Horror puzzle Haunted house Mystery and detective horror

Kinophobia

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An exorcist, a cursed film studio and fifty years of deaths to explain.

Platforms: Browser, PC, Mac, Linux
Stores: itch.io
Price: Pay what you want
Rated: 5.0/5 from 27 ratings on itch.io
Length: about 6 hours
Players: 1
Controls: Type commands such as EXAMINE, OPEN, INVENTORY and directions (N, S); CONSULT your notebook; type ABOUT first
Made by: Bruno Dias
Released: 2025

What frightens You are a hired exorcist on a derelict Los Angeles studio lot where workers bleed from their eyes and machinery dies; to end a fifty-year curse you must work out how dozens of people bound to the place lived and died, handling cursed objects and murder weapons and slipping into hallucinated visions of grotesque horror.
Content: gore, suicide, vomiting, disturbing imagery.

Kinophobia is a text adventure by Bruno Dias: you are hired to exorcise a haunted Los Angeles film studio by working out how the people bound to it died. Part research puzzle, part grisly ghost story, it plays free in the browser.

About Kinophobia

Kinophobia is a parser interactive fiction game by Bruno Dias, released on itch.io in late 2025 and made with Inform 7. Its maker calls it a database thriller in the spirit of Return of the Obra Dinn, The Roottrees are Dead and Immortality, covered head to toe in blood.

You play a contract exorcist. A studio lot in Los Angeles has changed hands half a dozen times; its newest owners have found what the others did, that structural engineers end up in hospital, crews report people bleeding from their eyes, machinery dies and contractors vanish. You park inside the gate with a ring binder, a notebook, an amulet and your phone, and set out to end a fifty-year curse inscribed in blood and celluloid.

Play is by typed commands. You explore the buildings, read documents and newspaper clippings, look people up through an assistant on your phone, and write down suspicions in a notebook that tracks your conclusions about the dozens of characters whose lives and deaths are tied to the lot, across a made-up history of cinema from 1970s New Hollywood to 1990s schlock. The maker promises cursed objects and murder weapons to handle, hallucinatory visions of grotesque horror, and deaths of your own.

It runs in the browser and also downloads for Windows, Mac and Linux, with a short manual for newcomers to parser games, a map and in-game hints. It is long, about six hours by its maker's count, and suits patient players who like deduction games and do not mind gore in their ghost stories.

How to play Kinophobia

Open the game's itch.io page and play in the browser, or download it for Windows, Mac or Linux.
Type ABOUT first; newcomers can read the short manual that comes with it.
Explore by typing directions and EXAMINE anything of interest; take what you can.
Look things up on your phone and CONSULT your notebook to see your research and conclusions.
Record what you suspect about each person's fate, and use the hints if you get stuck.

Screenshots

Kinophobia's opening in the browser: the exorcist checks the trunk of an old Honda and lists a ring binder, notebook, amulet and phone

A Kinophobia screen: a 1987 newspaper clipping on the death of director Gregory Korda, then the player looking him up

Kinophobia's in-game map of VISTA Studios West: sound stages 11 to 14, production and service buildings, lots and avenues

Tips

Keep the map open as you explore; the lot is large.
Write your own notes in the notebook with WRITE ... IN NOTEBOOK.
Read every clipping and document fully: names and dates in them unlock your next research.