Analog and Digital Horror

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TS2Tapes is an analog horror series that details some strange beta versions of the Toy Story 2 video game. It's a relatively short but sweet watch and adds to the growing list of mysterious video game betas, which is a popular subject of analog horror. It also uses some pretty good editing effects to give it a sense of realism. However, It doesn't really have a story, and seems to lean on the game malfunctions a little too much. I would have liked to see how everything tied together in the end.

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• 😶*Fourth Wall Breaking.

This is a series of corrupted tapes and broadcast highjackings centered around the adult cartoon South Park. Each episode seems to have it's own story, but there also seems to be an overarching story. It's kind of hard to tell. There are also some moments that, imo, kind of take away from the horror, such as in the first episode when it randomly cuts to a screen saying "This tape is corrupted, eject it now" or in episode seven when a computerized voice reads out an EAS alert telling people to turn of their TVs.

Episode six also feels like it's trying too hard to be scary, implying that Cartman murdered an IRL man who was watching the show. It does have it's good points, but it would have worked better as a story that stayed in the world of the show or some isolated incidents of individual broadcast hijackings or tape corruption.

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• 👶*Implied
• ✝️*Heavy Themes
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• 😶*Fourth Wall Breaking
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Valle Verde is an amazing passion project, handmade with so much skill, heart, and soul. The entire thing suspends your belief that this is not only a real video game that was never released, but that it was made by a real company who is desparate to find out what went wrong with their beta testing. The series centers around a collection of several anomalies appearing in a game that appears to be using brain scanning technology.

Throughout, there's implications that this technology was the game's, and the company's, downfall, causing several playtesters to undergo ill effects. It also jumps right into the horror, something I appreciate since most of this genre consists of long, drawn-out sections of nothing, followed by shoving as much horror as possible into the final few seconds. The series is mostly in Spanish, but there are versions with English subtitles.

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• 🚬*Episode 2 contains drugs as a food ingredient
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• 🐶*Heavily Implied/Referenced
• ☠️*Though not explicitly shown
• 🎣*Heavily Implied
• 🧸*Explicit Themes
• 🚓*Heavily Implied/Referenced
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• 😶*Fourth Wall Breaking

Lacey is a digital horror and ARG series centered around several flash games that seem to have something sinister hidden inside. The main character, Lacey, seems to be your typical happy-go-lucky protagonist at first, but as players dig deeper into the files of the game it's apparent that Lacey has some demons she's fighting.

It's very well made, truly authentic to the style of early 2000's kids flash games, which makes it that much more jarring when the horror elements show up. The third episode in particular is very interesting. I'm hoping there will be more episodes, as I'd like to see what else lies in Lacey's world and if things turn out okay for her in the end.

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• ☠️*Not explicitly shown
• 👶*Not explicitly shown
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• 😶*Fourth wall breaks

The Walten Files is a FNAF inspired ARG/Analog Horror series centering around three characters, Jack Walten, Sophie Walten, and Felix Kranken, and takes place between the 1970's and 1980's. Jack and Felix start up a Chuck E. Cheese type burger resteraunt called Bon's Burgers, with animatronics and everything. However, Jack mysteriously goes missing, and things fall apart after Felix takes over.

I won't give away too much of what happens but Jack's oldest child, Sophie, is looking to be the core protagonist of the series. The series has a unique style resembling low-budget 70's cartoons and isn't too heavy on the VHS effects. There are some moments where dialog is hard to hear, but thankfully the videos do have subtitles. Though, some of the horror elements do get a bit tedious, it's not too hard to gloss over.

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• 😶*Fourth wall breaks
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An amazing series created entirely in Flipnote Studio, which surrounds a strange phenomenon of mysterious and corrupted flipnotes uploaded after the shutdown of Flipnote Hatena. The team and their mascot, Fuzz the Cat, is determened to recover these flipnotes and archive them. However, they seem to be showing a world beyond our Nintendo DS screens, a world in danger due to the shutdown...and perhaps other factors.

