Video Game / It Steals

RUN

AROUND EVERY CORNER

It Steals is a 2020 maze-roaming horror game in which the player must navigate a checkered labyrinth while avoiding monsters with unique mechanics for each of the game's five modes. It was created by Zeekerss and released on Steam on July 22nd, 2020.

The game features five different modes, each featuring different mechanics for both the player and the monster. The core mechanic of moving through a maze and collecting strange blue orbs remains the same in every mode. Completing each mode rewards a star on the main menu.

The modes include:

• Classic: Collect 14 orbs while being chased by a creature named Legs. You have a flashlight which can be used to scare Legs away, but if you do this too many times he will enrage and chase you.
• Shutter Mode: Similar to Classic. There are only 9 orbs, but you can only keep Legs at bay by using a camera with a limited battery life.
• Hide and Seek: An unnamed black and white monster hides around the maze. Coming too close to the monster causes it to go into "seeking" mode, where you must hide from it. Upon finding you, it chases you, smashing through any walls in its path.
• Living Halls: The maze is full of monsters that blend into the walls and will attack if you come close. When the timer reaches 0, all the monsters near you will attack automatically. To survive this, you need to hide in one of three vaults until the timer resets.
• The Phantom: The Phantom is invisible, but you are also invisible to it. Making too much noise by moving furniture will alert the Phantom to your presence. If it finds you, your only chance is to catch it with one of your devices.

The game has received praise for having unique mechanics, most notably in the Phantom mode.

---

Tropes:

