Horror games lean into the mundane to emphasize moments of terror, shock, or surreality. If we don’t have a sense of the reality we live into, how can we become disoriented? This is a question that pursues me into the depths of sweeping, mopping, and taking out the trash. Why would I be invested in these things if nothing interesting is happening?

I’m reminded of the game Rewind or Die, an inexplicable disappointment of a horror game that ripped its central concept and main selling point away in the first half an hour. Why advertise your game as taking place in a video store if you do a few chores there and then spend the rest of the game in a dark factory complex? It simply doesn’t make any sense to me. It took me a number of years to get around to the 2020 Chilla’s Art game The Convenience Store, which actually uses just one space and sticks to its guns.

The game is not very long, but nor does it need to be. You play as a hapless store clerk that falls under the influence of a spirit. The game is a mix of dealing with weird little happenings – the electronic door going off while no-one is there, for instance – while stocktaking and spraying rats to death with anti-rat spray. The entire game is uncanny. Walking to work was maybe my favourite part, as after the first night all the streetlights go out. Even if nothing seems to happen (or does it?), the walk through pitch darkness in the rain is contrasted by the approach to the convenience store itself, which takes a strangely haunting role in the context of the story. Every time you cross the bridge from the dark town to see the beacon of the blaring lights from the convenience store, a dawning sense of unease crosses your mind.

The Convenience Store isn’t a singularly amazing horror game. I found it didn’t frighten me all that much in the end, even with a couple of cool, well-done setpieces and a clever puzzle at the end, but I’m willing to recommend it because of the atmosphere and the simply odd, uncanny feeling the game gives you. I know it’s an overplayed cliche to write, but the game does feel like a bit of lost media itself, similar to the tapes that the protagonist receives in the mail. The game is gripping enough to hold you there for the hour or so it will take you to beat it.

It is worth noting that Chilla’s Art have a bit of hit-and-miss history with me, I’ve played a few games of theirs that are simply awful and in one case didn’t boot at all on either of my machines. I do also wish they’d make another in the style of Aka Manto or Yuki Onna, the latter of which I’m appreciating more and more after I wrote a bit of a negative piece on the game earlier. That was back in 2021 though, and I don’t think I have the same opinions about games that test your patience to the nth degree anymore. I’m seeking out those negative emotions, those vaguely traumatizing (but still safe) experiences. Ones that really push the boundaries of weird or horrifying. In short, I’m becoming more of a fan of masochistic horror – what on earth that says about me I’m not sure I want to know – and the gnarlier the better. The Convenience Store isn’t particularly out there by any means, but it’s haunting enough to say “buy on sale”, to soak up some great atmosphere, and to wonder – what does it mean to do the same thing, over, and over, and over again? What end does it serve? Or, perhaps the more important question is: what end will it bring you?

You can watch my blind playthrough of the game here, and you can buy the game from Steam here.