management game clothing. Okay, that metaphor is a bit unwieldy, but the truth is Dungeon Inn has a bit of an identity issue. Dungeon Inn has a few tags attached to it: resource management, simulation, and the like. I’d argue that this game is more a turn-based strategy game than any sim or resource manager. You’re not running an inn like you would in a Tycoon game. A lot of what you’re doing is positioning items to control the flow of patrons from two opposing factions so they meet up and battle as little as possible. The primary goal is to make money, but there are other objectives you have to achieve in order to progress the story. Screenshot: Dungeon Inn You play as entrepreneurial Sara. With her sights set on gold, she signs a contract with a dragon to open a tavern at the mouth of a newly appeared dungeon. Bringing her two feline companions along for the ride—Butter and Bami—Sara has to ensure she keeps her draconic landlord paid while lining her own pockets with gold from passing adventurers. The catch is that your clientele consists of two fiercely rival factions: the Seaside Guild and the Mountain Guild. Your ultimate goal is to cater to both sides simultaneously without letting them cross paths in front of your inn, keeping your double-dealing a complete secret. While I enjoyed Dungeon Inn’s art style, that’s about the only aspect of the game that actually feels "cozy." The characters are genuinely cute, which makes the long, dialogue-heavy story sections feel a bit more tolerable. But only just. There’s a surprising amount of text here, though I wouldn’t call Dungeon Inn a narrative-based game—rather, it's a game with a narrative that occasionally interrupts the action between sections. Screenshot: Dungeon Inn Again, the core of Dungeon Inn is essentially a turn-based puzzle/strategy game masquerading as a management sim. Your goal is to manage the traffic between two lanes while minimizing contact in the middle. You use limited action points—represented by wisps that do your bidding—to place objects that will slow down or speed up the flow of foot traffic. You might put up an energy drink kiosk to accelerate one side, while laying down a game of chance to delay the other. These objects function more like limited-time power-ups than actual buildings or permanent fixtures. Once you lock in your plan, you hit “execute” to see it all play out. If groups from opposing sides meet in front of your dungeon, a fight breaks out, forcing you to choose which side to covertly help. Various variables keep things moving—like VIP guests seeking special treatment, or unexpected events that alter how many wisps you have available for the turn. Screenshot: Dungeon Inn While Dungeon Inn might be advertising to the cozy crowd, I think it’s looking for its audience in the wrong place. Not that a cozy art style inherently turns away puzzle and strategy buffs—they just might not know that’s what this game actually is based on its marketing. And while it’s a decent enough game, I don’t even think the strategy crowd will flock to it. The tactical mechanics, while clever in the early stages, eventually fall into a repetitive loop that lacks the deep, evolving complexity hardcore tacticians crave. It leaves Dungeon Inn stranded in a strange middle ground: a bit too stressful to be a relaxing sim, and too rigid to be a deeply satisfying strategy game. It’s a charming experiment with a great premise, but ultimately, it struggles to seat both of its target audiences at the same table.

Horror isn’t just a genre; it’s an amalgamation of pop culture, cozy traditions, and things that go bump in the night. This year, we're taking our 31 Days of Horror across the entire cultural spectrum. We’ll be taking a look at movies that scare us, games that kept us paranoid, scary books we cozy up with under blankets, music that sets that spooky tone and seasonal food we’re craving–or strange food you’d have to tie us up and force feed us. Whether you’re looking for something truly terrifying or a cozy autumn haunt, come back every day this month for a new bite-sized review or spooky adjacent list. We’re far from the first site to call out The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror franchise. But, as it became a cultural institution since the first special aired in 1990 and I’m that particularly type of annoying person who can find a Simpsons quote to fit almost any situation, we absolutely must. The specials are almost as old as the show, and the show is well into middle age. One of my favorite Halloween traditions for most of my life has been sitting down and binging some of my favorites, so here’s my three favorites – in no particular order. Treehouse of Horror V (1994) Even though I said we wouldn’t rank these, this is probably the gold standard of Simpsons Halloween episodes. It spoofs three all time scary classics – The Shining, A Sound of Thunder, and Soylent Green. The episode opens with Marge telling the audience that the show is in fact, SO scary, that Congress would not allow it to be broadcast. But Homer and Bart interrupt anyway in a nod to The Outer Limits, giving us three perfect short cartoons and some of the most quotable lines out of any Treehouse of Horror. The Shining is classic Stephen King, and its parody is classic Simpsons. “No TV and no beer make Homer go crazy” lives rent free in my head, as does “don’t be reading my mind between 4 and 5 – that’s Willie’s time!” It’s a perfect parody that I’ve watched more than its original source material. My personal favorite of the three is “Time and Punishment.” I don’t think I’d read A Sound of Thunder before then, but I was familiar enough with the butterfly effect to understand Grandpa’s advice on Homer’s wedding day. The dystopia with Fladers at the helm is perfectly nightmarish and would make anyone want to fix the past. I often find myself lamenting how “I wish I wish I hadn’t killed that fish” 32 years after first seeing it. Homer losing it completely and smashing everything in his sight during prehistoric times and Maggie axing Groundskeeper Willie in the back with the voice of James Earl Jones saying “this is indeed a disturbing universe” are things that still make me laugh to this day. The Soylent Green parody – Nightmare Cafeteria – is a perfectly cromulent bit as well, and I still sometimes find myself craving Sloppy Jimbo’s and Uterbratten. And I also still worry about the fog