denet.exe

In a flight of fleeting nostalgia for warm memories, Michael "Mike" Cooper boots up his old personal computer after years of leaving it to gather dust. After just starting to explore the forgotten archives of his past, a familiar username suddenly appears online - his old childhood friend Dave, whom he hasn't spoken to in years. They reconnect. Dave suggests playing their favorite game, Knights of Good and Evil IV, to once and for all defeat the final boss that almost destroyed their friendship. Mike agrees.

denet.exe is an OS-sim supernatural horror game set primarily inside of a forgotten and unmaintained MMORPG. Explore vast and eerie levels, defeat dozens of sassy knights, and kill the wicked  ̴̹͘ ̸̣̎ ̶͝ͅ ̷͔̓ ̴͔̒M̶̘̿i̴̲̚c̶͇͆h̷͚͛ä̸́ͅë̵̡l̶? Is t͍̒h̵̜͐a̵t you?̦͑ ̸͔́Ḏ̶̒o̷̹͋n̷̝̈́'t̷̡̀ li̡͠s̷̨͒t̴en̷̫͗ ̵to̶̖͝ ̸̿iṱ̽, ̶̫͐M̵͍̒i̴̝c̷̕ha̬ë̵́l̸̤̽. Don͕̈́'̷͎̓t̶̤͊ ̸̑l̷e̷̬t iṱ̽ ge̸͇͐t̹̏ ̤t̵̛o̵̹͋ ̸̦̀y̶̡̕ò̵u. Fȋ͓n̶d̵͈͋ ̴͓͆m̷̂e.

Game description with spoilers 

A demonic entity pretending to be your childhood friend – trapped in a liminal state inside of an abandonware online game you and your friend used to play together – seeks to manipulate you into releasing it so that it can possess you. Navigate the buggy levels of the mid 90s style medieval action RPG, solve puzzles involving glitched game objects and discover clues in order to uncover the truth before the demonic entity can claim your soul.

This game is the result of a four-week student project at Futuregames Stockholm, in which first-year game designers and programmers were assigned to create a 20-minute-long game centered around the theme of symbiosis. Our team decided to create a narrative-driven horror game and chose demonic possession as our symbiosis theme, as demons tend to be characterized as spiritual parasites. 

We drew inspiration from similar titles such as NetScape (2025) and Last Seen Online (2024), as well as the SEGA/PS1 roguelike Baroque (1998). We aimed for nostalgic production values with regard to the desktop and the online game contexts, mixing screenlife realism with first-person action, 3D-platforming, and light puzzle elements. 

Making a 20-minute-long narrative-driven game was a difficult but interesting challenge in the sense that we needed to determine how to prioritize the various features in the game in order to not to exceed the time constraint. As a result, the narrative was considerably condensed, the level design was streamlined, and some content ended up being outside of our final scope. In other words, we learned a lot about the importance of scoping.

Team members:

Game Designers:

• Milda Kazlauskaitė (Narrative design)
• Kim Milbers (Level design)
• Kateryna Naumenko (UI design, Art manager)
• Johan Åkerström (Sound design, Product owner)

Programmers:

• Joel Carlsson
• Teodor Fredriksson
• Linnéa Lindgren
• William Smitt

Sound credits: AdriMB86, Alba_Mac, Brimistic, Cough-E, Data_Pion (I, II, III), Fester993, floraphonic, freesound_community, gertraut_hecher, meggiepie, Microsoft (I, II), Nesrality, nick121087, remaxim, tarfmagougou, TinyWorlds, u_viypcpsnud (I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX), Vinrax (I, II), VoiceBosch, YvesSch