‘PAPERENTS’ Sees Unsettling Things While Stuck in Bed

PAPERENTS has you live through several horrifying nights as a paralyzed child, constantly asking yourself who will help or hurt you.

You’ve just moved into a new home and your family seems excited at the prospect of a new start. However, any positive feelings you may have had about this move are soon dashed by your father hiding his liquor bottles and smokes in your room. Pretty great secret to ask your ten-year-old child to have to keep for you, right? Plus, something seems a little bit off about your mother and father. And the posters around the room seem to be shifting around and peering at you. Even the child who comes by your window to warn you about this strange new home doesn’t seem quite right.

Things get disturbing in a hurry. This haunting has no interest in wasting time before it kills you. The very first night, you’ll be met with some creepy sights that need to be banished by the light at your bedside. Still, this doesn’t seem to do much to keep everything at bay, instead just prolonging the inevitable as the hauntings grow stranger. Your parents grow increasingly creepier, their bodies seemingly falling apart as the haunting closes in around you. While your character’s first instinct may be to call out to their parents for help, is that really the wisest decision any more? The game quickly makes you question any thought of getting help as the people who are supposed to care for you seem like they’re becoming more monstrous by the moment.

PAPERENTS is a rapid build horror that swiftly erodes any sense of safety you might have from others, playing with your hope that someone might come help this paralyzed child. It’s a gut punch of a horror game that wastes absolutely none of its short play time.

PAPERENTS is available now on itch.io.

About The Author

Joel Couture

Joel has been covering indie games for various sites including IndieGames.com, Siliconera, Gamasutra, Warp Door, CG Magazine, and more over the past seven years, and has written book-length studies on Undertale and P.T.. Joel is constantly on the lookout for digital experiences that push the boundaries of what games can be, and seeks to delve into the creative process, meanings, and emotion labor that goes into the work of artists worldwide.