EXE Game

EXE Games are a type of Horror Game often inspired by the infamous fangame Sonic.EXE. They usually involve the player character moving across the screen and seeing disturbing imagery, as they are stalked and usually killed by a corruption of a famous gaming character. These games will often show large amounts of blood, and commonly use jump scares to attempt to startle the player.
While many of these games are mere subpar clones, some - particularly in the 2020s - have surpassed their progenitor.
==Notable Examples==
*Sonic.EXE and Sally.EXE
*Sonic2.EXE, Sunshine.EXE and INSaNIty.EXE
*Yoshi.exe
*Hotel Mario 6
*Mario.exe
*Sunky.MPEG and Silly.TIFF
*Sonic.Exe: Nightmare Beginning
*Nintendo.exe
*Sonic PC Port
*Mario '85
*Sonic the Hedgehog Editable ROM
*Crucis Mortem
*SONIC 2011
==Exe Games==
*Sonic.EXE
*Sally.EXE
*ALADDIN.EXE
*BEYOND HUMAN.exe
*Dreamland.exe
*Fallen Kingdom
*GAMEBOYCAM.gb
*Hotel Mario 6
*Hotel Mario 6 3D
*INKBOWSER.exe
*INSaNIty.EXE
*Kirby's World
*Mario '85
*Mario Bros.Exe
*Mario.exe
*Mario.EXE - 2021 Remake
*Mario EXE Definitive Edition
*Mario World (ResidentEvilFanLover)
*Mario World (tayo)
*MARIO WORLD: PIPES
*MONSTERSINC.EXE
*Nintendo.exe
*Pokemon Cursed Forever
*Pokemon.exe
*ROUGE.EXE
*Sally.Exe: Continued Nightmare - Eye of Three
*Silly.TIFF
*Sonic2.EXE
*Sonic2.EXE - The Remake
*SONIC 2011
*SONICALLSTARS.EXE
*Sonic.Exe: Nightmare Beginning
*Sonic PC Port
*Sonic's Awful Death
*Sonic the Hedgehog Editable ROM
*Sonic The Hedgehog: Project SatAM
*Sunky.MPEG
*Sunshine.EXE
*SuperMarioBros.EXE
*Super Mario Bros-King's Slaughter
*SuperMarioBros2.EXE
*SuperMarioLand.EXE
*SuperShroomio
*The S.exe
*Three.exe
*TrueLab.exe
*Uhcakip.exe
*Undertale.exe
*Yoshi.exe (Skashi)
*Yoshi's Island - Cloudyfied
==Conventions==
The majority of games in this genre tend to be very formulaic, following the conventions used by Sonic.EXE - though it should be noted that Sonic.EXE itself was a product of the clichés that many gaming creepypastas of the time used. As such, it is easy to pick out common themes shared by these games.
===Antagonist===
*The game's antagonist is usually an altered version of an existing protagonist. Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario are the most common.
*In more simplistic derivatives, the antagonist will only be distinguished by their black, bleeding eyes.
*In the 2020s, it became increasingly common for antagonists to either be extremely tall and lanky, or more portly like MX.
===Aesthetic===
*The majority of the games are built off the sprites of an existing game - usually from the NES, SNES or Mega Drive. More sophisticated games, particularly in the 2020s, may have custom sprites in an existing game's style.
*Static is often used to startle the player, either preceding a jumpscare or as an early alternative.
**Static is also often used to make a screen appear more distorted, and in these cases is often paired with distorted music. 
===Audio===
*Audio tracks are often played in reverse, slowed down, or both.
**The original example is "Hill Act 1.gym", the music of ... in Sonic.EXE, which is played in reverse in the earlier level Hill.
**Another notable example is a piano cover of Back's Badinerie, first used in a Suicide Mouse recreation, which appears in several games including Suicide Mouse and Mario World.
===Gameplay===
*In more primitive games, gameplay usually consists of walking to the right until an event triggers.
*In earlier games, characters often lack abilities they would be expected to possess, eg Tails Prower is often unable to fly.
**In more extreme examples, characters may be unable to do anything but walk left and right.
===Meta===
*Some games, particularly those made in GameMaker, will pretend to close themselves, only to open again a few seconds later with a message or jumpscare.
*Games created in Clickteam Fusion or early versions of GameMaker may hijack the player's computer to mess with them, for example by moving the mouse around the screen or opening their disk drive.
==Luna Game==
While Luna Game and its many sequels and derivatives aren't technically EXE Games (the original Luna Game releasing over a year before the first version of Sonic.EXE), they share many of the same conventions.
Category:Genres
Category:.EXE Games