Vacant

About Vacant

Vacant is a short narrative horror game by doublecrow, made in Godot and drawn in soft pixel art. Its premise is simple: film a ghost-hunting show. Two friends drive out to the woods at sunset, step through a gap in a chain-link fence past a No Trespassing sign, and go into an abandoned building with a camera.

It plays side-on. You walk left and right through dim rooms, pick what to say from short dialogue choices and press a key to look at things. The friends banter like people making a low-budget show, and the building answers with scrawled messages on the walls and noises that move around you. The maker strongly recommends headphones, because many of the sounds are directional.

The horror builds through the story more than through scares, toward the building's past. The maker's content warnings name suicide, character death, enclosed spaces, loud or sudden noises, and discussion of a cult and mass suicide.

It suits players who like story-driven horror and ghost-hunting shows. The downloads for Windows and Mac run better than the browser version, which the maker says can be buggy in Chrome.

How to play Vacant

1. Click Run Game and wait for it to load; Firefox or the download may run better than Chrome.
2. Walk left and right with A and D or the arrow keys.
3. Choose what to say with A and D or the arrows, and confirm with E or Space.
4. Explore the building and follow the conversation to the end of the shoot.

Screenshots

Tips

• Wear headphones; the sounds tell you where things are.
• Turn on subtitles in the menu if you want every line written.
• It does not run properly in mobile browsers; play on a computer.

Questions