that turns people inside out. Treehouse of Horror VII (1996) I was a junior in high school when this special first aired and just barely dipping my toes into attempting to understand politics. While I’m deeply steeped in them thirty years later, I’m still trying to figure them out. But I credit “Citizen Kang” with piquing my interest in both politics and political satire. It’s not common for a show like The Simpsons to lock an episode into a particular time by mentioning very specific events, but Citizen Kang specifically lampoons the presidential race between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. The pair are bio-duplicated and replaced by the aliens Kang and Kodos in a devious plot that ensures one of them will become America’s next president. Homer finds it out, but the pair spray him with booze and he ends up sounding like an average conspiracy crank. “Citizen Kang” is probably THE most iconic Treehouse of Horror sketch and not only gives us plenty of memorable quotes like “don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos,” but perfectly describes the American electoral system in its modern era for the last few decades – locked in a two party system where every election is the most important of your lifetime between two choices that aren’t good. Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others indeed. Bart’s evil conjoined but separated twin (“The Thing and I”) is a little bit ‘meh’ for me, but it did give us three great gags – Homer singing “fish heads, fish heads, yummy yummy fish heads,” Dr Hibbert punching through an empty picture frame, and the pigeon-rat. “The Genesis Tub” might not have as many memorable quotes as other standouts in the specials, but it’s a great and fun representation of a classic episode of The Twilight Zone (“The Little People”), which itself is an exploration humanity’s relationship to religion. Treehouse of Horror VI (1995) If you’re too young to remember the 90’s you might not remember how COOL the idea of 3D animation seemed. It was something rare and cool and made it feel like you were really living on the precipice of the future. While “Homer3” is a fine parody of another Twilight Zone Episode (“Little Girl Lost”), what really made it special was we finally got to see Homer enter OUR world. The short really did feel like a parody of that movie no one ever saw – Tron. It delivers some great gags like Frink’s hair bouncing when Chief Wiggum shoots the doorway to the third dimension and some great quips like “do you see towels? If you see towels you’re in the linen closet.” I had no idea in the mid 90s that by the mid 2020’s, I’d have spent a great deal of my life in media. But “Attack of the 50-Foot Eyesores” was probably a very formative moment for me. Homer wants a colossal donut and steals the giant one from the Lard Lad statue. This goes poorly for him – and the rest of Springfield – thanks to a freak storm. Every billboard and advertisement comes to life and terrorizes the town until Lisa and Paul Anka sing “Just Don’t Look” to everyone. It’s a bit full of fantastic and hilarious, Rampage like destruction. The Duff Beer cowboy crushing a group of people, the poor Zip Boys dragging their heads across the parking lot, Kent Brockman being eaten by a billboard come to life of himself, the Lard Lad bullying Homer into getting his donut back – it all works flawlessly. To this day I still sing “just don’t look” whenever I hear that Cars 4 Kids commercial. I was already a teenager by ’95 but the Nightmare on Elmstreet franchise still scared the hell out of me. “Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace” is another perfect vignette whose parody is just as good as the source material. It gave us the iconic lines “lousy sMarch weather” and “I don’t like the idea of Milhouse having two spaghetti meals in one day” and a great dreamscape visual showdown between a morphing Groundskeeper Willie and Bart.

Horror isn’t just a genre; it’s an amalgamation of pop culture, cozy traditions, and things that go bump in the night. This year, we're taking our 31 Days of Horror across the entire cultural spectrum. We’ll be taking a look at movies that scare us, games that kept us paranoid, scary books we cozy up with under blankets, music that sets that spooky tone and seasonal food we’re craving–or strange food you’d have to tie us up and force feed us. Whether you’re looking for something truly terrifying or a cozy autumn haunt, come back every day this month for a new bite-sized review or spooky adjacent list. Horror isn't all jump scares, scary monsters, or disturbing imagery. While these motifs are the ones most associated with the genre, and lets be honest are the most fun, not everything falls into those visceral experiences. Sometimes a more nuanced story, with out all these easy to detect scares, are more indicative of the genre. Sometimes horror is just sitting in a pile of grief for the majority of its 110 minute runtime.. That is what Don't Look Now is. Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie star as John and Laura Baxter, two parents grieving the accidental drowning of their daughter. Don't Look Now is as depressing and depressing gets. Some undiscovered time after the incident, the couple move to Venice as John has taken on the task of restoring a church. Soon after an encounter with a psychic leads them down a path of hazy premonitions, mysterious sightings, and serial killer running around the streets of Venice. I will attest, Don't Look Now moves at a pace slower than even the thickest of molasses. For some this is a big downside especially considering how devastatingly melancholic the film is. But as the elements of the occult pile on top of each other, the editing of the film becomes even more distressed, and visions of a small red hooded figure become more and more revealing, you can't help but get sucked in. The film's mood is the true focal point of the film as Sutherland and Christie embody the multifaceted emotions the such a terrible accident brings. From both characters drifting apart and together again in one very memorable scene to the utter torment of seeing signs of their daughter from the afterlife, Don't Look Now plops you down into their misery. It's a gothic masterpiece, mirroring the locale perfectly and sending you careening into the film's honestly shocking ending. Get ready to be in a sour modd and watch Don't Look Now!

