Indie Dev Spotlight: SadSquare Studios Iconic Psychological Horror

SadSquare Studios is an indie developer company, responsible for one of the scariest games I’ve ever played, Visage. It’s their only game under their belt, but incredibly well-made and scary as hell. I was having a hard time choosing what and who to write about, then I remembered my playthrough of Visage a couple of years ago, and it clicked. I want to shine a light on SadSquare Studios and their horrifying game.

About SadSqaure Studios

SadSquare Studios was founded back in 2015 and has been pretty active for the past 10 years. According to their website, their biggest goal was bringing true horror to a stale horror genre, which led to the development of Visage. This company focuses on horror and all things scary, and throughout the development of Visage, the devs made it a point to communicate with fans and followers on how to make the game better and more enjoyable.

The Minds Behind SadSquare

Here’s a list of the developers a part of SadSquare:

• Jonathan Vallières: Founder | Level designer

• Jonathan Gagné: Co-Founder |Gameplay programmer

• Jonathan Wachoru: Sound designer | Music composition

• Peter Wicher: Composer

• Martin Mcghee: 3D character modeler

Visage

As I’ve said before, Visage is the only game SadSquare has developed in the past 10 years, but I’m not mad at that. I’d rather have one amazing game than 10 really crappy ones developed every year. It’s easily one of my top 3 scariest games I’ve ever played, and there’s a reason for that. Visage is a first-person psychological horror game, where you relive other people’s messed-up histories inside the same house. The content material is dark and even somewhat relatable, which makes it that much more horrifying to witness. 

Visage was pretty successful. It drew a lot of inspiration from P.T., the interactive trailer for the canceled Silent Hills game, and recieved an 81 Metacritic score overall. People genuinely enjoyed the game because of its expert way of disorienting your senses and questioning if what you’re seeing is real. It draws you deep into the storyline, without you ever wanting to stop playing the game. SadSquare Studios did an amazing job with Visage, and I hope they continue their fantastic work as an indie game developer.