This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s spring editorial intern Alexandrea Ciardella. Find her on Instagram at @a6ysma1. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
Indie horror games are nothing new to the gaming world; ever since the release of Five Nights at Freddy’s in 2014, it seems like every few months a new indie horror game takes the stage. Indigo Park is the newest in a line of mascot horror, taking dilapidated scenes of a once-famous theme park and turning it into a place of horror. The Indigo Park horror game is an “immersive, first-person exploration game” which saw big success within the first few weeks of its release, and has garnered a huge fan base already.
The basic plot of the game is as follows; you play as an investigator exploring Indigo Park, an abandoned theme park that closed its doors years ago due to mysterious circumstances. Once at the gate, you are greeted by Rambley, the park’s mascot and A.I. tour guide, who encourages you to enter the park. After venturing further into the abandoned park and riding some of the rides, you come face to face with the terrifying mascots, who in turn try to kill you. After escaping near death, Rambley drops his tour guide facade and reveals that his plan is to get the park up and running again but needs the help of a human to execute some of the tasks. After (silently) agreeing to help Rambley, you begin to venture further into the park.
Indigo Park falls into the “mascot horror” genre of horror games, which is normally defined by the antagonist as being the “mascot” of the franchise (whether Rambley will be the antagonist of the series is yet to be seen). Their friendly and recognizable appearance contrasts with the dark tone of the horror genre which, when first popularized, provided a unique spin on horror games. The cheery-looking mascots chasing you down abandoned hallways provide players with an unsettling feeling of nostalgia; these characters are supposed to make you feel happy when you see them, but instead, feelings of dread confuse the player and make the characters seem uncanny.
On top of all of that, seeing these characters broken or just plain wrong makes the player subconsciously think something is wrong, leading to heightened anxiety. There are a few other features that games in this genre share in common; a cast of mascots, a silent protagonist (who may or may not have a relation to the backstory), and hidden lore throughout the game, which may be vital in understanding the overall plot. Indigo Park nails down the uncanny mascots. And the story that is sprinkled throughout makes you question what happened to the park and what is going on, without really spoiling the end of the game.
In the last few weeks, Indigo Park has gotten a lot of attention from gaming YouTubers. New indie horror games are always popular on YouTube, but the quality of some of them is more or less the same, especially the ones from smaller teams. A lot of games have a great idea behind them, but poor execution. And not to name specifics, but some games have poor ideas and poor execution, or may just be a cash grab altogether.
However, Indigo Park is much more promising; it’s polished with decent graphics, has interesting characters with unique and memorable designs, and has mysterious lore that hooks players’ interest. The music sounds like a composed soundtrack that would echo through an actual theme park. The level design makes sense and immerses the player in the setting; the puzzles make sense in the design of the level, instead of being slapped on afterward.
The reason why Indigo Park is such a great horror game is because it was created by a horror fan, UniqueGeese. Originally a streamer and YouTuber, UniqueGeese has only made one other game before Indigo Park; a fangame titled “Garten of BanBan: Remastered”. After learning how to program and redesign the characters of the original game, UniqueGeese took on the challenge of an original horror game, with the help of a design and programming team. He has stated that his inspiration for Indigo Park was his love of theme parks and he wanted to create a game within a park.
As of writing this article, there is no confirmed release date for Chapter 2, though UniqueGeese has stated that the development team will begin production near the end of July. Chapter 2 is planned to have a longer runtime than the first, which may lead to its release date being near the end of 2025 or even later, as Chapter 1 took roughly a year to create. The Kickstarter has already surpassed its goal of $50,000, raising over $292,000 in less than five weeks!
The release of chapters is completely dependent on how many people play it. If you want to check out the game yourself, you can find it here. Alternatively, if you want to support UniqueGeese, you can find his Patreon site here.
Have you played the Indigo Park horror game? Let us know in the comments below!
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