This series has a lot of good qualities, and the direction it took was unexpected but does tie everything together. The series is only a year old and most of its uploads are in or around June, due to the signifigance of the month.

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• 💀*Referenced
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• 😶*This really only applies to the episode "Real Sleep." Though "Weather Service" does include fourth wall breaks

This series is largely considered to be the pioneer of analog horror, though it is not the first of its genre. The most iconic video, Weather Service, is still referenced in other analog horror videos. Local 58 seems to be a TV network from another timeline, and its overarching story is ripe for interpretation. In general, each video takes place in its own isolated incident, but can be tied together through nods to other videos.

Despite its horror elements, the way it's put together and the video effects accurate to each time period evokes a sort of nostalgia and comfort, and it relies more on the ambiance and mystery surrounding each incident rather than taking advantage of jumpscares or gore. In the latest video, it even seems to be shifting more towards digital horror.

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• 💀*Referenced
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• 🧸*Explicit Themes
• 🎧*Episode 16 has a loud buzzer noise

Petscop is more or less the beginning of the "Strange PS1 Era Game" genre of internet horror ARGs. If there was one that came before it, I have yet to discover it. Petscop is an unreleased prototype that the protagonist of the series, Paul, inherets from his mother. He goes on to record himself playing through the game and discovering its hidden depths. Things do start off slow, but it kind of adds to the realism, in a sense.

Paul, like anyone would, explores almost every inch of the game and takes his sweet time doing so, really trying to understand what its all about. It does start to pick up more towards the end, though. I have to admit that I did have some trouble understanding a large chunk of the story, as it's not explicitly clear and you may need to look into the comments to figure out whats going on. The entire series is very mellow althroughout, and the horror is very subtle, definitley a good series to watch if you're more into mysteries and less into scary stuff.

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• 😶*Strong use of unreality elements. AI and computer generated environments and people are also present
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• ⚡️*Videos only
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Liminal Land is an ARG centered around an amusement park located in a rift between worlds. From amusement park rides with impossible infrastructure, to a waterpark spanning an unknown amount of layers below ground, to apartments allowing residents to live on park grounds in what is essentially the backrooms, the park had it all until it's closure following several mysterious disappearances and deaths tied to it.

A team of people who remember visiting the park have come together to collect information on the park and figure out what Liminal Land truly is. It's a quite good ARG, allowing you to explore at your own pace, but there are also plenty of videos covering it in depth if you feel that there are thing you missed. Something I was really enamored with was this video that was inspired by this real broadcast.

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• 🌟* Very mild
• ⚡️* Very mild
• 😱*The Mario wail in "Wing Cap Tower GUI" is a bit sudden
• 🎧*"Wing Cap Tower GUI" also has a buzzing noise

Super Mario 64 Beta Archive is an analog horror series documenting the development process of Super Mario 64, the game that kickstarted this new genre of analog horror. It isn't overtly scary, but rather subtly unsettling, playing off of the meme that "Every Copy of Super Mario 64 is personalized" and a supposed build of the beta that was labeled as "DO NOT RESEARCH."

Sadly, controversy concerning the leader of the project led to other team members dropping out of the project and leaking unreleased conent, and the project was discontinued. Still, the team did a wonderful job of putting this all together, giving it realism, and you can really see the heart they had for this project.

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• 😶*Fourth wall breaking

Greenio's videos are the same concept as the Super Mario 64 Beta Archive, but with more of a focus on the horror aspect. Showcasing several mysterious recordings of an unknown build of the game, possibly the one that uses this "personalization technology," it makes you wonder just how much was cut from the final version we got. Greenio also does a fantastic job of editing. Some videos, rather than being recorded directly from the console, are recorded by a camera placed in front of a television. At one point, Greenio even edits footage of the game being showcased at Spaceworld in such a flawless way that you could mistake it as being real.

