Horror Comes to Arkansas in Southern Monsters

David Gelmini |

Feb 21, 2017

Finding a decent horror game on Steam Greenlight is almost as hard as trying to find a needle in a haystack (or trying to find an intelligent Trump voter), because there’s usually only a small helping of decent titles buried among a whole heap of shit.

However, Southern Monsters looks like it could be something special. Set deep in South Arkansas across a five day period back in 2005, it has you play as a traumatized teenager who embarks on a search for a fabled monster. Creator Kevin Snow drew upon his own life experiences of being disabled, domestic abuse, and growing up in the South, so it looks like we’re in for an incredibly touching personal story.

You can contribute to the Kickstarter campaign for Southern Monsters (not that you need to, they’re already way past their goal), and you can stay updated on the game’s Steam Greenlight profile.

Southern Monsters is a work of interactive fiction set in South Arkansas.
In South Arkansas there’s talk of a monster. Where he roams, the locust thorns build barbed walls around the riverbank, not far from your house. Your real home isn’t made of stock millwork, but telephone lines: an online forum for undiscovered creatures where everyone knows you as cripplefoot. You debate the existence of the strange as your friends leave for distant universities. Outside your childhood bedroom, the cypress trees stretch for miles.

In South Arkansas there’s talk of a monster. They say he always follows the creeks.
Choice-based narrative design from Kevin Snow.

Beautiful hand drawn artwork from Patrick Bonaduce, porcelain cat painter.

Surreal music and Foley from Priscilla Snow, nightmare noise sampler.

An editor’s knife wielded by Kiel Warren, linguistic mess sifter.

Graphic design from Mike LeMieux, fine vector craftsman.

Illustrations from George Kavallines, the devil’s crosshatcher.