The Doppelganger Detection Department (D.D.D.) needs you!
That's not my Neighbor is a 2D job simulator and horror game created by Nacho Sama. It was released on February the 24th, 2024 and is exclusively playable on Microsoft Windows. It's available for a small price on its itch.io page
. The game is currently incomplete and is still being worked on. The game was inspired by Papers, Please, but with a horror twist.
In the year 1955, monsters with the ability to mimic humans called doppelgangers have become an everyday nuisance. As the new doorman of your apartment building it is your job to discern sneaky doppelgangers who wish to infiltrate from regular tenants just looking to go home. But be careful! Should you fail, both you and the tenants are going to be on the menu.
That's not my Neighbor contains examples of the following tropes:
- The '50s: As the D.D.D. worker in the intro is kind enough to inform you, the game takes place in February of 1955.
- Alliterative Name: The Doppelganger Detection Department.
- Big Good: The D.D.D., for a given measure of "good". They don't care much that their doormen keep dropping like flies and have no issue putting you, a rookie who mostly took the job because they needed the money, in life-threatening danger with no training whatsoever. That being said, they will always come when you call and take care of the doppelganger quickly and cleanly while you yourself are allowed to wait for the clean-up out in your safe fortified booth.
- Blatant Lies: Some doppelgangers really don't do a good job of impersonating. When caught in an inconsistency, a doppelganger will also resort to making obvious excuses to convince you to let it in anyway.
- Bureaucracy Simulator: You play as the doorman for an entire apartment building, tasked with checking IDs, whether the subject who wishes to enter is listed and whether they are who they say they are - with the slight twist that you're dealing with something far worse than possible burglars or con-artists.
- Critical Staffing Shortage: By the time you report for duty, it's heavily implied you might be the only doorman left. That's how much the doppelganger situation has gone out of control. Your predecessor, Henry, is fondly remembered not because he did a particularly good job, but because he managed to hold out this long without getting killed by the doppelgangers.
- Company Cross References: A man in a clown mask randomly shows up only to hand you a piece of paper. It has a headshot of a Monster Clown and reads as a warning to not play any games with him, with a link to another itch.io game for more info. This is the clown from Unlikely, another game by Nacho Sama.
- Doppelgänger: The main threat of the game. They can shapeshift into people in order to infiltrate buildings and hunt down the residents that live within, and their level and quality of impersonation varies from doppelganger to doppelganger.
- Epic Fail:
- Some doppelgangers will try to infiltrate the building while the person they're disguised as is already home. It takes the doorman only one quick call to the apartment in question to catch on and immediately call the D.D.D. on them.
- A doppelganger can be so obviously inhuman in appearance you have to wonder who it thinks it's fooling. You even have the option to point out the shoddiness of its disguise, after which it will mumble out a comically unconvincing excuse about having slept badly or something similar.
- Getting F-Rank requires you to let in every doppelganger while calling the D.D.D. on all the actual neighbors. It's not as easy as one might think, since you cannot get this rank if any real neighbor successfully enters, or if you caught even one doppelganger. There's a reason why getting F-rank is considered an achievement in itself.
- Facial Horror: The less skilled doppelgangers often have grotesque features like a tumor-shaped head or a bunch of holes in place of a mouth. They'll still try and convince you that they're totally the person on the photo though, they just slept on their side funny.
- Failed a Spot Check:
- Some doppelgangers get their human disguises almost right, with only one or two small details being incorrect. If you don't pay enough attention you might very well open the door for an impersonator and only realize once it's far too late.
- You need to shut the door after every passing subject. Otherwise the apartment building's entrance will remain open for anyone to just casually walk in.
- Featureless Protagonist: Due to the first-person perspective, we don't get a look at the player character's appearance.
- Gonk: Even some of the humans aren't guaranteed to be lookers. For instance, Roman Stilnsky, the accountant, looks a bit like a Muppet.
- Hazmat Suit: The D.D.D. employee wears a yellow one.
- Hugh Mann: Some of the more blatantly obvious doppelgangers come off as this. There's also this little note you can potentially come across on a doppelganger's Entry Permit:I'm not here to eat anyone.
I only eat human food like everyone else.
Let me in, to make my normal human meals. - Identical Twin Mistake: To complicate matters further, two residents in the building are twin models, with their only distinction being they have beauty marks on opposite cheeks. Thus, there's at least one duplicate with one "off" detail you actually are supposed to let in. Fortunately, they can also be identified by their different earrings and clothing colors.
- Imposter Forgot One Detail: Some doppelgangers can look perfectly like the person they're trying to impersonate, but their documents may be fake (i.e., no D.D.D. signature, expired ID), they're not on the list and don't have a good reason for it, or the person they're impersonating is already at home, giving them away.
- Jumpscare: If you let even one doppelganger slip past, the game will end with a pair of green, clawed, bloodied hands coming up from behind you.
- LOL, 69: The phone number of the apartment where the twin models live is 6996.
- Mistaken for an Imposter: If you screw up and have your human neighbors accidentally disposed of instead of the doppelgangers.
- Most Definitely Not a Villain: Some doppelgangers can give their entry request reason as "I'm not a doppelganger. I'm a normal human with normal behavior. Just let me in, to do my normal human activities".
- Nothing Is Scarier: While the main thing is their rather laughable attempts at human disguises, we're otherwise almost completely left in the dark about doppelgangers. All we know about their true forms is that they're green with claws, and their origins are entirely a mystery, for they could be demons, aliens, fae, or something else entirely.
- One-Hit-Point Wonder: All it takes to get you killed at the end of the day is letting in a single doppelganger, meaning that you have absolutely no room for error with them if you want to survive. It's possible to survive if you get your innocent neighbors mistakenly disposed of, though, as long as you don't let in any doppelgangers.
- Point-and-Click: Gameplay consists of inspecting paperwork, looking for inconsistencies via the documents provided to you and comparing the people coming to your booth with their photos and profiles in your files. As well as calling the D.D.D. if they don't.
- Pokémon Speak: All Peach the doppelganger can say is "Peach".
- Precision F-Strike: Certain Doppelgangers that get questioned for incorrect documents, wrong appearance, or for not being on the day's list can lose their usual calm facade and let out a "Fuck!", giving away their true nature.
- Shout-Out:
- The D.D.D.'s phone number is 3312.
- One of the residents' names is Dr. W. Afton.
- Some doppelgangers impersonating Dr. W. Afton have Star Wars references in their credentials, such as "R2D2" and "CP3O" in place of "Dr. W.".
- Another resident, Steven Rudboys. Bears a resemblance to Travis Bickle.
- Touché: Doppelgangers with an otherwise seamless disguise but forget a detail in their documents may outright drop the facade and admit you caught them as they await the D.D.D.Doppelganger: Today's list? Fuck. Well I didn't count on that, you caught me. What are you going to do about it? Go ahead, call your D.D.D. friends. They will never be able to finish us off, in the end we will achieve our goal.
