I got The Path after reading this Top 7. Very interesting stuff, I wasn't scared at all, but it's certainly creepy and a little unsettling. Also, great concept!
O've played a few of these and have to say that while "I have no mouth..." is certainly unsettling I wouldn't call it scary-mainly, however, it just depresses me.The Lurking Horror is a quality texty, imo, and really did, at athe time anyway, fuel some nasty umages in my younger mind, some of which were really frightening if I was playing on my own in the wee small hourshe lights off and the sound up in the time honoured way for Horror games(BTW I had it for Amiga and you didn't this but the added sounds really helped make it frightening for me).
Hadn't played the old Arati game-hadn't heard of that really either or Illbleed but I'll give them a try if I can track them down cheaply.
The Dark Eye wasn't that scary at all-maybe it's only don't know Poe that well that it can be a scary of game but, for me, s'ok nuttin bit a humdrum scare provider , imo.
I was born in the mid to early 70s (Sorry about screwing with your demographic research)and I do remember Haunted House. Thanks for reminding me about this great game. However, what I recall as one of the scary aspects of the game was the sound of you heavy footsteps as you made you way through the darkness. Brilliant.
Dark Seed was phenomenal, despite the fatal error I got towards the end. I played it on my Mac when it came out, and the combination of mirror-world story and H.R. Giger's surreal artwork made it super creepy and affecting.
http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/420
"Drowned God" was also genuinely disturbing at times.
http://www.justadventure.com/reviews/Drowned_God/Drowned_God.shtm
The Dark Eye is awesome, and has great audio renditions of the poems, however, good luck getting the game to work and run fully on any current computer. Most of the videos use a very old Quicktime codec and you'd prolly have to use Windows95.
The only game on this list that I played and actually still own is ILLBLEED. I was so excited for that game and while its highly entertaining and still worth checking out, the controls and camera are just terrible beyond words. Its hard to get over them but if you do the game is still a blast.
I would say that The Path, at least in my opinion, is the best on this list. It's like Silent Hill for kids!(basically) I'm surprised at the low price for such a great looking game to :)
Yes, do play The Dark Eye, if you can find it. I stumbled upon that game when it first came out, purely by accident, and to this day keep the disk around, intending to finish the game one day. You'll find the method of story telling and the narration to be creepy in subtle ways.
@Cyberninja
your right, but that still wasnt the scary part, the scary part was the way the old man still haunted the guy... but that was just his conscience