Today we’re diving back into the world of psychological horror with the Japanese game The Exit 8. This game is a walking simulator, except the purpose is to escape a single underground passageway that you’re stuck in. Every time you round the corner, you find yourself back in the same hallway you just left.

The rules are simple. You start at Exit 0 and walk down the hall. If you notice something changed or abnormal in the hallway, turn around and go back the way you came. If you don’t notice anything out of the ordinary, keep going.

Once you round that corner, if your exit sign on the wall has moved up a digit, then you’re one step closer to finding Exit 8 and escaping. If it has reset back to Exit 0, then you made a mistake and will be starting your journey over.

You need to pay attention to details in this game, because some changes can be extremely subtle. Like the guy in the hallway smiling as he walks:

Or perhaps more obvious, like the eyes of this poster darting back and forth instead of staring straight ahead.

Or they’ll be glaringly obvious, like walking into the hall to find it covered in no smoking posters:

Some of the abnormalities are sounds, like the vents clicking noise will be slightly different. Or there will be a banging noise coming from one of the doors on the right. Sometimes it will just be a slight change to a poster on the wall, and if you haven’t studied the posters, you might miss it.

There are 32 anomalies, and you might be exposed to a random one every time you go down the hallway. If you can successfully avoid all anomalies, you’ll find yourself at Exit 8, which is a stairway back to the surface. I won’t give away too many of the anomalies, but here are a few others to look out for:

That last one is the closest to a game over you get. A rushing river of red water comes at you quick, and if you don’t turn around and run, it will overtake you and the screen will go black, before you find yourself back at Exit 0.

The Japanese developer (KOTAKE CREATE) also made a sequel game of sorts, called Platform 8. It’s the exact same premise, except this time you’re stuck on a subway line, trying to find your way to the front train car.

And if you enjoy these kind of games, there’s yet another game called Shinkansen 0, made by Chilla’s Art, a small 2-person indie development team who makes Japanese horror games. As you may know, the Shinkansen is what we English-speakers call the bullet train. This is a very similar game to Platform 8, except for a few more horror twists in it.