IMSCARED

About IMSCARED

IMSCARED, first released as freeware in 2012 as Imscared: A Pixelated Nightmare and on Steam in 2016, is a horror game by the Italian developer Ivan Zanotti, made with Game Maker. It went viral through let's plays on YouTube and is an early example of meta horror. In 2022 it was remade for its tenth anniversary with a higher resolution and frame rate. On Steam you can still pick the 2016 version from the game's properties, and itch.io offers both the 2022 and 2016 downloads. An Android port followed in October 2024.

On the surface it is simple. You walk through crude, blocky first-person rooms, small and dark with narrow corridors, find keys, open doors and look for the way out. You start in a room with a door marked Exit that will not open without a heart. The store page asks you to read the explanation at the start of the game carefully, and warns that the game will try to deceive you as many times as it can.

It keeps its word. The game creates a folder on your desktop and drops notes and pictures into it as you play, some of them helping and some mocking you. Early on it asks for a name you will only find by looking at your desktop. White Face hunts you through the dark, a sound tells you it is near, and if it catches you, you lose. The game also fakes crashes, each one leaving more clues behind, and to finish you have to work with the files outside the game as much as the rooms inside it.

The scares come from that uncertainty and from being chased in the dark, more than from gore. The maker warns that it deals with heavy themes such as suicide and loneliness, and that Windows may flag the game as a virus; the maker says it is virus free. It suits players curious about early meta horror that plays with your own computer, and who do not mind rough movement and pixel graphics.

How to play IMSCARED

1. Read the explanation at the start of the game carefully, as the store page asks.
2. Walk the first-person rooms, picking up keys and items and opening doors.
3. Check the folder the game creates on your desktop when something changes.
4. Listen for the sound that warns you White Face is near, and get away; if it catches you, you lose.
5. Use what you find in the files to get past the places the game will not let you through.

Tips

• When the game asks for a name, check your desktop.
• Keep the desktop folder open in a window you can check quickly.
• If your antivirus blocks the game, the maker suggests whitelisting it and then turning your protections back on.
• The maker notes that OneDrive can cause problems with the desktop files.
• Crouch with the CTRL key to pick up small things on the floor.

Questions