The videos also showcase documents, commercials, and other production materials that make the series feel probable. And while the trope of having the game talk to the player feels a little awkwardly fitted, it doesn't take away from the rest of the series. My only real complaint is that, much like TS2Tapes, it feels like it was setting up a story and then either didn't really go anywhere with it or dropped it completely. I really would have liked to see how the story would have wrapped up and how or if this fictional version of Nintendo recovered from the incident.

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• 😶*Fourth wall breaks
• 👤*Two episodes contain content from the Creepypasta Squidward's Squicide/Red Mist, one episode contains content from the Creepypasta SuicideMouse.avi
• 💀*There is a recreation of the Creepypasta The Dawn is Your Enemy, which involves the sounds of people dying, there's also a reference to Dead Bart in another episode

This series centers around a fictional cable provider that seems to be prone to strange broadcast glitches. This is an archive of errors captured by viewers and sent to the company, which shut down some time ago. Many of these glitches seem to be more prevelant on kid's networks than other networks, and some sort of entity looks to be the culprit. Why these anomalies are exclusive to Teleblue is unknown, as well as why some Teleblue cable boxes continue to operate even after the closure of the company.

While simple, the simplicity actually works to the series' advantage. It's actually haunting to see an empty screen where a logo should be, or a sudden switch to a screen notifying you that the channel is expiriencing an error. It's the same dread that you would feel as a child, considering that a lot of the episodes are kid's channels, and the comfort of a familliar tv show being intercepted by the complete opposite is such a universial thing. It even manages to avoid being too repetitive by also showing the inner workings of Teleblue's UI and special features, so it doesn't only focus on channel glitches.

My personal favorite episode is "TeleBlue SneakPeak Beta (2003)." The entire series somehow feels so normal, so grounded in reality, even with that creepy face that pops up sometimes. The series even has its own page right here on Neocities! Overall, this is a great series to watch if you're just starting to get into analog horror, or if you love creepypasta.

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• 😲* The gore is a bit hard to see unless you turn your brightness up

Vita Carnis takes place in a world where new species of strange meat-like creatures are discovered in the early 1930s. Strangely, the aren't aliens, they aren't demons, but they're actually part of the earth's own ecosystem. All species seem to spawn from a strange plant called The Crawl, and while some can be tamed and even kept as pets, most pose an actualy threat to those who are unfortunate to stumble upon them.

The first half of the series consists of a documentary of the different kinds of creatures that have been studied by a group of scientists called National Living Meat Research, while the second half consists of other in-world media, including encounters. The use of practical effects is something that I can personally appriciate, as at least two of the creatures appear as puppets that add to the realism. There's also some hidden secrets within the videos that are a bit hard to catch, but thankfully you can browse throught the comments or watch an analysis video.

Be warned, though: Species Anomaly Report is particularly disturbing, and even gave me chills. If you are sensitive to gore or death, especially if it involves a child, you may want to skip this episode.

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• 😶*Strong use of unreality elements.
• 👀*May depend on you personally.
• 💥*Lots of moving gifs.

Welcome Home is a fictional 1970s puppet show reminiscent of The Muppets that centers around Wally Darling, the main charcter with a calm, charming, childlike demeanor who likes to paint and learn about the world around him, and his living house, fittingly named Home. The show was reportedly very popular with children, but suddenly disappeared without much of a trace for unknown reasons, and there is very little to prove its existance. That's where this website comes in, with a team of dedicated people out to collect various artwork, audio clips, merchandise from the show, and hopefully eventually find and restore the episodes of the show.

However, something sinister lies under the colorful and warm appearance of the website, and maybe even the show's world. Home seems to not be the friendly house it pretends to be, and Wally seems to be the only one aware of it, trying to get the visitors of the website to free him from the clutches of Home before things get worse.

This is definitley one of the more creative ARGs I've stumbled across, being reliant on the players to find clues and "glitches" within the website that lead them to various bits and peices of the lives of Wally and his friends. Wally also appears to live within the website as well, and occasionally talks to the players through his drawings and voice clips. This is definitley one to check out if you're not fond of jumpscares or explicit horror elements.