Horror Game Devs Publish Book To Scare Children

If you’ve been looking for a new way to upset some kids, the developers of Year Walk have some ideas.

In anticipation of the super creepy Year Walk coming to Wii U later this month, developer Simogo decided to write a selection of short stories, based on the game’s various creatures. They have titled it Bedtime Stories for Awful Children.

Each one only takes a few minutes to read, but hoo boy, they get dark quickly.

I’ve gone ahead and included one of the stories below, images and all, but highly recommend you check out the proper PDFs the developers have created with much fancier layouts.

The Brook Horse

There once lived a family of three in a small cottage, deep within the forest. One day, the mother was making soup, so she sent her daughter to fetch water from the nearby brook.

“What lives in the river, mother?” the little girl asked her mother as she was about to leave.

“A lot of creatures,” her mother replied.

“Are they dangerous?” the little girl asked.

“They are only dangerous if you make them wroth,” said the mother to her daughter.

On her way to the brook, the little girl picked up tiny rocks and threw them at some noisy birds. Throwing rocks at animals was one of her favourite games.

By the brook, the girl filled her bucket with the cool water, but just as she was about to turn back home, she noticed something moving below the water’s surface. She could not tell what it was, but knew it would be fun to throw rocks at it, all the same.

The little girl found a pebble and flung it into the water. The thing in the brook did nothing. The little girl picked up a stone and threw it in the water. Bubbles rose to the surface. She lifted a rock and heaved it into the brook, but no more bubbles appeared, so she laughed and went home.

When the little girl came home she gave the bucket to her mother, who poured the water into a big kettle. A short time later, when the soup was ready, the girl sat down with her mother and father to eat. She was very hungry and ate three whole bowls of soup, and when she was finished, she laid down her spoon feeling content. But she had a bubbly feeling in her stomach.

As she leaned back and burped, she noticed someone staring at her from outside the window — a strange creature with the body of a man and the head of a horse.

The little girl’s eyes grew wide from fear and she started crying. Her mother tried to dry the tears but they kept on coming.

Then the little girl started to cough up water. Her father patted her back, but the water kept on pouring. Water came out from the little girl’s nostrils. Her father tried to wipe her nose but the water just wouldn’t stop pouring, and the girl had started to swell as her body was filling up from the water. Finally, the girl burst and a wave of water knocked down her poor parents.

The family and their cottage is now gone, but a small stream marks the spot where it once stood.

The stories have been translated into English, Spanish, French, German, and Italian because the developers strongly believe “obnoxious children all over the world deserve dark nightmares.”

Duh.

The whole thing reminds me of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, one of my favourite ways to spook friends as a kid. We’d hide in the closet and read them with a flashlight, hoping someone would get weirded out enough to leave — so we could make fun of them.

I mean, remember the god damn covers?

I’m glad Simogo is trying to carry on this wonderful tradition.