Griefville is a horror game on Roblox featuring Chucky

Griefville: Survive the Nightmare is launching today as an adult-focused horror game debuting Roblox. It features the horror character Chucky.

The developers at RocketRide Games promise a spine-chilling interactive horror experience that invites players to relive nostalgic horror films from the ’80s and ’90s. It was developed by RocketRide Games in collaboration with Roblox and NBCUniversal’s Universal Products & Experiences.

It also includes the infamous killer doll Chucky from the Child’s Play franchise. This interactive horror experience, available through Roblox’s Game Fund program, offers a blend of horror classics in a rotating format, ensuring fans encounter a diverse array of familiar, spine-tingling characters.

The game itself is not R-rated if compared to films, but the more adult nature of the game and the nostalgia focus shows how the Roblox audience is aging up and becoming multi-generational.

Louis-Rene Auclair, CEO of RocketRide Games, said in an interview with GamesBeat that the game will likely draw some teens, but it’s really targeted at those who remember the older horror films.

“With Griefville: Survive the Nightmare, we wanted to create an experience that taps into the shared cultural touchstone of 80s and 90s horror for older Roblox players,” he said. “It’s not just about jump scares; it’s about capturing the atmosphere, the tension, and the pure joy of getting lost in a classic horror flick. We are delighted to bring Griefville to Roblox with the best possible partners.”

Getting started

“Griefville is a game that we always really wanted to make internally at RocketRide,” said Auclair.

The team met with Roblox about a year and a half ago and hatched this concept.

“Talking with the guys at Roblox, we started looking at how the game could fit perfectly for the platform,” Auclair said. “Some of our team members have been making games for 25 to 30 years, and we felt that it was a perfect story to tell with the Roblox team.”

The work started in January 2023. Since that time, Roblox players have offered two or three rounds of feedback.

“That speaks volumes to the quality of the Roblox platform, but it also shows how we can iterate fast,” said Auclair. “We focus on games and game quality.” Auclair who has been in games for 22 years.

Gameplay: Play as Chucky

For a limited time, players can embody Chucky and either stalk and eliminate other players with terrifying speed or take on the role of a victim trying to survive the murderous escapades. Chucky’s integration adds a layer of unexpected terror to the game, staying true to the classic horror vibe.

Bill Kispert, senior vice president of Games & Digital Platforms at Universal Products & Experiences, said in a statement, “Bringing the iconic killer doll frighteningly to life in the game adds an unexpected twist to Griefville: Survive the Nightmare! and further solidifies the authenticity of the classic horror vibe in the experience.”

The game has both day and night dynamics. It uses a novel game loop where players prepare during the day and brace for nightmare portals opening at night, transporting them into unique game modes.

It also has survival challenges where players can choose to face horrors head-on or outsmart them with stealth, with every decision influencing their fight for survival. And it has realistic environments, haunting melodies, and a chilling soundscape.

Auclair refers to the multiplayer survival title as a “social horror” game where kids, players, teenagers, adults can come play with their friends. They have to survive nightmares throughout the play session. They gather weaponry, vehicles, packs — anything to help their friends survive. They traverse different biomes.

One of the nightmares has a mode that resembles the popular Dead by Daylight game from Behaviour Interactive. In it, one players plays as Chucky, ready to attack the other players. While the other players try to escape or defend themselves. Based on the things you do and the karma you build up, you are transported into mini games like the one where a player becomes Chucky, who has a time limit for dispatching all of the other players.

Aging up

Boniface said Roblox believed the devs would take advantage of a core taste of the audience for horror, which is a popular genre on Roblox. The funding helped the team take the graphics fidelity, depth and complexity to the next level, Boniface said. Frontlines is another such example of the next-level focus, and Secret Neighbor was another horror title funded by Roblox.

“It’s definitely one of the [popular] genres is on Roblox,” Boniface said. “We definitely see that this plays really nicely into our experience guidelines. So you can have games in the horror genre that are suitable for under 13 [children]. They take out the blood and gore and some of the mature themes.”

This game has both paintball and potato guns, which are more creative than aggressive. There isn’t a lot of blood splattering everywhere.

“It’s more about reactions with your friends than it is about a treatment of defeating an enemy or being killed by Chucky,” Auclair said.

The game will be a live service with a roadmap of updates leading into the future. That can include other intellectual properties.

“The game will continue to grow right now,” Auclair said. “It’s in a small town, anywhere in the U.S.A. But we can add a harbor and we can add a mountain and we can add biomes that are going to create different opportunities. And then those are going to open up opportunities for additional IP.”

The Roblox Game Fund

Roblox helped fund the game in an effort to bring next-generation experiences to the platform, said Jad Boniface, who leads content expansion at Roblox. He said his team focuses on working closely with community developers to provide insights and best practices, as we as enable brand integrations.

“We’re focused on content and really pushing the limits of what we can do,” Boniface said.

Roblox’s game fund started as a $25 million fund a couple of years ago and then it expanded to an additional $10 million in funding a year ago. The fund is still accepting applications from devs for deals. RocketRide has a team of 24 people.

“We’re hoping to greenlight the next batch of games this quarter,” Boniface said. “We’re still really looking to push the boundaries of what’s possible on the platform. We want to bring out some new studios like RocketRide that can help bring some new ideas to the platform.”

About half of the games funded by Roblox emerged from existing community devs while the other half are coming to Roblox for the first time.

Roblox is not taking an equity stake in the studio. It simply provided funding for the production and development of the ideas so the devs could bring it to life on the platform, Boniface said. Roblox said its support is a recoupable advance with favorable terms.

“Our goal is is to really help showcase these new product features in tech,” Boniface said. “We want these games to be commercially viable right. So we let studios like Rock It continue to grow their time and their business.”