forest horror – Digital Fantasy Diary

Vartio
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3639120/Vartio/

Vartio, a short and atmospheric horror game about walking through the woods at night, was developed by Pepperbox Studios and released on Steam in August 2025.

You play as a medieval soldier sent to an isolated fortress in the middle of a dense forest. As soon as you arrive, the guard captain explains your duty: you must patrol the woods by moonlight. Your job, as the player, is to follow a first-person circular path through the trees. You’ll complete three loops that result in a playtime of around 20 minutes.

Though Vartio has a bit of a twist ending, there’s nothing explicitly scary in the game. Aside from an owl flying in your direction toward the beginning of the second loop, there’s nothing resembling a jump scare. The graphics are well-designed but primitive and repetitive, and nothing much happens, truth be told. There’s no pathfinding or puzzle-solving; you just follow the road. You can leave the trail to explore a bit if you like, but there’s not much you can see in the darkness.

Precisely because the walk through the woods is so boring, it’s likely that your imagination will begin to work overtime as you navigate the sounds of the forest. The first loop is fairly normal. During the second loop, however, you become more sensitive to any break from the regular noises. And the third loop… Well, it’s a surprise.

Vartio is creepy, but it’s also oddly relaxing, like ambient lo-fi beats for forest goths. If you’re a fan of atmospheric horror that gives you space to make up a story as you go along, Vartio is an intriguing combination of retro graphics and precision sound design that allows you to immerse yourself in the spookiness of a starlit sea of trees.

Bloodbark
https://sirtartarus.itch.io/bloodbark

Bloodbark is a forest horror game based on the art of Eduardo Valdés-Hevia that’s free to download and takes about half an hour to play. You play as a lumberjack camping out in a small cabin next to a state park where a new type of tree has been discovered. Although these trees look like normal birches on the outside, their wood is bright red and fetches a high price. The lumberjack’s job is simple – he needs to find the special trees on his employer’s fenced-in property, cut them down, and return the timber to his cabin.

Still, given how much blood is involved… Are you really sure that it’s trees you’re chopping?

The gameplay of Bloodbark is limited to wandering around (with tank controls) and striking various objects with your axe. As you walk, your character’s thoughts automatically appear on the screen as text overlay. The lumberjack is somewhat unwell at the beginning of the game, and he becomes progressively more unhinged as the days pass. Fun times!

The standard route of progression through Bloodbark is fairly well signposted and easy to follow. If you like, however, you can wander to your heart’s content, and the game features a number of achievements and collectibles. Though it won’t have any effect in most circumstances, you can also hack at anything you like. My favorite surprise in the game is a large cocoon suspended from a pole on a dock at the lake. If you manage to find it and get it open, you’re in for an odd little treat.

Although the twist to the story is nothing you wouldn’t expect, the writing leaves a number of interesting questions open to the player’s interpretation. I am not unsympathetic to the lumberjack, who has reasonable doubts about the job he’s been paid to do, and I’m just as annoyed as he is by the car alarms and other annoyances from the neighboring state park. I also think it’s telling that the lumberjack won’t cut down any tree he’s not paid for, no matter how hard the player tries.

My only issue with Bloodbark is that it conveys “darkness” by turning the visual contrast down to zero. Unless you play the game in a sealed room with no external light, the screen appears to be almost solid black. Depending on the quality of your monitor, the parts of the game that take place at night can range from needlessly annoying to impossible to see. It’s a shame, but I’m afraid that this flaw in the game’s visual design may make it inaccessible to many players.

Thankfully, when you can see the game’s graphics, they’re quite lovely. I’m a fan of this sort of lo-fi crispiness to begin with, and I think it creates an interesting contrast with the visual style of many of the secrets you can encounter. To give an example, interacting with three roadside crosses will trigger the brief appearance of a Biblically accurate angel, and the fluidity of this manifestation is a sight to behold against the pixelated mountains and treetops.

If you’re unable to play Bloodbark yourself due to accessibility issues, I’d recommend (this video), which has no voiceover and allows you to watch a streamlined yet still thorough run of the game. Whether you’re watching the game or playing it yourself, Bloodbark is an oddly relaxing game about losing your sanity in the woods, and I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys the themes and imagery of horror but is happy to dispense with the tension and jumpscares.