all-of-our-friends-are-dead posts

Welcome to Freeware Friday, a weekly column showcasing excellent games that you can play free of charge!

Way back in May there was a little game that scared my pants off with some truly disturbing imagery and sound. That game was All Of Our Friends Are Dead, and it is still one of the scariest games I have ever played. It doesn't stop with just that game, however, as the developer made a thematic sequel with the confusingly titled Au Sable. Where All Of Our Friends Are Dead was spooky, Au Sable cranks it up even further. There are few games that I have to stop playing for reasons pertaining to creepiness or terror, and none that force me to do it as much as Au Sable did. This is an improvement on All Of Our Friends Are Dead in every way, and that includes the scaring your pants off.

Welcome to Freeware Friday, a weekly column showcasing excellent games that you can play free of charge!

After playing games like F.E.A.R., Silent Hill, and Resident Evil, I thought I knew terror. I thought I knew the fear that wells up deep within the soul, the kind of horror that drives your heart into your throat and the breath from your lungs. But that was not the case. Staring at a surreal and human organ as dismembered, tortured limbs shoot destructive orbs at me and runes and words skitter across the screen has given me a new understanding into that primal urge H.P. Lovecraft calls the "fear of the unknown." All Of Our Friends Are Dead is what taught me this fear, and it is single-handedly more terrifying than all of the retail horror games I have ever played combined.