The most terrifying games of my childhood

Here are some games I found terrifying, when I played them as a child.

Warning! Scary C64 games in this post! Don't click through if you don't want to see what I found scary when I was in primary school!

1. Trollie Wallie

This is a game for the C64 by Interceptor Software. In this game, you're a big walking mouthy thing called Wallie who has to go shopping. If you touch green things, you usually die. If you touch any of the moving things in the shop, you will die. If you fall too far, you will die.

It plays some pleasant music as you shop; SID chip renditions of some Jean Michel Jarre tracks and Popcorn.

But there's something about this game which is just... unnerving. Maybe it's the plain black background, maybe it's the freaky character designs of Wallie and the other shoppers. Maybe it's the music and sound effects.

I tell you, this game is like.... when someone wants to make video game creepypasta, and it's based on a normal setting, but something's off, and you're not sure what... it's like that. And I can't explain it.

Maybe it's that you can die so easily, and you only have 5 lives? I don't think so. One thing I committed to memory - if you type in "⟵MUG" you get invincibility mode.

I'll still listen to the SID music for Trollie Wallie, from time to time. Recently, it helped me through playing VVVVVV, getting the "The Hard Way" trinket. I'll just listen to it without the sound effects.

2. Forbidden Forest

Another C64 game, since that's what I mostly played when I was a child. This game really was horrific. This longplay doesn't do it justice. This player is good. My experience of playing this game - you run, you fire and miss, and you run, and you want to draw another arrow faster, but no - you run, and you fire, and you miss, and you run, and you fire and hit, and you run.... and eventually you run out of arrows, and you die, and it's bloody. So bloody.

The music and sound effects are so intense and terrifying. That scream when the player shoots the ghost... and that's when you win! But it's like you're about to die.

The game was released by Cosmi and developed by a fellow called Paul Norman, who was a musician. One of the finest of the early computer game scene, in my opinion. He also made Aztec Challenge, pioneering video game music that would increase in intensity as you progressed, and also - I think of that game as the first "infinite runner" (even though some levels were mini puzzles).

This game did its job. It scared me a lot.

For its sequel, Zzap64 ran this cover... wow. Such a graphic, horrifying image.

3. Rupert And The Toymaker's Party

Apologies to my brother if he stumbles upon this blog post. He hated this game, he found it too weird and scary. But I'd grown up with a pile of second hand Rupert The Bear books, and wanted to play it.

In this 2D platforming game, you play as Rupert The Bear, and you need to walk and jump around a castle full of toys that walk about on their own, picking up leaflets stuck to the walls.

It's a really frustrating game. You can only walk in full steps, and only jump a certain length - no mid-air steering. So you need to work out where to walk, where to jump, where to land like a puzzle.

If you touch one of the bad toys, you will take a "tumble", which is like losing a life, but it makes you jump back and there's no window of invincibility, so not only do you end up in the wrong place, but you could land on another toy and lose several lives at once. Also you could take a tumble by jumping and touching a toy on an upper level and drop down. Very frustrating.

Maybe it's the idea of rogue toys running amok, or maybe it's the sound effects that made it so scary.