Face your fears: Use games to battle your phobias this Halloween!

With Halloween creeping ever closer, a time of year that’s full of fear and jump (BOO!) scares, we wanted to help you feel less afraid by using games for exposure therapy. 

It sounds pretty harsh. But it’s a scientifically sound, demonstrably efficacious treatment practiced by professionals. You're scared of something? Then stare at it. Get ready to face your fears—via a carefully curated selection of games—and kick them in the shin. 

Scroll through the options to discover a specific fear—like spiders or, er, cheese—and the means of exposure available to you. Then simply buy and install the game, and play it until you’re all better. 
 

Phobia: Arachnophobia

Cure: Choo-Choo Charles

This is a fear many people face. You are not alone in your fear of spiders. In fact, you’re probably in a room full of them. A room full of arachnophobes, that is. Unfortunately for you and them, there’s statistically likely to be many, many spiders in the room as well.

However, you really have very little to fear. Yes, they are everywhere. Yes, they have too many bits and pieces (so many eyes and all those legs), but more people are fatally hurt by refrigerators than spiders. 

Besides, they could be much worse. What if the spider were train-sized, train-shaped, and chasing you relentlessly? Welcome to the most extreme form of exposure therapy we have: Choo-Choo Charles, a game where an evil spider train chases you. The titular Charles is a slobbering, multi-limbed menace with a grimace. But, if you play it, and if you survive it, that little black spider on your ceiling won’t seem nearly as scary. Wait, where did it go?
 

Phobia: Apeirophobia

Cure: Manifold Garden

Apeirophobia is a fear of the infinite, of the notion of eternity where all stretches on forever in every direction with no limit. And until now, due to a lack of a big enough measuring tape, there has been no known cure. Yet with our breakthrough study, we can now immediately treat this condition through exposure to William Chyr Studio’s Manifold Garden.

One of the larger issues when it comes to apeirophobia and exposure therapy is people’s unwillingness to accept they’re exposed to their fear all the time, and always have been, and always will be. But by containing the concept within gaming form, the visual affront is far more penetrative. As the game’s description states, “Witness infinity in first-person and master its rules.”

If anything, Manifold Garden and its representation of infinite geometry will help sufferers by the way its reality loops on itself, which means falling into oblivion is the very same thing as landing exactly where you fell.
 

Phobia: Anatidaephobia 

Cure: Placid Plastic Duck Simulator

There is some controversy surrounding the nature of anatidaephobia, simply on the basis that there’s no evidence for, nor any scientific research into, the very human fear of being watched by a duck. But just because something was made up for a joke doesn’t make it any less grave and real.

And believe you me, the ducks are staring. Always staring. What? You don’t believe me? Visit your local pond. Are the ducks idly closing their eyes, dreaming of long paddles at sunset? No, they’re staring directly at you with their beady little eyes. And their thoughts are not benign. Don’t ask me how I know. 

There is no better form of exposure therapy for this widespread and devastating condition than Placid Plastic Duck Simulator. The game boasts being “the ultimate high-tech rubber duck simulation” in which an ever-growing number of differently patterned and costumed rubber ducks will fall from the sky into your private pool, all under the cruel pretense that it will offer the player “relaxation.” Perhaps in time.
 

Phobia: Ranidaphobia 

Cure: Time On Frog Island

If you thought ducks were bad, wait until you find out what the frogs are up to. Someone not suffering from this life-debilitating condition might think they’re just innocently sitting there in their ponds, occasionally eating a fly. But we have no real idea what they’re up to under those lily pads. 

The best treatment here is time on Frog Island. But if you can’t afford that, or it’s a busy holiday season, then there’s always Time On Frog Island. Calling itself, with some irony, “an island paradise,” this sandbox game by Half Past Yellow sees you shipwrecked and stranded on an island populated entirely by frogs. Your goal is to try to survive in this terrifying hellscape by forming trade relationships with the local amphibians, building a farm, and slowly overcoming your greatest fear.
 

Phobia: Heptadecaphobia

Cure: Anno 1701

We all know there are some scary numbers out there. There’s obviously 141, and then an italicized 1503, but did you know that there are some people who also fear the number 17? No, it’s important not to laugh—just try to cast your mind back to when you read that 141 and how that made you feel. That’s a lot like how these poor souls feel about 17.

Fortunately, heptadecaphobia is one of the most easily cured conditions on this list. You simply have to stop being so silly. A good way to go about this is to play Anno 1701 History Edition, a remake of the 2006 real-time strategy, which will force you to face the reality of this number in its historical context.

However, for God’s sake, don’t accidentally buy Anno 1503: The New World. Brrrrrrrrrrrrr.
 

Phobia: Nostophobia

Cure: Gone Home

There are many reasons people might not want to return to their homes. Perhaps you set it on fire just before you left, or maybe it’s filled with always-staring ducks. Possibly you set it on fire to deal with the duck situation. But for others, even when their home is both fire- and duck-free, returning home can cause unpleasant anxiety. That’s nostophobia.

The solution here is the classic walking simulator Gone Home. Because you’re already there. Problem solved.

However, this is going to be more of a challenge for those with oikophobia—a fear of home environments and household appliances.
 

Phobia: Turophobia

Cure: Tropico 5 - The Big Cheese

Dairy is scary, and cheese is dairy in its ultimate form. Squeezed until it’s out of precious water, riddled with bacteria, sometimes covered in mold—it’s more at home in Silent Hill than your fridge. And then there’s the smell… 

But you can make cheese work for you. Coagulated milk is everywhere in Tropico 5’s - The Big Cheese DLC from 2014. Turn your dictatorial demands to the production of artisanal cheese, crafting the finest fondue for the serious turophiles in the game. Turn goat’s cheese into some serious cheddar, and you’ll probably feel less fearful of curds and whey.
 

Phobia: Submechanophobia

Cure: Subnautica

To qualify for a diagnosis of submechanophobia, one must be irrationally afraid of submerged or partially submerged man-made objects. A good way to test this is to deliberately scupper a boat, and observe as it sinks into the sea. If after a certain amount of time, the vessel is beneath the water’s surface and you start to feel absolutely terrified, then there’s a good chance you’re a sufferer. Unless you’re still on the boat. Then your fear is entirely rational.

To face this frankly overly specific fear, we strongly recommend playing the utterly brilliant Subnautica. Not only will you be faced with both man-made and not-man-made underwater structures, but you’ll have to build some of your own. We then suggest trying to come up with an even more needlessly granular phobia: perhaps a fear of blue tennis balls or the bassoon when leaned at 45 degrees.

*Please note that as light-hearted as this article might be, phobias are, of course, a real and debilitating condition, and as silly as some may seem to others, they can be extremely upsetting for the sufferer. The author of this article, to his own dismay, suffers from a genuine phobia of crabs and lobsters (kabourophobia) alongside far more serious anxiety disorders.