Screenshot: We Were Here Tomorrow Virtual escape rooms and puzzle games have been some of my go-to games since I was a kid. From SCUMM engine games to Myst, I played everything I could get my hands on. Then I discovered the joy of multiplayer puzzle games, and I was hooked. While games like Split Fiction and Big Walk encourage cooperation and involve some amount of asymmetrical gameplay and puzzle-solving, the franchise that specializes in it is the We Were Here series. Hey, it's Yellow Guy. Screenshot: We Were Here Tomorrow We Were Here Tomorrow is a co-op puzzle game played from a first-person perspective. You take on the role of one of two player characters—which I’ve lovingly dubbed “the yellow guy” and “the red guy.” These characters are practically identical; what makes the co-op gameplay asymmetrical is the paths and tools you choose to take along the way. For instance, one person might be shrunk down to get inside machinery while the person on the outside helps guide them around and explain what to do. As with other We Were Here games, your partner often can’t see what you’re seeing. And that’s by design. It’s all about communicating, which you can do via handy in-game walkie-talkies. It works as standard VOIP, but it also adds a wonderful layer of immersion. Screenshot: We Were Here Tomorrow If you’re worried about this being an impenetrable sequel, have no fear: there is no need to play the previous games to enjoy this one. Now set in a retro-futuristic sci-fi future, the two Explorers find themselves decades out and again tasked with solving all sorts of intricate puzzles to navigate their environment. This time, you’re under the guidance of The Director as she tells you where to go and what to do. She’s no GLaDOS—there is the occasional joke, but the priority is strictly business: getting those puzzles solved. Screenshot: We Were Here Tomorrow While puzzle games are often based purely on the solver’s lateral thinking—and let's be honest, some people are just better at certain types of puzzles than others—the puzzles in We Were Here Tomorrow lean heavily on the difficult side. You have to keep a sharp eye out for environmental clues and it will require constant coordination to help yourselves along. This time around, the Explorers can choose to use different sets of tools. One is a grabber that reminds me of those sticky hands that used to come out of quarter vending machines, and the other is a block-making tool. While placing the occasional block and grabbing things doesn’t sound overtly difficult, the real challenge comes in the coordination. Screenshot: We Were Here Tomorrow Each of these tools also gets upgraded versions along the way that alter their abilities slightly—like giving the block layer the ability to electrify blocks or place two blocks at once, while the grabby hand player can use the tool as a grapple and set electrified wires between a power source and a device. The puzzles in We Were Here Tomorrow are stand-out, also. Each of them require a different level of coordination, and no two sets of puzzles were identical. Though, quite often you were given a simpler version of an upcoming puzzle to teach you the concept before it became overly complicated. Because of the sci-fi nature of the game, some of the puzzles can be truly mind bending, with MC Escher style offices and large setpieces with impressive amounts of moving parts. Screenshot: We Were Here Tomorrow And as always: no local co-op, and no split-screen. Which is probably for the best, because screen-peeking would completely ruin the magic of these puzzles. But that means you have to buy two copies of the game just to play. There is matchmaking and public rooms, but I couldn’t imagine trying to PUG a puzzle game like this. We Were Here Tomorrow is my favorite entry in a franchise I’ve loved. I really dig the sci-fi aesthetic, but I was sold by the great puzzle design. If you’ve never played a We Were Here game, this game is a great way to get into it. We Were Here Tomorrow is available today on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S

Screenshot: Hellraiser: Revival While I’m well aware of Clive Barker’s work, I think I’ve gravitated towards it mostly from name recognition. I’m not a bit into the sex, gore and other extremes that Barker weaves into his work. I did play and enjoy Cliver Barker’s Undying, and despite remembering Clive Barker’s Jericho looking awesome visually, I don’t think I played much of that. That said, I am a fan of Hellraiser. And I don’t mean the series of the IP, I mean literally that one film. The one where Andrew Robison gives that phenomenal performance, “Jesus wept!” (Also, he was Garak in Stark Trek: Deep Space Nine, so that helps a ton.) The rest of the Hellraiser series didn’t appeal to me much. But since I saw it as a kid, there was a deep, visceral fear the imagery put into me, especially the iconic Cenobites. Screenshot: Hellraiser: Revival I need to reiterate that I’m not into sex + gore + horror. I like horror, and I understand that it’s frequently intertwined with sex. I don’t mean to knock it. If you like that sort of thing, more power to your freaky self. But I’m no extreme pleasure seeker, and there is a lot of discomfort to be had for me because the game is all about extreme pleasure seekers. Those who like introducing cutting and other sorts of pain into sex. That’s how the game starts out–in the middle of a sex scene with protagonist Aidan Lynch and his girlfriend Sunny. Sunny brought one of Pinhead’s puzzle boxes–the Genesis Configuration–into their sex play, and Aidan unwittingly activated it. Sunny is torn apart in front of him, and Aidan is thrust into the terrifying hellscape of the Labyrinth, and all the fleshy nightmares inside rendered in full Unreal Engine 5 gory. I mean glory. Aidan gets involved with a Cenobite worshipping cult, and that’s the impetus to have him stalking through mansions, sewers, and inside the desolate hellscape of the Labyrinth itself. Screenshot: Hellraiser: Revival Hellriser: Revival is a first person survival horror game. It borrows heavily from modern Resident Evil games–which is, in my opinion, a fantastic angle. While there are certain enemies you can’t kill with conventional weapons–like the Cenobites–there is a fair amount of combat in Hellriser Revival. Sometimes stealth is an option, and usually the best route. But there are other occasions you’ll be stuck in a room and have to fight your way out through waves of enemies. These enemies range between cultists and zombie-like abominations. Combat feels okay enough. Melee weapons break easily, and you need to repair your favorites lest you lose them forever. But replacements are available. Firearms feel about as useful as they would in a Resident Evil game–that is to say, it can take several bullets to take down abominations. But cultists without armored heads go down in one well placed headshot. There are a variety of guns, and they all sort of use the tried-and-true survival horror game weapon standards of pistol, shotgun, submachine gun, powerful handgun, etc. Weapons are upgradeable–but even then, ammo is scarce. As are most resources. Screenshot: Hellraiser: Revival The Genesis Configuration puzzle box is both a tool and a weapon. Sometimes you have to manipulate it to fit into certain shapes during puzzle segments–which is an excellent touch. But it can also be used in combat to banish enemies. It even has a telekinetic grab that works like the Gravity Gun. And with lots of sawblades and zombies around, it reminds me of some of the best parts of “Ravenholm.” You also get access to pyrokinesis to burn and stagger enemies. You’ll also have to solve puzzles, using both the environment and Genesis Configuration. Again, it’s more Resident Evil-like sections as you’ll be finding statues to fit into slots, keys to open doors, etc. There is also lockpicking which is almost exactly the same system used in Fallout 3 and beyond as well as Dying Light–but on hard mode. Lockpicks break super easy, making the lockpick minigame a bit too difficult. Screenshot: Hellraiser: Revival Everything comes together brilliantly–from the graphics making the immersive atmosphere, to the chattering of the Chatterer making my skin crawl and other great sound design. Doug Bradley is back voicing Pinhead, and he does a great job. And every other named character is voice well enough. But some of the additional voices really take me out of it. I get it: saying lots of sexy, kinky stuff for a job can be awkward. But boy, does some of that sound extra awkward. It would have been better just to leave it out and let the visuals do the talking. Hellraiser: Revival is so visually visceral and audibly squelchy I found myself holding my head in my hand a few times. Being chased in the Labyrinth genuinely terrified me–and video games rarely scare me. Hell, I felt sick by the time the prologue was over–and that's why I knew that they were on the right track, and it would be a hell of a ride. While not all of what is depicted is what I want to be looking at, developer Saber Interactive did a great job making an authentic Hellraiser experience.

