Lo-fi horror! What is it? (lol)
I love the aesthetics of grungy VHS movies. Especially 80s horror. I mean, at the time it was state-of-the-art and the only option we had for watching movies other than being in the theatre. So we didn't really make the connection to lo-fi visuals and sound to terrifying horror. But it's funny when it comes to older generations how much power nostalgia has over us. I think we hit adulthood and realized it sucked a lot and we wanted to go back to being a kid again (at least I did). Things seemed 'better' back then. Cooler, easier, more fun, better stuff. In reality it probably wasn't as good as we remember it, but it was definitely a lot easier than we have it now.
I remember setting my VCR to record late night horror movies that were on tv way past my bedtime. Technically I wasn't allowed to watch these movies, but secretly programming the VCR to record them when everyone else was asleep made it okay (right?). Imagine the quality of recording movies over antennae onto VHS? Just pure static garbage. Pure nostalgic horror.
Lately there's been a huge influx of retro psx/ps1 inspired horror movies to hit itch.io and other marketplaces. I'll admit that when I started developing my own games, the goal was to go for this style of game as well. But to truly capture the feel of these games, you need to do it properly, and that can be a huge challenge all on it's own. A lot of games throw #psx and #lofi horror tags on there games and call it a day, but the reality is they are very different. For me, I feel the combination of low poly models and blurry visuals can make a game lo-fi enough on it's own, but there are a whole other set of rules to follow if you're also going to maintain the #psx aesthetic. Which is why I'm sticking to lo-fi as a genre overall. There's a lot more freedom with how you pull it off. You can be #lofi #lowpoly and #retro and still not be #ps1 and that's okay with me. I'm finding that the visuals with 'Farm' are kind of a blend between PS1, Dreamcast, old PC with some VHS effects thrown on top. But I think that's what makes the lo-fi genre in generally pretty cool. An experimentation of blending retro elements to make something new that still feels old.
I remember setting my VCR to record late night horror movies that were on tv way past my bedtime. Technically I wasn't allowed to watch these movies, but secretly programming the VCR to record them when everyone else was asleep made it okay (right?). Imagine the quality of recording movies over antennae onto VHS? Just pure static garbage. Pure nostalgic horror.
Lately there's been a huge influx of retro psx/ps1 inspired horror movies to hit itch.io and other marketplaces. I'll admit that when I started developing my own games, the goal was to go for this style of game as well. But to truly capture the feel of these games, you need to do it properly, and that can be a huge challenge all on it's own. A lot of games throw #psx and #lofi horror tags on there games and call it a day, but the reality is they are very different. For me, I feel the combination of low poly models and blurry visuals can make a game lo-fi enough on it's own, but there are a whole other set of rules to follow if you're also going to maintain the #psx aesthetic. Which is why I'm sticking to lo-fi as a genre overall. There's a lot more freedom with how you pull it off. You can be #lofi #lowpoly and #retro and still not be #ps1 and that's okay with me. I'm finding that the visuals with 'Farm' are kind of a blend between PS1, Dreamcast, old PC with some VHS effects thrown on top. But I think that's what makes the lo-fi genre in generally pretty cool. An experimentation of blending retro elements to make something new that still feels old.