Thick rain is pouring from the foreboding, black skies. The man in the suit pounds at the door. \u201cMara! Open up. It\u2019s me. We\u2019re going to be late.\u201d He continues hammering away, his rage growing. \u201cDid you change the locks on me?!\u201d He\u2019s demanding to see \u201cthe boy,\u201d Fret. Inside, a woman sends him to go hide. The man retrieves a crowbar from his trunk, and as he smashes through a window we see Fret run up the stairs, and into his room. He grabs a guitar from his bed, and slips behind the bifold doors of his closet. Suddenly, everything is shaking, he looks at his hands, and it all disappears as the world fades to red, then black. <\/p>\n
I\u2019m barely two minutes into this demo, and already my heart is pounding. I love horror, but I\u2019ll be the first to admit that scary games do, in fact, scare me, even on a bright and sunny day during Play Days at Summer Game Fest, where I went hands-on with Don\u2019t Fret, the upcoming puzzle-infused survival horror game from Scary Kid Productions. I don\u2019t need to know who these characters are to know that the \u201cJack from The Shining\u201d energy from the man in the suit is bad news, and the intentional vagueness of who he is, and what is happening, has my brain filling in the spaces in frightening ways. It\u2019s horror at its first-impression finest, and a sign of what was in store for me. Ok, deep breath, stay calm and, most of all, don\u2019t fret. <\/p>\n
As the game begins, we see through the eyes of Fret, the young boy from the intro. Light returns as he opens his eyes, and pushes up the velvet interior of a guitar case lid with a puffy white hand that looks taken straight from a classic Mickey Mouse cartoon. That\u2019s odd. He looks down as he begins to stand up, his body now a wooden guitar \u2013 specifically, a six-string, though four of them are broken. OK, that\u2019s even stranger. As I take in my surroundings, I see I\u2019m in some sort of reception area, with a desk at the center, checkered tiles below, and music notes adorning the purple walls. Yep, this is going to be weird.<\/p>\n
As the name suggests, music is at the thematic heart of Don\u2019t Fret. That makes sense, given Scary Kid Productions\u2019 origin, as it\u2019s formed by the minds behind popular YouTube music channel Rockit Music, whose songs on everything from Skibidi Toilet to Five Nights at Freddy\u2019s to Rainbow friends have been viewed millions of times. The soundtrack itself has contributions from a who\u2019s-who of horror and internet culture-focused YouTube musicians and bands, like The Living Tombstones, The Stupendium, and JT Music. In addition to the classic survival-horror lore items, an entire 25-song album is scattered through the game, to be collected and played. <\/p>\n
Your goal in Don\u2019t Fret is to survive in this strange music school, piece together how you got there, and get out alive. The disheveled rooms, with scattered papers, stacked files, and broken windows, tell a story of a school that\u2019s been abandoned \u2013 though a cigarette on the desk, still smouldering, tells me I\u2019m not completely alone. I pick up a hat, journal, and radio off the ground. An unknown person over the radio knows my name, and warns me that I\u2019m not safe, and that I need to find a way to the main hall. I find the door to the hall, but the keypad that controls it is offline. Heading the other way, I find an administrative office, with an old desktop computer inside. Booting it up enables the G-PAD, as the control is called, though rather than numbers or a code, it asks for cords. I enter requested notes, and the way to the main hall opens. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\nDon’t Fret Screenshots<\/h3>\n