As spooky as any of us want to be every October, sometimes real life sucks, and you're sad. Sometimes you still have to go to work and you can't wear a cape and fangs. Sometimes you need to put down the spoon and step away from the Boo Berries for a little bit because you actually need to eat something green. Sometimes you have a big boring project at work that you have to...listen. The point is, sometimes you want to feel spooky but you feel sad. Sometimes you miss how Halloween used to be. This is the cure for that sort of melancholy, I promise. I have what some people consider a moral failing: a love for TV, and a love for commercials. Growing up I constantly got the disapproving eye from people who "didn't watch any screens at all" and "made a TV planter because that's how much TV we don't watch." Not that it bothered me. Nope, didn't bother me at all. The point is, sad spooky bats, sometimes you need a pick-me-up. And maybe there's other people out there who lived in a house where the TV was always on, whether it was because a relative was at home all day, it was company for you when you were feeling lonely or scared, or you just got home from work at 3 am and you're channel surfing because you're not yet relaxed enough to sleep. The 90s was one of the best times ever for TV, I think. I realize I'm biased, but as we proved in a few articles in our 31 Days of Horror already, it was. And Halloween was better too. Because we really, really got into every single holiday, and so did every single store, tv station, toy brand, fast food restaurant, and muffler place? Yes, a muffler place that advertised for its low prices on mufflers with a mummy and the Invisible Man. That's magic. You call it rot going straight in your head all you want, but it was fairy dust. I was originally going to feature just a few classic Halloween commercials, but instead of surfing through them I watched every single one on this compilation by 1990s . There's Elvira for Blockbuster, Dracula is hocking TI-84s, and bags of Halloween Candy on sale for 1.88 at Target. For the whole. damn. bag. There's an ad for a TNT Vampire Movie marathon on Halloween Night, and another with Yakko Warner pitching for Halloweekend, where there'd be special Halloween episodes of Animaniacs, Tiny Toons, Bobby's World and Gargoyles playing ALL.WEEKEND.LONG. There was Monstervision. And maybe that's what you need to turn your fangy little frown upside down, my friends. Happy Halloween. Let the healing begin.

I love retro games. I collect them. And I play them quite often–not only to relive my childhood memories, but to also check out games I never got a chance to play as a kid. It’s fun checking out all of the different game systems, control styles, etc. Future Knight really spoke to me, purely on an aesthetic standpoint. And while it’s a decent run and gun, it feels like it’s a one (or two) trick pony. Future Knight is a sidescrolling run and gun style game. The first thing anyone will notice is its Tiger electronic style graphics, or something from Nintendo’s Game and Watch, like those old LCD handhelds. Except, where those only allowed for a single “screen” with limited character placement, Future Knight doesn’t have such limitations. (That’s because those old games worked a bit like how old digital watches worked–there were predrawn graphics that only lit up when the proper controls were pressed, etc.) There are some flourishes that add a bunch of modern twists, like the screen breaking whenever you get a kill on an enemy. The sound design is also pretty great–except for that one song that seems to loop through most levels. The art and animation is all top notch, too. Character and enemy designs are retro futuristic–something you’d expect to see in the 80’s and 90’s. So in other words: aesthetically, Future Knight is a triumph. But that doesn't mean the game is very much fun. I play a lot of run and gun style arcade games, console games, etc. Future Knight is just mid–and as a modern game, that means it’s not very good. I think my biggest gripe is how the controls feel. I don’t know if the developer made the game feel sluggish intentionally due to its retro aesthetic, but playing Future Knight doesn’t feel very good. Controls are stiff, and movement just doesn’t feel satisfying. It’s too bad that it doesn’t feel very fun to play, because it has a lot going for it. Enemy types are interesting, and there’s a good mix between encounters where you’ll be dodging bullets coming from every angle, and threats that require you to focus purely on them. Screenshot: Future Knight And while Future Knight is the titular protagonist, the character is actually a futuristic suit that Two More, an agile amorphous blob with a face, drives around. Two More is fast, agile, and can get to places that Future Knight can’t. Future Knight is the muscle, handling most of the combat–but Two More can get in blows too, and lots at once. But with extremely limited ammo. Playing as one character restores resources/health for the other. While I enjoyed my time with Future Knight, it felt more like a one trick pony. It looks great, and has great sound design–though I wish it had more music variety. It just feels like clunky and not as fun to play as I would wish. And that was me giving it lots of leeway for its great aesthetic. Honestly, there are some Tiget handhelds and Game and Watch variations I’ve had more fun with. Future Knight is available now on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Horror isn’t just a genre; it’s an amalgamation of pop culture, cozy traditions, and things that go bump in the night. This year, we're taking our 31 Days of Horror across the entire cultural spectrum. We’ll be taking a look at movies that scare us, games that kept us paranoid, scary books we cozy up with under blankets, music that sets that spooky tone and seasonal food we’re craving–or strange food you’d have to tie us up and force feed us. Whether you’re looking for something truly terrifying or a cozy autumn haunt, come back every day this month for a new bite-sized review or spooky adjacent list. You don’t always need a book, movie, or tv show to scare the hell out of you.There’s always a creepy house around the corner, a weird neighbor, a really big odd dog or any number of other things lurking around where we live and work every day, and you bet your butt on a dark night when you’re walking alone, those are the things that’ll send chills down your spine. Nothing beats a good urban legend, and while we can’t say for certain that cryptids like Bigfoot and his buddies don’t exist, we can certainly hope they don’t, because some of them are straight up horrifying. Let’s take a look at 7 of the scariest cryptids we’ve ever heard of. The Dover Demon as *intensely creepily" depicted on LairofMythics.com. The Dover Demon This creepy dude hails from Dover Massachusetts, and was first sighted in 1977. As the story goes, some teenagers were driving along a dark farm road when they saw a horrible creature. It was 4 feet tall, with a giant watermelon shaped head, glowing orange eyes and no nose or mouth. You could maybe say it’s just kids playing pranks, of course, but it was sighted the same evening by two completely different people in two other