HOLD YOUR BREATH

They can't see you. They can hear you.

Downtown Toronto, 3:40 AM, in the rain. The city went quiet at midnight, and the things standing in the street are blind. They hunt by sound: your footsteps, your breathing, every door you open.

Let the game use your microphone and they hear your room too. Talk, laugh or scream, and they come to where you are. When one gets close, hold your breath, and hope you can hold it longer than it can wait.

Get to the CN Tower, and up it: from King & John to the roof, 451 metres up. Then hold on until sunrise.

WHAT YOU DO

Stay quiet. They hear your feet on asphalt, glass, gravel, puddles and metal, your breathing, every door, and the bell over a shop door.

Hide somewhere small and dark (a closet, a walk-in fridge, a dumpster, behind a counter) and keep still.

Hold your breath when one is close. It's a button in the game (SPACE, or BREATH on a phone), never your real breath. Let go too soon and it hears you gasp.

Make it look away. Throw a bottle and it goes to where it breaks. Sometimes that sets off a car alarm.

THE MICROPHONE — If you let it, the game uses your microphone. First it measures how quiet your room is, then it learns how much of its own sound comes back from your speakers and takes that off, so only you count. Your microphone never leaves your device. Nothing is recorded, kept or sent. No mic? Play anyway: they still hear your feet, your breath and the doors.

If your browser doesn't ask for the microphone here, press the full-screen button, or play it at fliinch.com/holdyourbreath.

IT'S FREE. The whole game plays right here in your browser, on a computer or a phone. Nothing to download, no sign-up. Wear headphones.

CONTROLS — WASD to move, mouse to look, SHIFT to run, C to crouch, SPACE to hold your breath, E for doors and hiding places, Q or CLICK to throw, F for the torch, M for the map, ESC to pause. On a phone, the buttons are on screen. Controllers work too.

MADE WITH AI — The music and sounds were made with AI, and the game was built with AI coding assistants. The city is built from OpenStreetMap: map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).

A work of fiction. Privacy: no names, no accounts, no advertising. The whole of it: fliinch.com/privacy

A Fliinch game, made by one person in Toronto. Also free: HOUSE RULES and ABYSS. Follow fliinch.itch.io for what comes next.