Here is what I think happened: at some point circa 2020, a cabal of game developers with very long fingernails and offputtingly white teeth got together in a backroom beneath a hideous effigy of a concerned ape, sacrificed a few ‘doves’, and declared in voices like slamming coffin lids that henceforth, all the descendants of Stardew Valley and Harvest Moon shall be horror games. It’s the only rational explanation for today’s strange glut of creepy ploughing simulators.

The latest to catch my eye is Besmirch, out in early access right now, in which you’ve been hired by some Baron (I see what they did there, etc) to work the tiles of a cursed town. Here is a trailer. For the good of your soul, please only watch it in a silver mirror at the crossroads when the bells strike 13.

In broad strokes, Besmirch is a balance of servitude to the soil and action-RPG exploration. By day, you’ll strike the earth, sow seeds and do your best to make something grow in an 8-bit world of vomit yellows, lochia pinks and mouldy purples. I don’t know this for sure, but the visuals appear strongly influenced by New Blood’s FAITH: The Unholy Trinity. Once the crops are tended, you might spend time exploring the direful ruins around the town, including the Baron’s own mansion. When night falls, the game becomes a cabin fever simulator akin Darkwood. You’ll retreat to your hovel, board up the windows, and sit in the candlelight with your shotgun.

I quite like the monster design in this game. It’s a menagerie of freaky little guys and exploded anatomical diagrams. Many of them are smiling, inasmuch as they have the, er, bone structure for it. Even the HUD is smiling. I’m trying to remember the last time smiley faces in a game didn’t trigger my flight response. Good job, horror makers – you have ruined smiling.

When not being clawed to ribbons by midnight strangers, you can head into town and share some food with the villagers. PSA: the villagers are all gibbering graduates of Please Don’t Go To Castle Dracula University. “To stay in their good graces, you must walk carefully between superstition, devotion, and the secrets they refuse to share,” the Steam page notes. “With their perception poisoned by desperation, you must prove you are worth more alive than banished.”

This sounds a lot like working for RPS, actually. James has been trying to out me as a witch for months, saying I keep hexing his house and filling his socks with grasshoppers. It’s a vile fabrication. I’ve only hexed him once and I was trying to give him mange – the grasshoppers are some kind of unrelated climate change phenomenon, I expect. Anyway, it’s just as well we don’t have the budget for a ducking stool.

Besmirch is out in early access today. There’s a demo as of writing. There’s also the below list of things developers Gangru Games plan to add or flesh out between now and 1.0.

• 1. Fishing (like traditional farming games, with a horror twist “abomination fish”, Krakens, etc).
• 2. Animal Husbandry (Caring for animals on your farm, butchering them).
• 3. More NPC Stories/cutscenes (as you get closer to them, you learn about their struggles).
• 4. Spring season (Currently in, but needs more story)
• 5. Summer season (Needs a lot more work)
• 5. Main story ending
• 6. Final boss (as well as some more bosses overall)
• 7. Multiplayer?
• 8. Open world travel + sailing?
• 9. More explorable dungeons and deeper dungeons
• 10. A lot more horror!

Again, this is one of many grim Stardewlikes I’ve encountered lately. There’s also Grave Seasons, in which hot people are spectacularly murdered by some kind of shadow bear; Neverway, a game co-developed by Celeste artist Pedro Medeiros, in which you are the herald of a dead god; and the recent Crop, in which you start your career as a farmer in the boot of an abandoned car.