areas of the same town. All of the people who reported seeing it were teenagers, so naturally, though the news stations did pick up the story, no one believed them, despite one of the teens, Bill Bartlett submitting the following: “I, Bill Bartlett, swear on a stack of Bibles that I saw this creature” along with his sketch of the being. People’s “rational” explanations include snowy owls, foals or a moose calf, but the legend persists to this day, even being featured in a few TV shows and comic books. The chupacabra, as imagined via the Mythfolks.com interview with the creature. I said what I said. The Chupacabra Now, this one’s often brought up in a sort of comedic way of late, but have you ever stopped to look at drawings of the thing? Hailing from the Southwest and/or Central and South America, the name actually means “goat-sucker” in Spanish, and well, that’s what the little guy supposedly does. Except…he’s not that little, according to reports. In fact, he’s the size of a small bear, has a row of spines on his back, and most troubling, sometimes accidentally attacks and well…sucks…other things. Reports mostly mention sheep and goats drained of blood, but this vicious dude has also been accused of nabbing pets, and in one report from 2000 in Chile, mass murdered 100 farm animals, who were all found drained of blood or mutilated under “unusual circumstances.” Reasonable explanations include coyotes with something called “sarcoptic mange” and that holds some water, as ranchers have killed a few of these fellows and they very much resemble a chupacabra, sans the spines. But reports of chupacabra still persist, and while people always attribute it to mange,those who’ve taken videos and photos insist on something more sinister. "Still frame from the original footage." Image via Cryptid Wiki. The Fresno Nightcrawler Here’s a creepy one. The Fresno Nightcrawler is described as a lanky, long legged pale thing that lacks a torso entirely, and is basically just legs walking around. This creature was first seen in CCTV footage back in 2007, and some people describe it as a “walking pair of pants” which doesn’t seem so scary, I guess. Some people insist that it’s just a pair of pants out on a walk, but even that doesn’t really sit right with us. No, actually, you know what? Disembodied legs just wandering around is pretty fucking scary. Even if I've been picturing it this whole time as a pair of jeans for some reason. Explanations? We weren’t able to find any. Unless you count “self-propelling pants” as a logical explanation. The Grafton Monster as seen in Fallout 76. Via Fallout Wiki. The Grafton Monster If you ever played Fallout 76 or lived on the East Coast then you know about this guy. The Grafton monster is another very tall, very pale cryptid. Not only that, many report that he’s headless, and he’s also described as producing an unusual whistling sound. He was first sighted on Rte 119 in June of 1964, and reported by journalist Robert Cockrell to be about 7 to 9 feet tall with a smooth “seal-like” appearance and of course, sans head. This report sent tons of thrill seeking teenagers out looking for him, but it was pooh-poohed by people as simply someone’s wild imagination. Unless it isn’t. The Goatman by Viergacht, a DeviantArt artist's rendering, via cryptidz.fandom.com/wiki The Goatman Hailing from Maryland, this is a story of a scientist whose experiment backfired, mutating him into a half-man, half goat. Maybe. The thing that’s interesting about Maryland’s goat man is how many different origin stories he has, all from Maryland. The first mention came in May 1971 from an undergrad doing research on folklore, but it was also reported in an entirely different location by a reporter who’d read his story, and also the scientist whose experiment backfired tale. Not only that, but long cold cases of dead dogs were later attributed to the Goatman, and so were aggressive car attacks. But it might go back even further than that, with one University of Maryland professor the legend was even older than that, and just repeated and popularized in 1971 when the dog attacks needed a perpetrator to blame. The Goatman attacks dogs quite often, it would seem, across decades, but has also been accused of attacking couples in lovers lanes in Maryland or lurking on bridges waiting for people to pass. An image of The Jersey Devil that just might be the coolest one you'll ever see by artist Ryan Doan. The Jersey Devil The Jersey Devil is famous for good reason, and that’s because it’s a huge wyvern-like creature with a horselike head, leathery wings, horns, claws, hooves and even a forked tail. So that’s the whole package when it comes to scary things in the woods. Interestingly, there’s a very distinct origin story often attached to the devil. Apparently, a woman named Leeds had 12 children, and when she found out she was about to have a 13th, declared “Let the child be the devil” and so it was. The child was born normally but grew wings, a tail and claws after birth, and flew away to the Pine Barrens where he’s rumored to live. Some tell it slightly differently, with Leeds telling the stork to deliver a devil, but it matters less to the story than the horrifying result of her curse. Some say Leeds was a real life woman named Deborah Leeds because of a 1736 will that named 12 children but it hasn’t been confirmed, of course. This is the oldest legend we’ve mentioned so far, dating back to the 1700s initially, with waves of sightings in 1909 and the 1930s. While he sounds absolutely terrifying, there’s few reports of attacks other than a trolley attack and the requisite livestock killings, but more than a few people reported seeing a flying creature with red eyes that they shot at or saw lurking in the darkness, so you never know. Our own Motherpeople sightings in Rosemont, IL in 2026. (Fan Expo Chicago, 2026. Photo: Marielle Bokor) The Mothman The mothman is exactly what he sounds like. A man sized moth. Or is he? Originally, when first mentioned in West Virginia between 1966-1967, he was actually described as birdlike in nature, with what has to be the coolest actual headline on Earth thanks to the Pleasant Register in 1966: “Couples see Man-Sized Bird…Creature…Something.” Eventually though, he was described over multiple sightings as less birdlike and more mothlike, which, interestingly enough has a lot to do with pop culture, as Batman’s Killer Moth villain, who’d appeared in the very popular Batman comics, may have been responsible for the switch from bird to bug. Whatever he is, he’s blamed for a bridge collapse that killed 46 people, which would likely make him the deadliest in the group. Honestly, there’s something scarier to us about a giant moth, and as time has gone on, this tale’s only gotten taller and taller. He even has his own festival in his hometown of Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Who are we to mess that up saying he’s not real and people were just seeing sandhill cranes? Couldn’t be us. We hope you enjoyed these tales of terrifying cryptids, and if you’ve got your own local legends to share we’d love to hear them … or see the evidence with our very own eyes. Feel free to post all manner of creepy cryptid creature in the comments…if you dare.

