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Absent Pleasures or Pleasurable Absence? Player Engagement in Minimalist Retro Horror Games

This paper examines how absence functions as a source of pleasure in minimalist retro horror games, using the 2019 freeware and 2025 full release of No Players Online as its central case.

• The paper uses the 2019 freeware and 2025 full release of No Players Online as its central case to argue that deliberately withholding conventional elements (coherent narrative, clear objectives, a central protagonist) invites players to imaginatively fill gaps, reframing absence as a source of engagement rather than a deficiency.
• Drawing on narratological concepts of undernarration and disnarration, the authors describe absence as a form of narrative and ludic seduction that sustains curiosity.
• The subgenre (labeled analog, creepy, glitch, interface, or meta horror) is linked to 1990s-era references such as early PC and console interfaces, found footage, creepypasta, and alternate reality games.