TV Night 1.1

Beware of the TV in this free indie horror game

TV Night is a short but free first-person indie horror-adventure video game that lets you play as a child who is determined to break the rules and stay up late to watch TV—unaware of what’s watching you in turn. Developed by kensho, this walking simulator of a horror game takes place in the quaint suburban house of a family of three during the ‘90s. Your character is the child, who is still awake so late into the night and sneaks out of their room to go watch some cartoons. Unfortunately, you need to find some VHS tapes first—and the TV wants to play this strange game with you.

The midnight show

The first thing you will notice about TV Night is that everything is in low poly resolution and pixelated. From the shadows to the edges of the furniture, you look like you’re in an old video game—which is what the developer was going for since it’s set in the 1990s. This may make your eyes hurt for a bit, however, especially if you’re not used to such a blurry-looking game in first-person and blown-up in your face.

Exploring the first area—your room—reveals that the only actions you can do are examine and grab items, which are mostly the same. There’s no tutorial telling you what button to press to interact, so it may take a while for you to discover that you just need to left-click your mouse. Exiting your room then reveals that TV Night does not have any background music or ambiance soundtrack at all. There are some object sound effects but the lack of noise is the game’s main scare tactic.

The silence gets really unnerving, especially if you’re used to playing horror games that make great use of scary sounds. You can say that it’s realistic for a late night but you can’t even hear your footsteps so this increases the fear factor. TV Night is short and simple, however—you need to collect the tapes while weird apparitions start coming—so if you just want a little horror game to freak you out for a few minutes, this is a good recommendation.