If you scream while playing Don't Scream you have to restart the game

Some games tell you everything you need to know in the title. Don't Starve is a classic example. It's a game about how you need to eat to live. Don't Scream is the same, only there's an added layer of challenge. It's a horror game where, if you scream in real life, the game starts over.

Of course, that means you need a microphone to play it. As Don't Scream's Steam page explains, "You must calibrate your microphone in-game so that every whimper, jump, or even a minor squeak is registered as a scream, increasing the challenge." That doesn't mean you can't make any noise—low talking is acceptable—but even a "quiet gasp" counts as a failure. "You could bypass calibration to shout through scares," the developers go on to explain, "but it'd spoil the thrill. For a genuine horror experience play as designed."

Don't Scream aims to replicate a found-footage horror movie like The Blair Witch Project, only with a runtime of 18 minutes instead of 81. You explore the spooky Pineview Forest with a camcorder, and the timer only ticks down when you move. There will apparently be "dozens of dynamic scares" to test your bravery along the way.

What happens if you make it to the end of the 18-minute runtime? Since Don't Scream apparently hasn't "no story" but plenty of "lore", I don't expect there'll be much to its climax beyond a final jumpscare and a Steam achievement, but it's about the journey not the destination, as incredibly tiresome people love to explain.

Don't Scream is being made by two indie developers who go by Joure & Joe. It's scheduled to release into early access on October 27 this year, and the developers plan to add more scares, expanded lore, optional objectives, and more over the course of its time in early access.

Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.

Read more
The outlast trials setting
'You just have to make them think this world is real, and this world can hurt you': The Outlast Trials devs discuss a changing horror genre and an insatiable need for scares
White Knuckle trailer still
Ascend through 'ten thousand meters of concrete and decay' in this horrifying 'first-person roguelite speed-climbing game'
A TV with immersive lighting showing a ghost from Phasmophobia on screen.
Terrifying horror nopefest Phasmophobia combined with immersive room lighting looks like an easy way to give yourself a chronic case of the brown trousers
The outlast trials personal pick
Sure, I'm scared of my own shadow, but that doesn't stop me from forcing my friends to play The Outlast Trials with me
A man turns away from an open window while monsters gather in the dark
Look Outside is a survival horror RPG where you absolutely should not look outside
A tall children's toy made of dough
Poppy Playtime Chapter 4 is out so get ready to meet 'Doey the Doughman' and find out if he really is 'fun until the day that you die'
Latest in Horror
The new Prime Asset featured in the upcoming update for the Outlast Trials.
The Outlast Trials puts its already paranoid players under surveillance for a time-limited story event
The outlast trials setting
'You just have to make them think this world is real, and this world can hurt you': The Outlast Trials devs discuss a changing horror genre and an insatiable need for scares
Silent Hill f transmission trailer screenshots
Silent Hill f is no longer banned in Australia, but it still sounds pretty messed up
One of Repo's player characters, resembling a yellow pedal bin with googly eyes, encounters a skeletal, open mouthed face with glowing yellow eyes.
REPO dev says it wasn’t actually inspired by Lethal Company, and started as a singleplayer cleaning game: ‘It was nice, but far from what REPO is now’
Uplifted chimp Penn and cyber-rat Trip in the key art for Animal Use Protocol
Animal Use Protocol's dysfunctional chimp-rat alliance drags the Stasis series into a horrible new first-person era
A woman with short hair stands next to a pot plant, provocatively
GOG's version of Silent Hill 4 has been updated with missing content from the original console game
Latest in News
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened
Junah beginning a battle in Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Today's RPG fans are 'very sensitive to feeling like they wasted time' when they die, says Metaphor: ReFantazio battle planner—but Atlus still made combat hard anyway
Image of Cersei Lanniser from Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Steam early access trailer
A new Game of Thrones RPG is coming to Steam today with a cast of 'familiar faces,' which is good because it's really the only way to tell it's a GoT game at all
The new Prime Asset featured in the upcoming update for the Outlast Trials.
The Outlast Trials puts its already paranoid players under surveillance for a time-limited story event
A Viera looking confused in Final Fantasy 14.
Old armor continues to fall victim to Final Fantasy 14's bizarre two-channel dye system, unless you're super into changing the colour of teeny-tiny eyelets: 'Why even bother at this point?'
Starfield: Shattered Space
By the time Bethesda was on Starfield, you'd 'basically get in trouble' for breaking schedule, says former dev: 'A lot of the great stuff within Skyrim came from having the freedom to do what you want'