Apparatus: Exanimus is a walking simulator/exploration game with horror and ARG elements, aesthetically imitating (and explicitly pretending to be) a lost game developed in 1998 by a company long out of business.
I wanted to make something vague, cryptic, and clunky to play. I wanted to present a narrative to the player, as well as a few other gameplay elements, in a way that would require a bit of piecing things together.
To this end, I also made fake packaging for the game, a fake unboxing video, filmed various bits of ‘demonstration’ gameplay through a CRT, and there is also a fake website for the company that made the game. I also made the itch.io page a fake forum thread detailing someone finding the game as lost media.
It was also featured in the inaugural Shovel Direct showcase in 2025.
