A friend recently showed me this game, "Mad Father." It is made on a program called Wolf RPG Editor, so at first my expectations were fairly low. She started playing the game on Screen Share on Skype, so I watched for a bit. Its basically like a 2D classic Resident Evil survival-horror type game. She told me, "this game is really scary" and looking at the 2D sprite graphics I thought, "how could a game that looks like it belongs on the SNES possibly be scary?
I stopped paying attention after a few minutes of boring intro sequences until I started hearing her scream and make high pitch squealing noises and saying "no no no" like a crazy person. I put Skype back on the foreground and saw her character running frantically in circles to get away from some bloody dismembered zombie-type creatures. I became intrigued after numerous instances of helping her figure out what to do with certain items, keys, lighters, other objects to get into new areas and unravel the mystery of the game. A few times we both got pretty stumped as to what to do next, but we'd always find a breakthrough.
After a while something happened to my internet so I reset my laptop. When I came back she not responding on Skype, so I downloaded the game to give it a try myself. Despite it being a 16-bit side-scrolling RPG type game, the creators of the game were successful in making the overall atmosphere very immersive and VERY unsettling. You cannot fight any of the monsters in the game, and they do not appear frequently enough to really desensitize you to the idea that they could show up any time and attack you. A lot of times I find myself entering a dark room thinking "oh god, what is in here?" Finding no monsters, I am often greeted with a cutscene that is dozens of times more disturbing than any creature could be.
I haven't finished the game yet, but I have read there are multiple possible endings.