Best Chilla's Art Games

Japanese horror has always held a special place in my heart as a horror fan — there's simply something about J-horror that isn't replicated anywhere else. While I personally think it has something to do with finding horror in the mundane, it also has to do with how these works are approached.

And when it comes to gaming, nobody approaches J-horror better than the development team Chilla's Art.

Chilla's Art is a tiny but mighty studio, releasing indie horror gems that consistently leave players stunned and absolutely horrified. By focusing on atmosphere, storytelling, and realistic horror origins, Chilla's Art ends up creating uniquely terrifying games that leave a lasting impression on horror gamers.

Now the real question is: what's their best game?

10 The Ghost Train

Next Stop: Hell

Imagine if your commute home from work suddenly decided to take you to hell instead — in The Ghost Train, that's essentially what happens to you.

You play as your standard Japanese salaryman coming home from work every day, stopping and grabbing something at the vending machine and having a smoke in the meantime, but something's up with his routine as it progresses onward. There's equal parts supernatural elements as well as folklore components, with one of my favorite yokai, the Teke Teke, represented in the game.

The game is split into four days (the first of those days acts as a prologue), and what you do in those days (most notably, who you choose to call at the end of those days) will determine the outcome of your game altogether.

For one of their earliest works, The Ghost Train is an excellent introduction to Chilla's Art and the ordinary horror that they're able to capture in their PS1-style graphics. Just don't expect the story to be the best; they focus a lot more on gameplay itself in this game.

9 Night Security

What's on Cams?

Working the night shift is always freaky, regardless of what job it is you're doing — in the case of Night Security, you're a security guard monitoring cameras on your shift. Plus, you have to get up and patrol the building, which leads to the scares that you're definitely going to encounter while you play.

Night Security puts you in several anxiety-inducing situations, and you're left wondering about countless details that don't seem to add up or make much sense. I've noticed that in Japanese horror, you have to figure out the answers yourself, and that seems to also be true when referring to this game (especially when it comes to our protagonist, Keigo Ochigi).

Either way, you're in for a treat with this game, as it's one of their more outwardly scary titles.

8 Shinkansen 0

Worst Bullet Train Ever

It's not uncommon to see developers tackle their older titles, either redoing them or just refreshing them so that it better represents the work they put out now. In Chilla's Art's case, The Ghost Train ended up being overshadowed by one of their newer titles, Shinkansen 0, for being better overall. And as a note, shinkansen is simply the Japanese word for "bullet train."

In Shinkansen 0, you're on a haunted bullet train and your job is to find and track these anomalies as they happen. Of course, that's going to go about as well as you expect.

I've been on a bullet train before when I studied abroad in Japan, and it's a genuinely comfortable and lovely experience. It rides like a cloud, with an overall sense of quiet and tranquility throughout the cabin — so, of course, that makes it the perfect stomping ground for a horror game, taking something peaceful and turning it into a monster in and of itself.

It's one of the shorter games in the Chilla's Art catalogue, but it packs one heck of a punch.

7 Stigmatized Property

Something's Wrong Here

It's no secret that living on your own is unbelievably expensive, with rent being one of the main expenses in a young adult's life until they're able to land their first big kid job. So, when an apartment has rent that's so cheap it's too good to be true, there's likely a reason for that — it could be a Stigmatized Property, which is when a person puts up a mental barrier on a location due to a traumatic event (such as murder or suicide) or any hauntings.

So in the Chilla's Art game with the same name, you should immediately be skeptical about the "score" your friend had with a ridiculously cheap apartment.

Throughout this game, you have to collect journal pages to uncover more of the story and to progress, but be sure to keep an eye out for shrines to pray at unless you want to become possessed by the demons that reside in the building. Plus, within these journal pages, you're able to feel your skin crawl in ways you never expected.

Just imagine someone smiling, but their eyes aren't smiling; that's the energy that Stigmatized Property brings to the screen.

6 The Caregiver

A Nightmare Born from Domesticity

Being someone's caregiver is a common occurrence in several peoples' lives, and it's an incredibly noble thing to do for someone else. However, in The Caregiver, it's the inspiration for an absolute nightmare scenario for actual caregivers everywhere.

You play as Naomi, taking over for Sachie, the original caregiver for an elderly man called Mr. Souichi. After Sachie couldn't continue her assignment, you read her notes on Mr. Souichi and head to his house, ready to help him with whatever it is he needs. However, something is not right with him at all.

The game takes twists and turns that you genuinely won't see coming, even if you're used to the kind of plot points and scares that Chilla's Art likes to use. Either way, any dream you had of being a CNA is quickly ripped from you with The Caregiver, and it has everything to do with how personally close this horror actually is.

