SCP in Gaming

 Secure. Contain. Propagate.

Horror in video games is a very natural fit when it comes to video game adaptations due to the very interactive nature of the medium which can, when properly utilised, magnify the horror on screen to vivid degrees. It also fits very well into the indie scene thanks to the fact that the inherently homebrew aesthetic makes for a nice substitute for the home brew 'video nasties' scene that was popular in horror movies during the early days of film ratings. You can really reach beyond the confines of what the player knows to be a game when you're just some sketchy program they downloaded off the web which Window Defenders tried to tell you to destroy, and some games really take advantage of this with some great meta Easter eggs here and there and others are a lot more traditional; but I think a healthy layer of jank helps every horror game to some degree.

And the home-brew approach to horror fits perfectly in line with the lauded SCP series, which is a collaborative collective of creepy and vaguely interconnected internet horror stories featuring a plethora of home-brew cryptids and bizarreries. I actually went through a phase in the past of trying to go through as many of the SCP stories as I could to rate the one's I liked, but after several weeks of being unable to get past the dozens of iterations of SCP 001; I just let that one sink into the abyss. It was fun at the time, however. (Maybe I'll pick it back up one day.) SCP has that sense of rough and homebrew despite the uniform aesthetic of the 'SCP Foundation' as it's backbone, as that's just a natural feeling you'll get from a story written by some many different and interesting minds. So you can see the parallel I'm drawing here, the real question is; how has SCP and gaming intersected over the years?

The first SCP game I ever became aware of, and arguably one of the grandfathers of video game indie horror in general, is 'SCP-087 B'. The game. It's name is in reference to the anomalous entity that stalks the halls of the famous SCP-087, otherwise known as the endless staircase. Essentially this anomaly plays out how it sounds, it is a building that, when entered alone, represents an endless descending staircase leading nowhere. If more than one person enters it becomes a small room without any stairs whatsoever. The trick with the staircase is that the further down someone goes the less likely it becomes they'll ever be able to return, and with no radio contact it's impossible to determine what dangers and horrors might have befallen them down in the utmost pits of hell. So you can imagine how making a game of that is going to be a bit interesting.

The game utilises that rather simple premise of going ever downwards to mix tensions and mystery along with the act of having the player move forward toward their own danger; playing on the fear of not wanting to move but having little choice. As you get deeper you'll face more and more dangers that threaten to kill and place you back at the start, all of which seem to play on the idea of things you'll never clearly see. A hole in the wall that will kill those who look into it, a charging shadowy figure with a ghost white mask that glares angrily out of the darkness, or the distorted gruff whine of some glowing creatures that periodically demands "Don't look at me!" A lot of horror games lose their edge the first time the player dies and faces the horror, by hiding that horror 'SCP-087 B' manages to stretch that moment for much longer.

In the more well known department, we have the absolute classic SCP game known as 'Containment Breach', which simulates about as many SCPs as the creators could find a gameplay angle for. Simulating the experience of a total breakdown down of security procedures that has led to just about every single anomalous entity breaking out of their holding at once and utterly destroying a facility. The player is a D-Class nobody who is just trying to survive in a building writhe with murderous entities more than happy to kill him in creative and horrifying ways, whilst all that the player character has to defend themselves is the ability to blink on command. This game really was a mastery of lore and gameplay implementation that served as a great crash course introduction to many of the most popular SCPs still recognised to this day.

Most famously you have 173, the weeping angel SCP who moves whenever it's not being directly looked at. But there's also the Shy Guy, 096, who will rip through any door in order to murder you if you look at his face. Even through a security monitor. A book of diseases that, should you read it, gives you every disease that you read. A bowl of sweets that instantly murder anyone foolish enough to take more than the sign allows. A wall-walking shadow man called 'Radical Larry' who teleports you to a deathly parkour route. A 19th Century Plague Doctor who goes around inflicting every ailment known to man by his mere touch in order to save the recipient from 'The Pestilence'. Just about any cool/scary SCP you can think of is wrapped up in this one indie swan song dedicated to the SCP brand.

And then there's Secret Laboratory; which is a asymmetric Multiplayer SCP game where you play as either a squishy human of various alignments or a deadly SCP of obvious alignment and then try to achieve whatever goal you need to do before the match ends. Typically that's either: try to stay alive or try to unalive all the humans, respectively. Rather than a competitive Multiplayer game, Secret Laboratory is more of a party game where you can take advantage of being a supremely overpowered anomalous entity in order to torment and harass your friends as they try and make it to an exit as desperately as they can. A very classic concept bought to surprisingly decent life by this game, albeit after a very long time.

The SCP font of lore marks a well of endless creativity to be drawn from, so I honestly find it quiet surprising there aren't more games baring it's brand. There are some extra titles around those I've listed, but these are really the notable ones unless you consider Containment Breach Multiplayer and Containment Breach Unity Remake as entries worthy of separate paragraphs. (I did not.) I suspect that might be due to the SCP licence which, I believe, forbids any project under the SCP name from monetising itself; but you'd still think they'd be some more crazed developers out there who just sporadically reads one of these incredible stories and just has to make a game about it; payment be damned. Still, when someone is in it to make an SCP game, it tends to be a very special and rich experience and if the consequence of that quality is scarcity, then I'd say the drought is worth it.