Psychological horror Short horror PS1 horror

Perfect Vermin

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Smash an empty office with a sledgehammer and exterminate every vermin.

Platforms: PC, Linux
Stores: Steam, itch.io
Price: Free
Rated: Very Positive on Steam (93% of 3,889 reviews)
Length: about half an hour
Players: 1
Made by: Talia bob Mair, Angad Matharoo
Released: 2020

Get it on Steam itch.io (Windows, Linux)

What frightens Armed with a sledgehammer and a ticking timer, you smash desks, chairs, toilets and vending machines across an empty office to find and kill the vermin hiding inside. Between floors a grinning pixel-art news anchor reports on your work, and with each visit he looks worse, while the walls fill with blood and strange signs. The meaning of what you are destroying sinks in slowly and leaves an unpleas
Content: gore, blood, violent destruction, substance abuse, terminal illness.

Perfect Vermin is a free, short first-person horror game by Talia bob Mair and Angad Matharoo. Against a timer, you smash office furniture with a sledgehammer to find the vermin hiding inside, while a news anchor between floors slowly reveals what your work is really doing.

About Perfect Vermin

Perfect Vermin is a free game made by Talia bob Mair and Angad Matharoo, with sound by Chris Dang and music by Daniel Shypilov. It came out on Steam in November 2020 for Windows and is also on itch.io with Windows and Linux builds.

The task is simple. You are handed a sledgehammer and told to exterminate all vermin in an empty office building. Desks, chairs, cubicles, toilets and appliances all break apart, and the vermin hide inside them. A timer runs on every floor, and when it ends you ride the lift back to a pixel-art news desk where an anchor comments on how you did.

The smashing feels good, and that is part of the trick. The office grows bloodier and stranger as you go, the anchor looks worse each time you see him, and the store's own warnings about substance abuse and terminal illness hint at what the game is really about. It is better played without knowing more.

The whole thing takes about half an hour, though hidden achievements and a speedrun goal give a reason to replay. It suits players who like short, symbolic horror such as Paratopic or Isolomus, and anyone curious about a horror game built around destruction rather than hiding. The itch.io page warns it does not run well on some older Intel laptops.

How to play Perfect Vermin

Download it free from Steam or itch.io.
Swing the sledgehammer at furniture and appliances to break them apart.
Find and kill the vermin hidden inside before the floor timer runs out.
Return to the lift to hear the news report and move on to the next floor.
Replay for the hidden achievements once you have seen the ending.

Screenshots

A sledgehammer held over an empty open-plan office with cubicles and orange chairs

The news anchor holding his head in his hands, his face covered in growths, next to a screen of a bloody office

A smashed, bloody toilet stall in a blue office bathroom with the sledgehammer in view

A room whose walls and floor are covered with red and white warning signs, a door at the far end

Tips

Break everything; the vermin can hide in almost any object.
Listen for movement to find the last few vermin when the timer is low.
Watch the news anchor closely between floors; he tells the story.
If the game crashes on start, check the Steam forum's fixes for the launch options.