How to build a horror gaming website with WordPress

Decide what the site must do before changing colours and fonts. A useful starting structure is Home, Reviews, News, Guides, Games and About. Use categories for platforms, franchises, genres or review scores rather than creating a separate page for every filter.

Keep the main menu short. Put less-used links such as contact, privacy and submission guidelines in the footer. Prepare several post titles and featured images so you can judge the layout with real content.

For a basic site, no plugin is required. Activate a block theme, then open Appearance > Editor. The Site Editor lets you change global styles, headers, footers, templates and navigation with blocks. It is available when a block theme is active.

If you use a classic theme, you will usually split the work between the Customizer, page editor and theme-specific settings. That can be fine for a small site, but the controls vary by theme and you may need custom CSS for unusual layouts. Do not switch themes on a live site without checking the header, menus, widgets and post templates first.

Create or edit the homepage with a full-width Cover or Group block, a dark background image, a readable heading and one clear button such as “Read the latest reviews”. Add a short introduction, then arrange the main content into sections for featured reviews, latest news, guides and popular games.

Use a Query Loop block to display posts by category, tag or other query settings. Its layout can be changed with grid, columns, Group and other blocks, so you can build card-style review sections without writing a template.

Set the page as the site homepage under Settings > Reading if WordPress is not already using it. Check the mobile preview before adding more decorative effects.

Open the Site Editor’s Styles panel and set the palette, typography, link colours and layout width globally. A dark charcoal background, one accent colour and a light text colour are easier to maintain than several competing neon colours. The Styles panel applies typography, colours and layout settings across the site and can also target individual blocks.

Use one display font for headings and a highly readable font for article text. Keep body text large enough on mobile, maintain strong contrast and avoid placing long paragraphs over busy artwork. The common Friday problem is a dark overlay that looks fine on a desktop monitor but makes review text unreadable on a phone.

Edit the single post template so every review has the same structure: featured image, title, metadata, table of contents if needed, article content, screenshots or video, verdict and related posts. Edit the archive or category template to show the category name, description and a consistent post grid.

Use template parts for the header and footer so one change applies across the site. In the Site Editor, templates control layouts for posts, pages and other page types, while template parts hold repeating areas such as headers and footers.

Save before leaving the editor and check the search results, 404 page and older posts. A template change can affect every post that uses it, not just the article currently open.

Edit the header’s Navigation block and add links to your main pages and categories. The Navigation block lets you manage the menu structure and design inside the editor. Add a compact mobile menu if the theme supports it, and keep the logo link pointed at the homepage.

Test the site as a visitor on a phone and desktop. Check menu links, category archives, search, post pagination, image cropping, keyboard focus, contrast and loading speed. Compress large screenshots, avoid autoplay video and confirm that every image has useful alternative text. If a menu or header seems to disappear after a theme change, inspect the active header template part before rebuilding it.

If you want the layout finished quickly, use Horr instead of assembling the visual system from a general-purpose theme. It is designed for horror gaming sites and includes horror-focused demos, typography and gaming layouts, with block-editor editing for pages and content.

Import the closest demo, replace its logo, colours, menu, hero artwork and sample posts, then review the templates on mobile. Horr also provides layouts for reviews, news, video or image posts, galleries and a WooCommerce store, so it is useful when the site may grow beyond a simple blog. Treat the imported demo as a starting layout: remove unused sections and replace every placeholder image and link before launch.