Being scared on purpose, on a phone
Horror works on a phone better than it has any right to. The screen is close, headphones put every sound right beside your ears, and a game played in bed after dark has an audience of exactly one. The genre splits into three quite different experiences: short survive the night games built on jump scares, slow games built on atmosphere and story, and multiplayer games where the thing hunting you is another person. Most people like one of the three far more than the others.
Three kinds of scary
| Kind | What it does to you | A session lasts |
|---|---|---|
| Survive the night | Tension, then a jump scare when it goes wrong | Five to twenty minutes |
| Atmosphere and story | A slow build of dread, very few cheap scares | Half an hour to an evening |
| Hunted by other players | Panic, then laughter | One match, ten minutes or so |
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Survive the night
The original night shift at a pizzeria whose animatronics move when you are not watching the cameras. Limited power makes every door you close a decision.
The sequel takes the doors away and gives you a mask and a music box to manage instead. Harder, and the better game.
Locked in a house for five days with a grandmother who hears everything. Drop a plate and she comes. Crude, cheap and genuinely tense.
Adds Grandpa, so there are now two of them to keep track of while you search for a way out.
Collect the money scattered through a haunted house while something roams it. A button lets you see through the monster's eyes, which is worse than not knowing.
Escape a school at night with a nun patrolling the corridors. Stealth, keys and puzzles, with the same hide and listen loop as the grandmother games.
Rescue a friend kidnapped by a sinister ice cream man. Aimed at a younger audience than most of this list, and scary rather than gruesome.
Stuck in a house from 11 PM to 6 AM with a set of dolls, each with its own rule for staying alive. Learning the rules is the game.
Slow dread and a story
A small child in a yellow raincoat escaping a vast vessel full of grotesque adults. Short, beautiful and deeply unsettling. A paid port of the console game.
One alien you cannot kill, a failing space station and a motion tracker that beeps. The most frightening game on Android, and a download of about 2.5 GB that needs a recent, powerful phone.
A boy in a black and white forest full of traps, and a spider you will not forget. More dread than horror, and short enough for a couple of evenings.
Taiwanese horror set in a school during the martial law years of the 1960s, drawing on local folklore. The history is as disturbing as the ghosts.
Korean school horror at night, with janitors patrolling the halls whom you cannot fight, only avoid. A remake of a cult original.
A 1930s cartoon studio flooded with ink and with something that used to be a cheerful mascot. Puzzles and hiding, chapter by chapter.
A disturbing point and click adventure about a girl in an asylum whose medication changes what she sees. The mobile release comes chapter by chapter, so the first one tells you whether it is for you.
Not horror as such, but occult puzzle boxes in a candlelit house with a steady sense of something watching. For people who want the atmosphere without the chase.
A fishing game with something wrong in the water. Calm by day, unnerving after dark, and the gentlest way into the genre.
Hunted by other people
One hunter against four survivors decoding machines to escape, with a gothic storybook art style. Popular, deep and a large download.
Four survivors against one killer, the format made famous on PC and consoles, rebuilt for touch controls.
Online horror where the monster, as the name suggests, can take on the appearance of other players. Paranoia is the main mechanic.
- Headphones, volume up, notifications off A message arriving mid chase ruins the tension. Turn on Do Not Disturb before you start.
- Turn brightness down, not up Dark scenes are designed for a dark room. Full brightness washes out the shadows the game is using.
- Play in short sessions if you scare easily Most survive the night games save between nights. Stop between them rather than in the middle of one.
- Check the age rating for younger players Several house escape games are popular with children; the atmospheric ones are generally rated for older teenagers and adults.
Pick the kind of scared you enjoy, put the headphones on and switch notifications off. Then turn the light off, if you are brave.
Frequently asked questions
Which is the scariest horror game on Android?
For most people, the one with an alien that cannot be killed, because it does not follow a script. For sheer jump scares, the pizzeria night shift games.
Are these games suitable for children?
Some of the house escape games are aimed at a young audience and are more tense than gory. The story driven games deal with disturbing themes. Check the store rating for each one.
Do I need a powerful phone?
The survive the night games run on almost anything. The console ports and the larger multiplayer games want a recent phone and plenty of free storage.
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