The Dread X Collection, an anthology of 'playable teasers', includes new game by Dusk creator

Of all the ephemera of gaming's past to make a comeback in this modern era, I'm surprised and pleased to see demo discs once more, which have been unshackled from the front of magazines and plonked on the internet, most notably in the form of the Haunted PS1 Demo Disc. Following on from that grab-bag of polygonal weirdness, here are more horror-tinged pseudo-demos from the likes of Faith developer Airdorf, and Dusk creator David Szymanski, both of which will feature in the upcoming Dread X Collection, coming "very soon".

Put together by Dread XP, The Dread X Collection is a paid anthology of 'playable teasers', though it will only set you back $7, $2 of which will be donated to Doctors Without Borders. The result of a week-long "curated game jam", the ten-game-strong collection will include games by Northbury Grove developers Scythe, Haunted Demo Disc's Lovely Hellplace, Airdorf, who created the spooky Faith series, and David Szymanski, developer of retro-styled FPS Dusk.

While the announcement post only offers a few hints about the included games, the developers have started to announce their submissions over on their Twitter pages. For instance, designer Xalavier Nelson Jr's project is called Mr. Bucket Told Me To, which he describes as "Castaway, if Wilson wanted you to die a slow, painful death."

The game from the Dusk developer, meanwhile, is named The Pony Factory, and you'll be pleased to hear that it's a "black and white FPS about fleshless ponies(?) created with abominable body mutilation and hell magic."

I'm very much up for that, what about you? While there's no release date yet, Dread XP says we can expect the anthology "very soon", on Steam, itch.io and potentially the Humble Store.

Tom Sykes

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.