Screenshot: Gobble Inn Spilt Milk Studios, the team behind the cozy artifact-restoration game Trash Goblin, is currently working on their upcoming follow-up, Gobble Inn. I recently had a chance to sit in on a preview event and spend some hands-on time with an early demo build. It’s still pretty early in development with plenty of placeholders, but it has good bones, and I’m excited to see where it goes. Andrew Smith, CEO, Founder, and Creative Director of Spilt Milk Studios, did all of the talking as Gobble Inn was being demoed, and he had me sold at “non-violent.” Sure, and there you are closing my article. But hear me out: there are lots of violent games already, with non-violent games being much more limited. So to make a survivors-like without any bullets—heaven or hell—sounds to me more like a creative exercise than a limiting one. And I’ve obviously liked what I’ve been seeing. For fans of Trash Goblin, the gameplay is significantly different, though the wholesome atmosphere and cozy vibes remain intact—even when you’re down in the dark depths, hunting for supplies. Here is how Smith describes the core loop: Screenshot: Gobble Inn “Essentially you’re playing as Auntie Val. You’re digging for ingredients in the chasm, and then you’re using those ingredients to keep the inn stocked up so you can keep feeding people. So you’re discovering recipes, you’re levelling up, you’re having choices—you’re doing all that good run-based stuff. “You’re doing it, though, without any combat, without any sort of death or anything like that. So that’s kind of like the big twist that separates us from things like Megabonk or Dave the Diver.” The games that immediately came to mind for me while watching the gameplay were Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor and Moonlighter. Screenshot: Gobble Inn “Food is like a system, and that’s gonna be fun too because, canonically, goblins are affected by what they eat physiologically,” Smith continued. And those food buffs can be powerful, especially based on what I saw during the preview event and experienced in my own time with the demo. In Gobble Inn, you play as Auntie Val. They’re a licensed Delver, and tough as nails. Even so, I found myself wondering: why Auntie Val? Why base an entire game around them? “We were thinking quite hard about what our audience would want from Trash Goblin, and what that would mean for our next game. And we knew that there were characters here that people love and that match known genres,” Smith said. “So if we were going to make a romance visual novel game, then Mushromeo, right, is going to be the player character. No doubt there’s something with Donoval and being a wandering merchant or something like that. And then, yeah, digging." “Auntie Val’s a delver: they dig all day, so it made sense to look at Auntie Val. But also, there were quite a lot of people who just genuinely are like, ‘Oh, are you ever going to do a DLC where we get to do the digging and find the trinkets?’—that sort of thing. So there were a lot of layered elements. We’re just like, okay, if we’re going to do a digging game, then that’s what has to happen. It has to be Auntie Val.” So why make a new game in the Trash Goblin universe? And why veer into survivors and roguelike territory—which is much different than the artifact restoring and upcycling of Trash Goblin? Screenshot: Gobble Inn “Separately, the idea for a run-based roguelike without violence led to it being a digging game, and then it all just kind of made perfect sense,” Smith explained. “And frankly, it’s kind of cool because it’s another goblin game, even though it’s a different goblin." “We were being quite cautious around not wanting to leave our Trash Goblin audience behind by making something that’s in a very different genre. So any element that carried over and made sense in our hearts and in a vibe kind of way—that made us more confident.” One thing Smith said early on stuck with me throughout the presentation: “We delight players specifically—not people with funding amounts or people in suits, but people who play our games.” Gobble Inn is still in development, but you can help support it soon: the game's Kickstarter goes live on October 29.

