Thanks to WolRon (its developer), we received a code for Scare Me, it isn’t quite what you’d call a videogame, at least in the traditional sense. It’s more of a toolset for playing spooky practical jokes on anyone who happens across your Xbox 360. There are two main ways of accomplishing the task of causing a friend or family member to soil themselves. The first is to have them play one of the games that are already included, each with their own built-in surprise. Second they can create a scary sequence of images and sounds or choose from one of the preset sequences available.

You will be terrified in 3…2…1…

Scare Me‘s main flaw lies in it’s ability, or lack thereof,  to suspend the player’s disbelief. This is particularly apparent in the very basic games that it uses to lure the player in to being shocked. Although a potential victim wouldn’t be aware of what will happen when they finish one of the games, they probably wouldn’t believe that it was a game you were actually playing.

It’s hard to really blame the developer for the shortcomings of these games. They are entirely utilitarian in nature and exist only to lure the player into being scared. However I can’t help but feel that if just a bit more effort had been put into their presentation, their efficacy as lures would have been increased. A prime example would be the twin-stick shooter included in Scare Me titled  MA1D A G4ME WITH0UT ZOMBIES IN 1T. I wasn’t exactly expecting an experience of Geometry Wars‘ calibre. However, the visuals are so crude and simplistic that I can’t imagine anyone with even a passing knowledge of the genre being fooled by it.

BOO!

Outside of a few atmospheric noises, Scare Me relies pretty heavily on shocking the player. It’s somewhat necessary since I doubt anyone would hear a werewolf’s howl and think “wow, the lycanthropes in our neighbourhood sure are frisky this evening”. I can vouch for their efficacy, there’s a particularly inventive scare that involves a fake pause screen which changes to a shocking image when the player hits a button. Nevertheless, Scare Me is a bit of a one-trick pony. Aside from the lack of variety, there’s also the unfortunate effect of the potential victim being in a ‘fool me once..’ scenario. Once you’ve lured someone into being scared by the game, they probably aren’t going to be scared by it a second time. Unless of course they’re a little slow on the uptake and aren’t, for example, aware that ‘gullible’ was recently removed from the Oxford English Dictionary.

Insert image of zombie in to slot d…wait…which one is slot d?

I have to admit that I found the process of creating my own spooky montage less than intuitive. The system allows the player to tie certain images and sounds to controller inputs and modify their timing and order. The functionality is there but I can’t help but feel that this mode would work better as a custom screensaver for the PC. Little things like having all the sounds numbered rather than described and having to cycle through a menu of images with the Xbox 360 controller made the experience a bit daunting.

It’s hard to know where to apportion blame for the occasionally clunky aspects of Scare Me‘s interface. Although the sequences are relatively simple, any manipulation of a menu system can be frustrating without a mouse and keyboard. The end result, regardless of whether design or platform is at fault, is that I didn’t much feel like investigating the sequence editor beyond a cursory inspection.

A few other points worth mentioning…

• It may not have much longevity but at 80 MS points, you’ll definitely get your money’s worth.
• The first time it flashed up a freaky image, I was genuinely shocked.
• Whilst some of the images used are at least weird enough to scare someone when suddenly flashed in front of them, others are a bit cheesy. The only reason a pumpkin should scare you is if one of them sexually assaulted you as a child.

It may not be a game, but Scare Me‘s original concept has a unique charm. For better or worse, I’ve simply never had an experience like this with a console before. It isn’t a slick piece of software and in many ways it is little more than a glorified screensaver. However I took a surprising amount of enjoyment from the title and even got the occasional scare. In a stew of primitive rip-offs, Scare Me bobs to the surface and demands at least a curious sniff, possibly even total ingestion.

You should play this game if…

…your whoopee cushion doesn’t work anymore and you need to raise your practical jokes to the next level.

Final Score

A quirky, inventive application that feels wholly out of place on Xbox Live but perhaps is better for it.

(What does this score mean?)