A twisted horror game challenges users to play for 18 minutes without screaming or they lose.
‘Don’t Scream,’ released in October on Steam,was inspired by ’90s camcorder found footage, like The Blair Witch Project movie in 1999, where users explore a dark forest using a video camera and only have to survive the night.
The Blair Witch Project tells the tale of three film students who’ve traveled to a small town to collect documentary footage about the Blair Witch, a legendary local murderer, and only their camcorder was found.
Don’t Scream follows a similar format with a first-person view, and the timestamp in the bottom left of the screen.
But in order to play, users must hook up a microphone to the gaming system.
‘Any scream, gasp, or squeak into your microphone restarts the game,’ developers Joe Henson and Joure Visser said.
‘With dozens of dynamic scares and many locations and relics to discover, each playthrough offers a unique and terrifying experience.
‘Every step you take could be your last…’
In ‘Don’t Scream’, the player must make their way through the mysterious Pineview Forest for 18 minutes without screaming or making a noise
The Blair Witch Project tells the tale of three film students who’ve traveled to a small town to collect documentary footage about the Blair Witch, a legendary local murderer, and only their camcorder was ever found
Despite receiving mixed reviews on Steam, the game found success with streamers and fans of the indie horror genre, generating nearly $1 million in the first two weeks of its early access launch.
Joure and Joe admitted that players can make the game easier by bypassing the microphone calibration, but add that ‘it’d spoil the thrill.’
The goal is to collect batteries for the camcorder, which are hidden throughout the mysterious, dark forest where there are farm houses, abandoned mines and other eerie locations.
Players will run into hunters and other eerie beings
It uses an eerie VHS aesthetic for maximum spookiness, which Joure and Joe said adds an extra level of uncertainty that it brings to the game.
‘We love the raw look of camcorders. The grainy effects make the horror even more intense,’ they explained.
‘It makes you wonder: Did I really see something scary far away, or was it just the camera playing tricks on me.”
And, designed in the advanced Unreal Engine 5, the graphics are so good you could almost forget it is a game. It is available on Steam for $14.99.
The goal is to collect batteries for the camcorder, which are hidden throughout the mysterious, dark forest where there are farm houses, abandoned mines and other eerie locations
Players will need to calibrate their microphones so that even the slightest gasp or whimper will register and cause the game to restart
With significant optimization from Joure and Joe, the game should run on most decent computers, as the minimum requirement is 8 GB RAM and a Nvidia GeForce 1080 TI or AMD 6800-XT graphics card.
In the comments for the game’s trailer on YouTube, commenters excitedly discussed the prospects of a virtual reality version of the game.
‘Imagining if they do bring this to VR makes my skin crawl,’ wrote one commenter.
Another added: ‘ok now make a vr version NOW please’.
There are no plans for any multiplayer content, as Don’t Scream is intended to be an offline experience only.
Joure and Joe are no strangers to this style of game development, having made another found-footage-style horror game in October 2022.
The game, Paranormal Tales, asks the player to experience different tragic and mysterious stories in a body-cam style video created in Unreal Engine 5.
The game started as a passion project between the two horror fans and soon amassed millions of views and a number of positive reviews.