• Abandoned Area: There are several implications that the maze the game takes place in was once inhabited by other people.
• Artificial Brilliance: The AI at times seems aware of how the player will behave, and responds accordingly:
  • For example, Legs is aware that light allows you to see, meaning that it will appear from behind in Classic mode but from any direction in Shutter Mode.
  • It also knows that you can't see around walls, so when mimicking an orb it always hides around a corner, allowing you to see the light but not what's producing it.
  • The black and white monster will often hide in an area near an orb, increasing your chances of running into it. It will also change postions constantly, forcing you to always be on the lookout for it.
  • The same monster is also able to narrow down your hiding position while seeking for you, by repeatedly checking the same area more and more thoroughly each time.
  • Chasing monsters may not always take a straight path to your location in order to throw you off.
• Artificial Stupidity: The black and white monster's pathfinding during the chase segment isn't that good, which can cause it to run back and forward past you several times without noticing you. It's easier to see in the Junkyard, which is the harder version of Hide and Seek.
• The Assimilator: If the Walls' comments about wanting the player to "become a part of the maze" is meant literally, then this is what ends up happening to their victims.
• Barrier-Busting Blow: The monster in Hide and Seek can smash through walls while enraged.
• Beast in the Maze: Each game mode involves one or several monsters chasing you through the maze.
• Berserk Button: None of the monsters like catching you running around in their presence, unless they are already in a berserk state or you are playing in a bonus level. Legs also immediately goes for the kill if you run out of batteries in Shutter Mode.
• Blinding Camera Flash: This is your only defence against Legs in Shutter Mode.
• Can't Move While Being Watched: The monsters in Living Halls mode, as long as the clock on the radar hasn't run out.
• Chest Monster: In Classic mode, Legs can disguise itself as an orb by making its eyes glow blue and emitting the sound that an orb makes.
• Controllable Helplessness: In Classic and Shutter Mode, Legs' chase sequence can only be survived once. In its second chase, it becomes much faster and running just delays your inevitable death. It is also impossible to escape the Phantom in the hallway after collecting the last orb.
• Door Handle Scare: The wall monsters in Living Walls may attempt to open the vault doors while you're inside. While they can't actually open the door, they can make it shake and turn slightly.
• Do Well, But Not Perfect: In Hide and Seek, not finding the monster at all will cause it to call you a "bad seeker" and enter an extra-difficult enraged mode. To avoid this, it's best to find it at least once.
• Downer Ending: Almost all the endings you can get involve the protagonist getting killed by a monster.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Phantom appears as a pulsating, formless black and red mass.
• Enemy-Detecting Radar: The player receives one strapped to their arm for Living Halls, which will glow green and make noise if pointed in the direction of an enemy. It also displays the remaining time until the player needs to take shelter inside a vault.
• Evil Laugh: The Phantom lets out a drawn-out, distorted giggle as it chases the player through the final corridor after beating the last level. This is likely because it knows that there is no way for you to escape it.
• Featureless Protagonist: Pretty much the only information given about the protagonist is what their hands look like.
• Final Boss: The Phantom is the fifth and final level you unlock in linear progression, is considered the hardest level by the game itself and you only get to see the ending screen after finishing it.
• Fission Mailed: After collecting the final orb in Living Halls, you can continue playing until the walls suddenly come to life and crush you. A "game over" message pops up as if you died normally, but on the title screen you will now have the star for completing the level.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: After beating Shutter Mode, you are treated to a gallery of all the pictures you've taken during your run. Shudder Mode does the same thing, only the music is slightly distorted. Two pictures later, Legs suddenly appears and stares directly into the screen.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Several of the monsters have glowing red eyes, and in many cases this is the only way you'll know where they are unless it's too late.
• Gotta Catch Them All: In each mode, you have to collect all the glowing orbs to win.
• Guide Dang It!: The game does not tell you how the monsters work beyond a few lines of very simple instruction at the start of each run. Detailed information 'is' given to you, but only if you die a few times or beat the level first.
• Hard Mode Perks: Because the three bonus levels require more than twice the amount of blue orbs to collect and the monsters are a lot more aggressive, running no longer enrages them to compensate.
• Hide-and-Seek Horror: The Hide and Seek level initially plays with the trope by making you start as the seeker, and the main monster "hiding" from you as you try to collect orbs. If you spot him, he'll say "I'M IT" and begin to play the trope straight as he becomes the seeker after giving you a head start to sneak away from him. Should you be found, the monster will scream "FOUND YOU!", and you have to run away from the monster as it charges toward you, until the monster stops and begins to hide again, putting you in the seeker role again.
• Infinite Flashlight: The flashlight in Classic and Phantom mode never seems to run out.
• Interface Screw: In the Classic Mode bonus level, the second time Legs demands you to run, the screen will start to tilt sideways to mess with your orientation. This can make escaping Legs significantly more difficult.
• Invisible Monsters: The Phantom in its respective mode, though it does become visible if it finds you. Interestingly, you are also this to it. Until it finds you.
• Kill the Lights: When the timer in Living Halls runs out, the lights go out and the Walls no longer wait for you to look away from them. Likewise, whenever a monster goes berserk in the bonus levels the Sun' abruptly turns off.
• The Maze: All five modes take place in a large maze.
• Meat Moss: The maze is covered in this in Living Halls. Presumably it's because every wall is a disguised monster. The Labyrinth, the harder Classic mode variant, also has this trait.
• Mood Whiplash: After winning Shutter Mode, rather than a Downer Ending you're treated to a montage of the photos you've taken, most of which usually look silly. It even plays whimsical music during the montage.
• Multiple Endings: Each game mode apart from Shutter Mode gives you a different ending when completed:
  • Classic Mode: You walk through a corridor and open a door at the end. The Phantom comes out of the door and presumably kills you.
  • Hide and Seek: You are in a room with the black and white monster, which gets up and rushes at you.
  • Living Halls: The walls around you reveal themselves to be monsters and surround you.
  • The Phantom: You run through corridors filled with objects while being chased by the Phantom. You see a light a light at the end of a long corridor, but the Phantom catches you before you can reach it.
• No Name Given: The black and white monster in Hide and Seek does not have an official name.
• No Plot? No Problem!: Absolutely nothing in the game is explained, from what the monsters are, to why you have to collect the orbs, to why you're in the maze in the first place. The emphasis is very much on the gameplay and the AI of each monster instead.
• Nothing Is Scarier: Phantom mode invokes this, as it's easy to start dreading where the invisible monster may be even if it's across the map.
• Now, Where Was I Going Again?: The maze all has the same checkerboard pattern, often making it difficult to figure out if you've been somewhere. Your only help is a minimalist radar that shows the nearby layout and any nearby orbs.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: The black and white monster as well as the wall monsters have glowing red eyes. Legs usually does too, but it can change its eyes to cyan to resemble an orb.
• Red Filter of Doom: The screen will turn red whenever a monster enters its enraged state.
• Retraux: The game is intentionally pixellated to obscure the monsters and add to the fear they create.
• Run or Die: Running is usually your only option if a monster chases you, though sometimes even running won't help.
• Scare Chord: A sharp musical sting usually accompanies suddenly seeing the monster or said monster being enraged.
• Schmuck Bait: In Living Halls, you will sometimes receive messages like "Come out. It's safe. Open up." on your timer while waiting in a vault. If you do, a Wall immediately rushes into the vault and kills you.
• Stalked by the Bell: Classic, Shutter Mode and Living Halls all have a condition that effectively limits the amount of time you can spend on the level.
  • In the first two modes, Legs will enrage and chase you if you flash it enough. The second time it does this, it is much faster than you and there is no way to escape other than quickly beating the level.
  • In Shutter Mode, your camera has a limited battery life and you can only refill it by collecting orbs. This means that it has a limited number of uses before you become defenceless against Legs.
  • In Living Halls, there is a time limit displayed by your sensor, and once it runs out all the monsters near you will immediately become aggressive. To survive this, you need to hide in a vault until the timer resets. There are only three vaults and each can only be used once, so if the timer reaches zero and you've used all the vaults, you may as well be dead.
• Stealth-Based Mission: While the entire game is stealth-based, Hide and Seek and The Phantom especially require you to hide from the monsters and make no noise at all, as you have few ways of driving them off or escaping.
• Super-Speed: If Legs becomes enraged or you run out of battery in Stutter Mode, it moves so quickly that it is completely impossible to outrun. Your only hope in the former case is to stun it with the camera and make distance, while in the latter you have to collect an orb immediately or You Are Already Dead.
  • Exaggerated by Legs in Shudder Mode, as it is very difficult to even see it coming normally and nearly impossible when enraged. Your best hope is to finish the level as quickly as possible or pray that you have some long hallways to press the trigger in time.
• Unique Enemy: Some of the loading screen tips hint at a spider enemy being somewhere in the game. It shows up extremely rarely in the Hide and Seek level, slowly skittering around on the ceiling.
• Unlockable Difficulty Levels: Beating one of the first three modes will unlock a harder version of that mode, called The Labyrinth, Shudder Mode and The Junkyard respectively. These can be accessed by clicking their respective stars on the main menu.
• The Walls Are Closing In: At the end of Living Halls the walls surrounding you turn out to be monsters and crush you to death.
• Weakened by the Light: This seems to be the case with Legs, as you can drive it off using a torch or camera flash.
• Weaponized Teleportation: In The Phantom, you have two devices which can be placed on the floor, which will teleport the Phantom to the opposite side of the maze if it goes near them. This is your only hope if the Phantom enrages, as it is faster than you and will quickly catch you.

---