Itch Terror: Underjoy

The family fun park horror has been done a few times now—most notably, of course, in the Five Nights At Freddy’s games, and also a host of imitators, including Monterey Jack—but it’s given a new twist here, with the protagonist, David Mercer, delving deep underground to a subterranean water park that’s closed down in mysterious circumstances.

Mercer pieces together Underjoy’s history via tape recordings, written notes and emails as he paces through the starkly liminal corridors and rooms. The attraction’s stars, a maniacal-looking rabbit and JoyGuard, a bulbous round-headed creature with glowing lights for eyes, that stalks you across one particular nerve-jangling segment, pop up regularly, and there’s certainly more than meets the eye to this strange amusement park. The twist ending is fascinating, and tempts you to wish for more games set in this bleak underworld.

Underjoy, from Grimward Studio, is downloadable from Itch for name-your-own-price. At around 30-45 minutes, it’s not the longest horror game, but is nevertheless well worth a few coins if you can spare them.

There’s limited use of generative AI, which the developer confirms on Itch. It’s their first game, so the help in constructing a handful of 2D images is understandable, and hopefully they’ll have gained enough skills in the meantime to develop the mooted Underjoy 2 sans-AI.