Rough, discontinuous edges; looming architectural masses; bulging swathes of colour—all of them luminous, or cast in shadow. These are just some of the effects you encounter in the growing genre of freeware horror and landscape games, spearheaded by the likes of ceMelusine, Kitty Horrorshow, and Connor Sherlock. Together, they constitute a “glitch art” known for its lethargic smearing-together of retro graphics with dreamlike and impossible aesthetics. As both “art” and “game,” they express a mix of design constraints and aesthetic choices that elect to make things brash, rough, and beautiful. But this aesthetic strategy—to paint with a pallet knife, in…