1. Organ Trail First on our list is this wonderfully faithful horror remake of that staple of every 30-something's early years: Oregon Trail. Organ Trail is set in the hours following a zombie apocalypse. You are a denizen of New York City and the government has decided to nuke the eastern seaboard. You are given 16 hours to scavenge and then depart for Safe Haven, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. The rest of the game is spent fording zombie hoards, scavenging for food and attempting to trade for supplies with other survivors. Name your party members and hit the ol' Organ Trail!

2. Sweet Home Possibly the opus of 8-bit horror games, Sweet Home informed Resident Evil and consequently the rest of the survival horror genre. If you thought Final Fantasy III was dark, you never played this game. Sweet Home is full of all the great mechanics of an NES RPG: turn-based combat, parties of characters with unique abilities and an interesting inventory system. Also of note: there's no respawning in this game. Ever. You get 5 characters to begin with. How many survive is up to you.

3. Corril Slayer One of the "new" games on our list, Corril Slayer is a $2.99 download and well worth it. From Pure Bang Games, those modern masters of de-make gaming, Corril Slayer is a blend of Army of Darkness and The Sixth Sense in side-scrolling format. Owing to a botched lobotomy, hero Sam Asherton can see into the past with a click of the space bar. He is thus tasked with deciphering the haunted past of five spooky levels of side-scrolling awesomeness.

4. Shadowgate A true staple of horror games past, Shadowgate is one tiny step removed from the original MS-DOS text games of the 1980s. One could imagine this being the game that Tom Hanks' young self plays on his computer in the movie Big. The protagonist is a hero of destiny, chosen to enter a catacomb of dungeons and logic puzzles. Ultimately you are tasked with defeating a warlock lord and braving his monstrous minions. You get action options like "open" and "take" and "hit," and, depending on how you use them, the game can become either tedious or funny at times. Hint: "open" the skull on the first screen.

5. Uninvited Released a year after Shadowgate, Uninvited is more like a smarter younger sibling than a sequel. The same kind of gameplay is to be expected, but this game is set in a haunted mansion and has a smart sense of humor as well as a few good scares. In my book, any problem-solving game that can reference Indiana Jones, Gone with the Wind, and The Hobbit (amongst other works) while still baffling me with a myriad of mostly useless inventory items is worth a play-through.

6. Hide A serious advantage of 8-bit horror gaming is perfectly exemplified in Hide: sometimes not knowing what something is can play upon your psyche. A first-person survival game with a strong Slenderman resonance, Hide does a great job of evoking a creepy snowy wasteland. Once you realize that you're not alone in the snow, you'll likely begin second-guessing every shape in your field of view — and some of them out of it. Find all the structures before your pursuer (or pursuers?) finds you.

7. Fester's Quest So Uncle Fester
(of Addams Family fame) is hanging out one evening when aliens land in Manhattan. That's all the story you'll need or get in this top-view action horror game. Armed with what looks like a blunderbuss, Fester sets out to take back the isle of Manhattan. all manner of beastie will assault you as you wander about aimlessly. The real horror of this game is how damn hard it is to beat. You'll need to focus on grabbing gun upgrades — and plenty of them. Try not to get too frustrated, now.

8. Eversion Now that we've skewed a bit silly, it's time to talk about Eversion. This game starts out as a crappy Mario clone, but swiftly swerves down a bleak, depressing path. Your goal is to collect a number of gems every level. To do this, you sometimes need to flip into parallel worlds where clouds are solid and the like (obviously). Each of the worlds you flip into delves deeper down the rabbit hole, though. Enemies become progressively bleaker and a sweeping black wave of death eventually arrives to eat your soul.

9. 8-bit Night Another parallel worlds platformer, 8-bit Night tasks you with the simple chore of collecting pixels. You'll quickly notice, however, that a spiritual echo of yourself is mimicking your every move, albeit in reverse. He'll be tasked with collecting spiritual pixels and holding a place for you. What I mean by that is that at the press of a button, you can flip the world upside-down or left-to-right. Where once the echo stood, you now stand and vice versa. This allows for all sorts of challenges and accidental deaths. $4.99 download.

10. Monster Party Another classic NES title, Monster Party challenges Fester's Quest for silliest intro. I won't spoil it, but let's just say it features the least choosy hero-seeker of all time and fusing with aliens. I've said too much! This side-scrolling game is tough but not impossible, and features a veritable murderer's row of hard-to-kill bosses. Wait... is that seriously a giant fried shrimp? This is a quirky game with a good amount of play time and a decent amount of creepy baddies.

11. Home A modern addition to the world of 8-bit gaming, Home features an off-putting past-tense narrative and a hero armed with a flashlight and a limp. The thrills in this game are primarily psychological and are augmented with the limited sight radius. Play this one with the lights off and let it build on you. There are a few linguistic mistakes in the script that can throw off your mood, but overall this game delivers a good thrill worth the $2.99 sticker price.

12. The End of the World The premise of this side-scroller is that the world has been simultaneously struck by multiple radioactive meteors. I'm glad someone finally covered such an inevitable turn of events. Needless to say the world is jam-packed full of zombie everythings and you need to make it out alive. The game plays a bit like Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, but with less story. That being said, the lighting is good, and the music is pilfered from Silent Hill. heck, the game's free, so give it a spin if you've already tackled Sweet Home.

13. Lone Survivor If some of the entries on this list have you questioning whether 8-bit graphics can truly be scary, then check out Lone Survivor. This game is both psychologically and visually frightening. The soundtrack, too, is superbly haunting. At $10, Lone Survivor is definitely the priciest game on this list, but well worth it. Lone Survivor offers a wonderfully open array of ways to be played. Just dive in and let it take hold. You won't regret the experience.

14. Maniac Mansion To my mind, Maniac Mansion typifies the best of the hokey elements of childhood Halloweens, and of the horror flicks of the 1940s and '50s. Lucasarts really hit a home run with this one back in the day. It even spawned an amazing sequel in Day of the Tentacle. You get to pick three of the six total playable characters to send into a mad scientist's house. There you'll find all manner of silliness and danger, and even a damsel to save — and a pet tentacle.

Bonus: Slender 8-bit If you don't know about the Slenderman mythos, just play the game and stop reading this. If you do know Slendy, this here might even be a familiar sight. This 8-bit (maybe 16? It's hard to say — that's some snazzy grass) version of Slenderman sets you alone on a dark street beside a stalled car. Entering the house across the street sets you off on a horrifying quest for videotapes and freedom. Play it late at night with only your muted TV set as ambient lighting for the full effect.

15. The Room Okay, so this game — while 8-bit — is NFSW. If the title sounds familiar, this game was lovingly crafted after the movie of the same name. The game itself isn't really horrifying or anything — save for the plot. You see, the movie version of The Room has been dubbed the Citizen Kaine of bad movies and the worst film of all time. That could be because it was written, directed, produced and starred in by Tommy Wiseau. If that isn't scary enough for you, I don't know what is. The game is pretty ridiculous and entirely worth the $0 you'll need to shell out to Newgrounds.com to play.