Labhorror

A first-person horror set in a locked mansion the size of a city block. Carry three scrolls out of a 200-metre labyrinth while a man with an axe walks its corridors. Your flashlight is the only thing he will not walk into.

You are not a hero. You are a contractor.

The paperwork calls it an extraction job: enter the mansion, recover three artifacts, walk back out, and the corporation wipes what is left of your sentence. The fine print mentions an outsider on the premises, armed. The briefing gives you exactly one useful fact about him — he cannot stand direct light in the eyes.

The mansion is a labyrinth of 200 by 200 metres: five-metre corridors under 4.6-metre ceilings, sixteen halls swallowed into the floor plan, and lamps that stand like islands in the dark. The building does not light itself for you. Between the lamps there is only the cone of your flashlight, and that  cone is also your weapon — a short protective burst that pushes him back and then leaves you in the dark for two full minutes while it recovers.

He hunts by sight and by sound. He hears you sprint. He hears a bottle drop. Sixty wardrobes stand along the corridors, and behind their doors you can wait him out while the floor creaks and you count the seconds. Get it wrong and the last thing you hear is not footsteps.

The labyrinth does not remember your path — so you leave one. Throw coloured glowsticks and the corridors slowly fill with your own breadcrumb trail, up to two dozen burning at once. Drop a noise trap and he walks toward the sound instead of toward you. Drink from a bottle and your legs hold out a little longer. Every one of those is a choice made in the dark with something moving two corridors away.

The scrolls are somewhere in the building. Ten seconds of the tracker will show you where — once a minute. Take all three and the tracker turns around and points you at the only door that opens outward.

Getting in was the easy part.

KEY FEATURES:

• A 200 x 200 METRE MANSION-LABYRINTH. Five-metre corridors, 4.6-metre ceilings, sixteen halls, 145 lamps, seventy pieces of furniture. Built as a single continuous space with no loading screens.

• ONE HUNTER, NO WEAPONS. A man with an axe walks the corridors, hunts by sight and sound, and never stops. You cannot fight him. You can blind him for a moment, hide from him, or outrun him — nothing else.

• THE FLASHLIGHT IS A RESOURCE. Six seconds of protective light, then two minutes of darkness while the charge comes back. Spend it wrong and the next encounter is unarmed.

• SIXTY PLACES TO HIDE. Step into a wardrobe, hold still, and listen to how close he passes.

• LEAVE YOUR OWN LIGHT BEHIND. Infinite coloured glowsticks, up to 24 burning at once, turn an amnesiac labyrinth into a map you drew yourself.

• NOISE IS A TOOL. 24 noise traps pull him away from where you need to be. 36 water bottles keep your stamina alive.

• A TRACKER, NOT A MAP. Ten seconds of scroll vision, sixty seconds of cooldown — and after the third scroll it points to the exit.

• SET UP YOUR OWN RUN. Three difficulty profiles, plus switches for hiding spots, noise lures, glowsticks and the ceiling lamps. Turn off the lights and the mansion becomes a different game.

• A PROLOGUE THAT IS NOT A MENU. The job starts in a prison cell, with the terms read out loud.

• NEW ARTIFACT POSITIONS EVERY RUN. Each new game rolls a fresh seed for the three scrolls.

• 5 STEAM ACHIEVEMENTS.

There is no safe route. There is only the one you can still walk back.