The horror genre and its almost non-existent relationship with the Game Boy

I’m a huge fan of the survival horror genre and I am also a huge fan of the Game Boy brand, but where do these two overlap? Sadly, if we were to draw a Venn diagram to answer that question, the area covered by both circles would be really, really tiny. But before you start enumerating a list of games you remember that might fall into the horror category, allow me clear a couple of things up. I think it’s important to at least try to define what “survival horror” is before we get into this article. So, according to Wikipedia:

Survival horror is a subgenre of video games inspired by horror fiction that focuses on survival of the character as the game tries to frighten players with either horror graphics or scary ambience. Although combat can be part of the gameplay, the player is made to feel less in control than in typical action games (…) through various obstructions of the player’s interaction with the game mechanics.

Am I safe to assume that, by having this description in mind, a lot of games you might have come up with just two minutes ago are immediately dismissed? Now, I’m not saying Wikipedia is the almighty source for defining video game genres however, I do agree with description presented above and it is the one to have in mind while reading this article. This being said, if you were thinking about Castlevania or Gargoyle’s Quest I’m sorry, I don’t think they fit the description. A lot of people assume that a game that fiddles around with characters commonly associated with the horror genre, are automatically horror games, but when was the last time you got scared or felt fear playing Stubbs: The Zombie? Even though it messes around with zombies, it’s not a scary game by any means… Don’t take me wrong, it’s a damn fun game, and I’d totally recommend playing it, but not from a horror game enthusiast standpoint. Now, if you want the fast answer, you’re in luck, scroll all the way down to the end of this article and you’ll find a compiled list of all the (few) horror games I could find across all Game Boy platforms. If you’re interested in taking a journey exploring this topic with me, proceed your reading.









There is one argument that tries to explain this whole deal and it is the following: one can easily explain that none of the models of the Game Boy have neither the power nor the capabilities to convey fear or scare the players: the way these consoles play sound and display graphics on a somewhat small screen is not enough to create a heavy atmosphere or provide terrorizing moments. However, time for a lesson in the history of survival horror!



The first game to officially use the “survival horror” term for describing its genre was Resident Evil in 1996 which was influenced by earlier games such as 1989’s Sweet Home and 1992’s Alone in the Dark. However, most players attribute the denomination of “First Survival Horror Game” to Haunted House, which was released for the Atari 2600 in February 1982! But where am I getting at? Well, if you think about it, despite the lack of complex graphics and sound effects, it fits the description above just fine. Is it scary? For me, a grown adult in 2017, no. We’ve come a long way since those days, but I’m pretty certain that if you teleport my six year old self to the 1980s, my imagination would fill in the gaps, certainly scaring me to depths or, at the very least, stressing me out.









If we’re talking about the original Game Boy, I do understand the argument of power and capabilities. We as human beings rely a lot on visual stimulation and since the DMG only displays pixelated graphics in 2-bit (4 shades of grey), it might really impact what developers would be going for. However, I do think they could’ve come up with something original to circumvent those constraints. Making use of the Game Boy accessories, for example, like the camera and printer could have heightened the immersion and the overall experience of a horror game. Also, with the appearance of the GBJam, an event where developers create Game Boy inspired games while keeping color and size constraints, we can see how much could have been done for this genre. Games like EXIT or Forest really make me wonder how it would be like to have something like that back in the day. Of course, these would definitely not run on the original Game Boy, because it had other processing constraints but it’s still interesting and inspiring to see what fans can come up with!

When the Game Boy Color came along in 1998, many of the audiovisual constraints from the previous console were lifted, however, the number of horror games released for the system was not much bigger. Resident Evil for the PlayStation had already been released and it would be expected that other developers would try to stick their foot in the door and leave their mark. That didn’t happen, however, there was an attempt by Capcom to port the original Resident Evil for the Game Boy Color and even though the project was abandoned, a title in the series was released under the name of Resident Evil Gaiden.



The last console to be released under the Game Boy brand was the Game Boy Advance in 2001. It was later revised and released as Game Boy Advance SP (“Special”) and it featured frontlight/backlight capabilities, something that had not been done in the Game Boy family prior to that model. Other than that, this model was no different than the original Game Boy Advance, and its power was pretty much the same. An handheld console capable of pretty much replicating the graphics and sound quality of the Super Nintendo, and also capable of being connected to a TV via GameCube, would be the best console in the Game Boy family to receive some horror games. It was also able to play games in pseudo-3D like Doom and Wolfenstein.

We had seen some pretty awesome games in the genre for the Super Nintendo. Games like Clock Tower, Laplace no Ma and Another World were games that captured the atmosphere of the horror genre and tried to make it their way around the constraints that the hardware posed. But did we get any of these games on the Game Boy Advance? No. There is a non-official ROM of Another World that was never even released in cartridge form (sadly) and that’s it. Again, there was an attempt by Capcom to port Resident Evil 2 for the Game Boy Advance but it was never completed either. There we’re still companies trying to bring this genre to the console by developing tech demos and engines, but nobody ever caught on.









So if we make a balance right now, here are the horror games that fit the description provided above:

* Alone in the Dark for the Game Boy Color

* Resident Evil Gaiden for the Game Boy Color

* Ghost Trap for the Game Boy Advance

* Silent Hill: Play Novel for the Game Boy Advance

There are other games, that I’ll give honorable mentions to, because even though they don’t fit the description, it’s as close as we get to horror in these systems: Alien 3 for the Game Boy, Aliens for the Game Boy Advance, Jurassic Park 3: Island Attack for the Game boy Advance and A Sound of Thunder for the Game Boy Advance.

So, even widening our criteria, we get at most 8 horror games for a time span of over 20 years across three generations of handhelds. Why? It’s easy to blame the consoles’ power but I sincerely think the Game Boy Advance could have had more games in the genre for the power and capabilities it has. My thoughts are that the Game Boy brand was always aimed at kids and that was the main reason why Nintendo might have been reluctant to develop and release horror games for them. Lucky for us, survival horror enthusiasts, when the Nintendo DS came along with real-3D capabilities, the number of horror games released for it doubled or tripled. So, if you’re just into playing and collecting survival horror games, we can surely agree that the Game Boy family can be dismissed.

If we really think about it, who needs horror games for the Game Boy when you have something as terrifying as this, this and this?