Dread X Collection 5

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Twelve entertainment horror games inside a kids' party venue with a secret.

Platforms: PC
Stores: Steam, GOG
Price: Paid
Rated: Very Positive on Steam (81% of 311 reviews); Jump Dash Roll gave it 6/10
Length: about 10 to 12 hours for all twelve games and the hub
Players: 1
Made by: Twelve indie developers, produced by Abbey 'Scruncho' Smith; published by DreadXP
Released: 2022

No. 26 of the amusement park horror games · No. 26 of the party horror games · No. 30 of the painting horror games · No. 25 of the puppet horror games

Get it on Steam GOG

What frightens Twelve entertainment-themed horror games, from a board game you must play alone in the dark and a puppet theatre with bricked-up doors to a carnival lock-up with masked killers and a karaoke night that ends at a strange train station, reached from Outpost 3000, an alien-themed children's party venue hiding something darker.
Content: violence, depictions of child abuse, blood, some gore, references to self-harm, abuse, violence against animals, strong language.

Dread X Collection 5 is the fifth Dread X Collection: twelve short horror games by new and experienced indie developers, built around entertainment horror, from board games and puppet shows to karaoke, carnivals and the movies. You reach them from Outpost 3000, an alien-themed birthday party venue at night with a dark story of its own.

About Dread X Collection 5

Dread X Collection 5 was published by DreadXP on Steam on 20 May 2022, as the next entry after Dread X Collection: The Hunt, and later came to GOG. Developer Abbey Smith, known as Scruncho, who had made games for earlier collections, moved up to produce this one, with twelve up-and-coming and veteran indie developers. Its theme is entertainment horror: broken amusements and haunting television shows.

The hub continues the Dread X story. It is your birthday at Outpost 3000, the alien-themed party venue every kid dreams of, except you are there alone in the middle of the night. Between games you explore it and collect comic-book pages about the Stranglemaw, a legend that preys on children, and the more games you play the more of its lore you uncover. The store also promises surprises, and possibly pizza.

The twelve: HUNSVOTTI completes a ritual on a Finnish midsummer night in 1888, hunting for flowers while villagers pelt and stalk you; Gallerie is an art gallery of stalking sculptures and a whispering audio guide, with quick-time events; The Book of Blood leaves a carnival worker deciphering symbols in a strange book while masked figures roam the dark fairground; Karao follows a late karaoke night to a train station that should not be there; Rotten Stigma sends a retired policeman with a gun and a flashlight through a sports center where twelve children vanished in 2006; Spirit Guardian is set in a haunted daycare; We Never Left mixes a walking simulator with a 1980s text adventure after a phone call tells you to finish the game; Vestige returns to an old video game from childhood; Resver turns a night out at a new club into a monochrome nightmare of tentacles; Ludomalica is a board game whose rules tell you to be alone in the house, turn off the lights and shut the door; Beyond the Curtain wakes a child alone in a musty puppet theatre with bricked-up doors; INTERIM starts in a TV studio and follows a would-be leading man to Hollywood.

Reviewers found each game takes about 45 to 60 minutes, one only about 20, and the whole collection with the hub about ten to twelve hours. They were split on which games work: Jump Dash Roll gave it 6/10, called Ludomalica by far the scariest and We Never Left a highlight, and ran into bugs in Gallerie and Resver, while GameTyrant called it a creative anthology well worth a horror fan's time.

The store warns of violence, depictions of child abuse, blood, some gore, references to self-harm and violence against animals, and Germany's USK rated it 16 for harsh violence and crude language. It suits players who like short indie horror in many styles and want to sample a dozen makers in one place.

How to play Dread X Collection 5

Buy it on Steam or GOG for Windows.
Explore Outpost 3000, the party venue that serves as the hub.
Start the games on offer from the venue and play each one; each has its own controls and style.
Collect the comic-book pages in the hub between games to piece together the story of the Stranglemaw.

Screenshots

The dark space-themed party hall of Outpost 3000: a birthday cake and presents on a table under hanging planets, alien band figures on the stage

Black-and-white low-poly village with a well, where skull-faced women in white dresses come at the player, who holds a glowing sparkler

A grinning purple-faced figure in a suit looms close among carnival tents at night, with a timing bar, inventory slots and three hearts on screen

A man in a white grinning mask and purple vest raises a gloved hand behind a carnival booth counter at night

A bald man with a blade faces a pale, hunched creature in a doorway of a white-tiled corridor, in dithered retro 3D

Four string marionettes stand on a dim wooden stage with purple curtains, seen past the silhouetted heads of an audience

A dim brick film studio with stairs up to a control room and a giant eyeball on a stepladder in front of a green screen

Tips

Read the content warning first; it lists depictions of child abuse and references to self-harm.
In The Book of Blood and Spirit Guardian your light runs out quickly, so use it sparingly.
Play Ludomalica and Beyond the Curtain with headphones; their sound design carries the scares.
The developers wrote an official Steam guide if you get stuck in one of the games.
Spread it over several sessions; each game takes about an hour and there are twelve plus the hub.