Screenshot: The Jackbox Party Pack 12. I’ve been playing Jackbox games for a long time now—way back when the Chicago studio was still called Jellyvision, and a friend came over with a copy of You Don’t Know Jack. “You have a CD-ROM?” she asked. I did, indeed, and I was immediately hooked. It was unlike anything else I had played at the time: an irreverent, fast-talking game show that tested your knowledge while being genuinely funny. While the studio has expanded far beyond its trivia roots over the last three decades, Jackbox Games still has a special knack for drawing players in with clever hooks, sharp writing, and low-barrier party chaos. The Jackbox Party Pack 12 marks the second numbered installment in a row with zero sequels, ports, or remakes. Instead, it delivers five completely original games—We Forgot a Card, MegaPals, Idol Factions, Debate and Switch, and Hyperface—each its own style of party game. Screenshot: We Forgot a Card: The Jackbox Party Pack 12. We Forgot a Card Have you ever forgotten to get someone a card for a special occasion? That’s the premise behind We Forgot a Card–except with a teaspoon of absurd. Your goal is to come up with funny phrases–unjokes work too–and to match whatever weird stock art and occasion. It’s a competitive Mad Libs disguised as a last minute trip to a bizarre gift shop. It’s uncomplicated, immediate fun where everyone votes on their favorites, and,like the best Jackbox creative games, bending or outright breaking the prompt's rules often yields the funniest results. Just like Tee K.O.'s custom shirts, you can actually order physical, printed copies of the greeting cards you make in-game. It’s a strangely endearing touch; even if it’s an obvious monetization play, I can’t even be mad at it. Screenshot: MegaPals: The Jackbox Party Pack 12. MegaPals MegaPals asks you to forge alliances—sometimes unwitting or completely unlikely ones—as you race to chain word associations together for point dominance. It plays a bit like Family Feud on too much caffeine: everyone frantically types out as many associations as they can for a prompt before the timer runs out, scoring points whenever their impulsive thoughts match someone else's in the room. There is a real thrill when you land a match with another player, especially when the shared word is seemingly random or off the wall–or even better, when it’s a deep cut reference. Where the game stumbles a bit is in the later rounds, which recycles player answers from the first round and turns them into the new prompts. Player submitted phrases don’t always make for great categories, which yielded both the flattest, most awkward rounds of our session, but also some of the most creative and hilarious stretches when people had to dig deep to come up with associations. While you could easily use MegaPals (and this pack in general) as an icebreaker to get to know new people, it shines brightest when you’re playing with friends whose weird brains you already know how to read. It’s interesting to see what friends you end up having the most synergy with, and you start to work with them to try to get the best score. Screenshot: Idol Factions: The Jackbox Party Pack 12. Idol Factions Longtime fans will immediately recognize the DNA of Idol Factions: it is essentially the classic “DisOrDat” round from You Don’t Know Jack, dressed up with stone idol avatars, a third category option, and real-time sabotage. We ended up playing this one with just two people–the only game that really allows for head to head competition without extra audience participation. Playing with just two people, the pace is a bit overwhelming. Even though my opponent is much better at word and trivia games than I am, she really struggled with the touch controls while trying to fling answers into the right buckets under pressure. Still, the sheer panic of watching answers pile up while trying to toss live countdown bombs through a portal onto the other team's screen is hectic in the best way. Those bombs add just the right amount of spiteful chaos to keep a simple sorting game exciting. Screenshot: Debate and Switch: The Jackbox Party Pack 12. Debate and Switch Set inside a rowdy town hall, Debate and Switch pits two players against each other for short, stupid 30-second debates while the rest of the room (and the audience) votes on who made the better case. It’s quick and punchy, though it carries a slight "party ruiner" warning label depending on your group. Because the game allows players to write their own custom debate topics from scratch, things could easily go sideways if someone brings a genuinely divisive topic to the table or takes losing an argument a little too personally. As long as your group keeps the prompts light and absurd, though, it’s a blast. Screenshot: Hyperface: The Jackbox Party Pack 12. Hyperface Initially, Hyperface was our least favorite game of the bunch. Tasking players with warping, smudging, and drawing over selfies or stock portraits to match reaction prompts, its phone-screen editing tools feel cumbersome at first. If you’re a perfectionist trying to sculpt a specific look under a ticking clock, it can be downright frustrating. Once we stopped fighting the tools, however, Hyperface clicked. We quickly discovered that restraint—using just a subtle tug or smudge of the warp tool—often produced far more hilarious results than overworking the image. Much like We Forgot a Card, it’s another game where slightly subverting what the prompt asks of you works heavily in your favor. Or maybe that’s just the smart-ass in me. Most Jackbox Party Packs are worth the price of admission even when one or two games in the bundle turn out to be duds. What makes The Jackbox Party Pack 12 stand out is how consistent the entire lineup feels. Even when these five new titles borrow mechanics from older games, each one carves out its own identity. Whether you’re a visual creative, a shameless debater, or a rapid-fire word and trivia nerd, there is something in this rotation that plays to your strengths. And because party games should be effortless to get to the table, Jackbox continues to set the standard for accessibility. Being able to use any smartphone or browser as a controller, alongside built-in streaming toggles and room for up to 10,000 audience members to vote and heckle, keeps the barrier to entry practically nonexistent. The Jackbox Party Pack 12 is available today for $29.99 across PC, consoles, and mobile platforms, or bundled alongside Trivia Murder Party 3 and the upcoming Fakin' It XL in The Jackbox Backpack Bundle.

Horror isn’t just a genre; it’s an amalgamation of pop culture, cozy traditions, and things that go bump in the night. This year, we're taking our 31 Days of Horror across the entire cultural spectrum. We’ll be taking a look at movies that scare us, games that kept us paranoid, scary books we cozy up with under blankets, music that sets that spooky tone and seasonal food we’re craving–or strange food you’d have to tie us up and force feed us. Whether you’re looking for something truly terrifying or a cozy autumn haunt, come back every day this month for a new bite-sized review or spooky adjacent list. There is a distinct cruelty to short-form horror. Whether it’s short horror films on YouTube, short stories, or games you can wrap in a single sitting, brevity acts as an amplifier. The tight runtime prevents too much of the veil from being stripped away—you never spend enough time in the world for the monster or the mechanics to become familiar. Instead, you're trapped with the dreadful certainty that something terrible is coming, and it's arriving fast. While Iron Lung stands out in this micro-horror boom, it barely scratches the surface of what's out there. I finally cleared out my backlog to tackle five single sitting horror games. Screenshot: Voyager-19 1. Voyager-19 (miziziziz) Runtime: ~40 mins | Platforms: PC (Steam, itch.io) The Pitch: Claustrophobic cosmic dread in an unshielded tin can. If you love the low-fidelity isolation