The literal horror version of “Videogames have come a long way since Pac-Man”.

Lately I’ve been lacking motivation to get into new games. Not only for a lack of time after work, but mainly energy to sink my brain power and playtime on anything that isn’t deeply engraved in my Gamer Thumbs.

It Steals does bite sized horror perfectly and is very much what I needed. Made by future Lethal Company developer Zeekerss, it’s a first person collectathon (?) in a maze with a big scary monster called Legs trying to kill you. Orbs are scattered around the map and can be found with a dangerously slow radar. Legs is constantly skulking around corners trying to find your blindspot, but just looking at it scares the thing away. It’s fun and simple. The game modes unlocked are excellent in maximizing the concept, with hide and seek and shutter mode being my favourites.

The arcade nature of its gameplay somehow doesn’t detract from the heartracing tension, since most deaths give the player small setbacks but also feel somewhat fair, like you’re on the cusp of getting away with grabbing an orb, or turning around a corner.

Which is what drags the game down for me in the later gamemodes. Living walls and phantom mode are sort of neat ideas but require five or ten more orbs than they should. It just doesn’t fit their cautious and longer play style in my opinion.

Zeekerss was a Roblox developer and, yeah, this certainly feels like a (good) Roblox game. So instead of incentivizing usage of a digital sweatshop for minors, maybe we can give five dollars to small projects like this on Steam and get more games like Lethal Company every now and then. Can you imagine the crazy shit people behind Phantom Forces would do, unshackled from the Roblox mines?

So yeah, play this. It’s short, good and cheap. And will probably startle you a bunch.