Horror puzzle Horror escape Analog horror Horror PS1 horror

Is this Game Trying to Kill Me?

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Win his computer game and he lets you go. Lose and you stay.

Platforms: PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch
Price: Paid
Rated: Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam (95% of 1,701 reviews); Metacritic 80
Players: 1
Made by: Stately Snail
Released: 2024

Get it on Steam PlayStation Store Xbox Nintendo eShop Official site

What frightens On a rainy night you are trapped in a shack in the forest by its fanged, grinning owner, who makes you play a pixel game on his old computer for your freedom. The game and the room are linked: its traps start to appear around you, what you do in the shack changes the game, and losing means dying.
Content: blood, violence, many ways to die.

Is this Game Trying to Kill Me? is a first-person horror puzzle game by Stately Snail. Trapped in a forest shack, you play a retro game on its owner's old computer to win your freedom, while the game's traps come into the room with you and the puzzles in both worlds decide whether you live.

About Is this Game Trying to Kill Me?

Is this Game Trying to Kill Me? is a horror puzzle game by Stately Snail, released on Steam in November 2024. It is also on PlayStation, Xbox and Switch, published there by Sometimes You.

It is late at night and raining when you wander into a shack deep in the forest. Its owner, a grinning figure with fangs and a wide-brimmed hat, has an idea to pass the time: a special computer game. Win it and there is a reward. Lose and you will be staying a lot longer than you planned.

You play in first person at the old CRT computer and around the shack. On the screen is a pixel game of rooms, characters and challenges, such as guessing where the joker is or playing hide-and-seek with a leering goblin. Off the screen you search the shack's rooms, candles, symbols and objects for clues. The two are linked: traps from the game turn up in reality, and what you do in the cabin changes the computer game. There are many ways to die and more than one ending.

Its look is stylised, with a cartoonish monster host, but the threat of a sudden death is always there. It suits players who liked Inscryption's mix of a captor, a game and an escape room, and anyone who likes horror they can think their way through.

How to play Is this Game Trying to Kill Me?

Buy the game on Steam, PlayStation, Xbox or Switch and start a new game.
Sit at the old computer and play the pixel game its owner has set up for you.
When the screen game stalls, get up and search the shack for clues, objects and mechanisms.
Use what you find in the room to change the game, and what you learn in the game to open parts of the room.
When you die, learn from the trap that got you and try again.

Screenshots

The shack's owner, a fanged creature in a fur-trimmed coat, stands by candles on a table inside the cabin

The old computer screen shows a pixel skeleton dealing five green cards under the words Guess where the joker is

A device in the middle of a chalk circle of symbols with red candles, on the floor of the forest shack

On the computer screen a goblin in a green hat says you must first play hide-and-seek with him

Tips

Check the shack whenever something changes on the computer screen; the two worlds affect each other.
Write down symbols, numbers and patterns you see on the screen and on the walls.
Expect to die more than once; many traps teach you what not to do.
Look for the other endings after you finish.