of Iron Lung, Voyager-19 takes that same suffocating blueprint into deep space. Cast as an expendable pilot strapped into a tiny single-person pod, your mission is to catalog celestial anomalies before radiation exposure and mechanical failure overtake your craft. The game thrives on sensory starvation: there are no windows, leaving you entirely dependent on grainy dashboard monitors that render the void in delayed, still-frame snapshots. It trades away the violent shock value of Iron Lung for something colder and more patient, letting the crushing weight of cosmic dread do the heavy lifting. Screenshot: There's Nothing Down There There's Nothing Down There Runtime: ~25 mins | Platforms: PC / SteamVR (Steam) The Pitch: Benthic pressure, pitch-black waters, and acoustic terror. While underwater terror-fest Subnautica lets you ease into its waters, There’s Nothing Down There drags you straight to the bottom. Strapped into a deep-sea submersible, your mission is to investigate an anomalous thermal heat source inside an oceanic blue hole. Things unravel fast once you discover something unnatural waiting in the black. With only the brief burn of flares to cut through the dark and the vague silhouettes of a sonar display to guide your path, the isolation is absolute. Trapped in a slow-moving vessel, attempting to flee feels like running in a nightmare—you can only plod sluggishly through the water while certain death closes the gap. Screenshot: That Which Gave Chase That Which Gave Chase: Runtime: ~50 mins | Platforms: PC (Steam, itch.io) The Pitch: An arctic expedition into the teeth of silence and madness. Trading enclosed cockpits for the suffocating vastness of an arctic whiteout, you play as a sled dog musher hired by an obsessive scientist to navigate an uncharted, frozen wasteland. Guiding your team across the blinding snow has a steady, rhythmic pull—one that provides a false sense of security until the realization sets in that the harsh weather isn’t the only thing trailing your sled. Through its disjointed narrative and abrupt smash cuts from one eerie scene to the next, it keeps you completely off-balance while steadily ratcheting up the dread. Screenshot: No Players Online No Players Online Runtime: ~15–20 mins (Original) / ~2.5 hrs (Expanded) | Platforms: PC (itch.io, Steam) The Pitch: The uncanny dread of an abandoned multiplayer lobby. Before "liminal spaces" oversaturated internet and video game horror, No Players Online tapped into that specific melancholy and phantom unease. Instead of a series of hallways and empty rooms, No Players Online is about an empty Capture the Flag server. It feels immediately unsettling, even when you’re just running the flag across the map. Part first person horror, part desktop exploration, No Players Online is about grief that haunts us, and what we leave behind. Screenshot: Paratopic Paratopic Runtime: ~45 mins | Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux (Steam, itch.io, GOG), Switch, Xbox The Pitch: Lynchian road-trip horror steeped in industrial rot. A low res apocalyptic nightmare, Paratopic is a game I’ve been thinking about since I stopped playing. Not only did I have to piece together what I had just experienced, I had to make sense of it. In a rotting world, you take on the role of three people, with smash cut transitions that bring you from one jarring or surreal experience to another. It’s a dark and grimy reflection on societal decay steeped in existential dread and cosmic horror–but never in a way that completely tips its hands. Tying it all together is phenomenal sound design—an underlying industrial drone that drenches every quiet scene in pure dread.

Horror isn’t just a genre; it’s an amalgamation of pop culture, cozy traditions, and things that go bump in the night. This year, we're taking our 31 Days of Horror across the entire cultural spectrum. We’ll be taking a look at movies that scare us, games that kept us paranoid, scary books we cozy up with under blankets, music that sets that spooky tone and seasonal food we’re craving–or strange food you’d have to tie us up and force feed us. Whether you’re looking for something truly terrifying or a cozy autumn haunt, come back every day this month for a new bite-sized review or spooky adjacent list. Charlie Kaufman is a madman whose stories are the things of wonder. Whether it's the mind bending Being John Malkovich, the emotionally charged Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, or his epic and devastating Synechdoche, New York; Kaufman has something to say and is going to say it tin the most magical way possible. So when I heard he was adapting a novel for his third venture as a writer/director, first with Netflix during the height of their pay gobs of money to great artists but don;t you dare properly advertise it, I was intrigued beyond belief. i'm thinking of ending things isn't Kaufman's first stab at an adaptation, that would be Confessions of a Dangerous Mind which was directed by George Clooney. But that was 18 years prior to this and Kaufman's status and craft has grown immensely since then. I elicited not to read the novel when the film was announced, to give the adaptation a fair shot. I'm glad I went that route. Once again, this is a movie that is somewhat dependent on not knowing the film's "twist" or true leaning. However it's not the end all be all like some other film's I've covered this month (I'm looking at you Abigail). In fact the movie tries it's damndest to clue you in on the reality of the story, something that Kaufman seems determined to do in most of his films. He like hiding revelations in plain sight, either making you feel annoyed with yourself that you let movie magic trick you or proud that you caught on so quickly. i'm thinking of ending things stars Jessie Buckley as a young woman who realizes she is at an impasse in her relationship with Jake, played by Jessie Plemons. This happens just as they are taking a road trip to meet Jake's parents at their family farm. It's a perfect set up for a different movie, one that is accessible and maybe a straight forward examination of couple at the end of their time together. But thats not Charlie Kaufman's vibe and i'm thinking of ending things is certainly not that. The film immediately send you into a uncertainty. We never find out Jessie Buckley's character name or occupation, both change throughout the film with barely a moment to acknowledge it. Inconsistencies on the narrative spread like a disease, making you immediately feel uneasy about what real, what isn't, and what truly is. Character's histories are undefined or only hinted at and linear time is merely a suggestion. Add to that very surrealistic/disturbing imagery and sound design that turns the domestic narrative into a horror show and you have yourself a tension filled two hours that will surely break you by the end. The film is as sad as it is frightening as it crescendos to its puzzle box of an ending that I truly think is not that difficult to decipher even not having read the source materiel (which I have since) Oh and there's a framing device of an elderly highschool janitor living his life spliced into the whole thing. Make that what you will. i'm thinking of ending things feels very much the dark mirror world version of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in almost every way. Where one is delightful in its melancholy, the other is dreadful. Where one is fighting against the tides, the other is letting itself get swallowed by the sea. Where ESotSM evokes empathy, i'm thinking of ending things permeates pity.. Ultimately they both settle on the same conclusion: life is our experiences and those experiences are worth having. Go watch i'm thinking of ending things. It's kinda perfect as a thriller for the fall and winter season and makes for a great double feature with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. But watch this first, don't end you night on a down note. Or do, it is spooky season after all!