5 The Radio Station

Tune into FM.666

If your sibling suddenly died with no explanation whatsoever, you (and so many others) would do everything in your power to try and figure out what exactly happened. I know that I would be inconsolable and unstoppable if it were me and any of my siblings. The power of grief knows no bounds, and that's exactly what compels you in The Radio Station to investigate your brother's sudden death.

Normally, in Chilla's Art games, you tend to be at the centre of a job, working shifts and having a foundation of mundane routine. However, in this game, your brother was the radio host, you're just trying to figure out what happened — so there's no clocking in for you.

Yet, as you're going through your investigation, you start to learn that everything is not what it seems, and it's up to you to dig deep enough to find this truth and expose it. And in true Chilla's Art fashion, it has a tendency to lean towards the supernatural elements that are often from superstition and folklore.

I won't spoil anything, but if you're a fan of Ringu/The Ring, this game merges the early 2000s Fear of Technology with yokai and superstition much of the same way. You'll end up loving this game similarly.

4 The Bathhouse

The Restored Version Plays Better

While the original version of The Bathhouse is genuinely fantastic, the Restored Edition that came out a couple of years later improves on it in every single way. It improves the graphics and rendering, gameplay and optimization, and even makes some changes to the story and its characters so that it's even stronger.

In The Bathhouse, you play as a bathhouse assistant in the Japanese countryside — and if you don't know anything about Japanese bathing culture, just know that public bathhouses are still as prominent and popular as they were in Ancient Greece (there's even a hilarious anime that tackles these parallels, Thermae Romae Novae). However, things don't go according to plan when the supernatural starts to make itself known.

In the original version of the game (dubbed the Legacy Edition), you have basic responsibilities and upkeep as a bathhouse assistant, but in the Restored Edition, they really put you to work. Everything is more fleshed out and easier to maintain, and it's an overall better experience (though that doesn't change that the Legacy Edition is still wonderful).

If you want to see the way that Chilla's Art improved their skills in just a couple of years, look at the differences between the original and restored versions of this game. It's still the same walking simulator horror game, but the quality jump is unreal.

A VTuber's Worst Nightmare

We live in a unique time when technology has progressed so far, people feel genuinely connected to celebrities and other pop culture influencers, even though they don't know each other in the slightest. This leads to toxic, parasocial relationships (often involving the fan being far too controlling and entitled over the idol).

In Parasocial, you play as a live-streamer who notoriously doesn't show her face for privacy purposes. However, after an accidental slip during one of your streams, your face is revealed, and suddenly, your whole world falls apart.

Not only are you now being actively stalked by real people (one of the rare cases where there are not a lot of supernatural components in this game), but you'll begin to uncover a greater conspiracy that's far more sinister and twisted for our protagonist. The scariest part is that you could actually see this happen in real life, even involving people that you may know.

But on the bright side, this game has you visiting locations in other Chilla's Art games, which is a nice nod that makes the world feel much bigger (even in such a small space).

2 The Closing Shift

An Iconic Coffeehouse Horror

Most gamers in the horror sphere have heard of The Closing Shift, even if they didn't know it was by Chilla's Art, because it's that iconic of an indie horror game. In The Closing Shift, you play as a barista who is dealing with a stalker.

Unlike other Chilla's Art games that have supernatural antagonists, our antagonist in this one is pure flesh and blood — a human man. Our stalker is our sole antagonist, and he's somehow the most terrifying of them all. It's likely because of the very real fears that this game is pulling from.

Yet, while you're trying to figure out who your stalker is so that you can go to the police, you still have to go to work at your local coffee shop (hilariously called Chilla's Coffee), clocking in for your shift and preparing orders for customers. Seriously, as a former barista, I was getting war flashbacks.

The Closing Shift is the most grounded out of any of the Chilla's Art games, and that's what makes it one of the most terrifying.

1 The Convenience Store

The Best Chilla's Art Offers

While many players will claim that The Closing Shift is the best of Chilla's Art's works, I firmly stand by the belief that The Convenience Store is their Magnum Opus. Not only does it cover the very real and mundane fears of working the late shift, but it incorporates hauntings and the supernatural in typical Chilla's Art fashion, making a blend that works perfectly for this game.

The Convenience Store plays almost beat-for-beat like a J-horror film, almost identical to how Silent Hill f does. Plus, it pulls out a ton of the same staples of these J-horror films, like VHS tapes and long bouts of silence. The horror is subtle, quiet, and absolutely terrifies you when it ramps up the volume.

It's easily the best game that Chilla's Art has done, showing the best of their work that they can offer — and this came out in 2020. If they decide to give this game a modern, Restored Edition like how they did with The Bathhouse, this would rival countless AAA horror titles with a similar premise.

Either way, if you're new to Chilla's Art and want to dive in with their best work, The Convenience Store is the perfect point.