"...Every room becomes a mouth."

May 20, 2016 5:05 PM

(Content warning for pretty much the whole post: Body horror, bright flashes, and disturbing imagery abound.) Kitty Horrorshow (Itch, Twitter) is an independent game developer making fascinating, horrifying things. Minimalist horror games that go bold directions and are deeply uncomfortable experiences. Her biggest game by far, though, is ANATOMY, a game in which you explore a dark house, seeking out cassette tapes and studying the "physiology of domestic architecture".

ANATOMY has been called "weird, strange, unsettling" by Rock Paper Shotgun, "a masterpiece of cassette tape horror" by Killscreen, and "the best horror game ever" by Cool Ghosts.

The home is a terrifying thing.

posted by brecc (17 comments total)

These links require a program download and install and/or purchase.
posted by NanErwin at 5:56 PM on May 20, 2016

I do like that one of the core commands is "Leave game", mapped to the Esc(ape) key, of course.
posted by Mogur at 6:06 PM on May 20, 2016

This might be a spoiler but a single playthrough is supposed to last 30-45 minutes and you have to play through it multiple times.

I have opened and closed this game 8 times tonight because wow, this game's atmosphere is unbelievably terrifying. That fear of taking a single step forward is better than even PT.

Also it's dedicated to Shirley Jackson which makes me even more terrified to continue.
Maybe tomorrow, in bright light, I'll get through it once, perhaps more.
We'll see.
posted by Neronomius at 6:09 PM on May 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

Not a game

Don't
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 7:12 PM on May 20, 2016

It's dark out and I am prone to nightmares so I think I will leave it alone for now. But it sounds great, like House of Leaves in game form. So maybe tomorrow.
posted by Beethoven's Sith at 7:45 PM on May 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

All I'm going to say is, I do not like the feng shui in there. I think I need daylight for this.
posted by Room 641-A at 11:43 PM on May 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

I was afraid of a couch.
posted by Room 641-A at 11:48 PM on May 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

My boyfriend just started this game up and I nearly sprang off the couch yelling "DON'T PLAY THAT NEXT TO ME I DON'T WANT TO BE SCARED"
posted by babelfish at 9:53 AM on May 21, 2016

Alright, I'm back, I have now beaten the game according to the developers note she left in the game folder.

Wow. This might be my favourite horror game, ever. Anatomy makes you go through this house, and it could be your house, or anyones. The way it guides you, the way you advance, it teases you a little bit. It'll say something like "now go into this room." after an audiotape compares that room to a heart, or the brain, it's deliciously scary. In my earlier comment I mentioned that it's dedicated to Shirley Jackson and The Haunting of Hill House is the perfect inspiration.

I would recommend, to getting through it it's just too much, to alt-tab instead of pressing escape to quit. You have to play through a run all at once so if you're halfway through or almost done and you decide to nope out then you'll have to start at the beginning. Alt-tab means you can take a little break, pet your kitty cat, grab some tea, and then finish it off. Enjoy it, it's utterly superb.
posted by Neronomius at 11:49 AM on May 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

I just played it twice. I'm excited/terrified to play it again later tonight, in the dark.
posted by Room 641-A at 1:41 PM on May 21, 2016

Any idea how to play through from scratch (I'm on OSX, in case it's one of those "delete cache x in folder y" things)? I just played through once before realizing that my wife will likely want to go through the full experience when she gets home.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 5:00 PM on May 21, 2016

ANATOMY is a bad game and Kitty Horrorshow is bad for making it and brecc is bad for posting it here.
posted by Room 641-A at 7:54 PM on May 21, 2016

Wow, so I went through it once and was thinking, ok that wasn't scary at all and you people are crazy. But then, holy crap, it's 1000% scarier on the second run through.

I'm a little afraid to do the third round.
posted by silverstatue at 6:54 PM on May 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

I bought it but now I'm afraid to even play round one.
posted by olya at 10:39 PM on May 22, 2016

It won't work on OS X 10.6.8 for me. Anyone got a link for the devs?
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:31 PM on May 25, 2016

There's a link for their twitter.
posted by rifflesby at 4:54 PM on May 25, 2016

Any idea how to play through from scratch (I'm on OSX, in case it's one of those "delete cache x in folder y" things)? I just played through once before realizing that my wife will likely want to go through the full experience when she gets home.

Thanks to help from Neronomius, we discovered you can reset the game once it's been played through. The Read Me with the spoilers explains how to do it at the bottom of the doc, presumably for a PC. If you're on a Mac, you'll have to try some of the usual Mac variations of adding the cmd, option, etc keys. Neither of us are sure which extra key worked but you'll know when you restart the game.
posted by Room 641-A at 3:50 PM on May 29, 2016