Don’t Fret [Preview]: Take notes, then play them in the dark

Don’t Fret takes musical instruments and drops them at the core of a horror game.

It may seem that in a world of first person narrative action games, what we affectionately call Bioshock-likes, that the majority of ideas have been done. And maybe they have, at least when it concerns using humans as our protagonists. But now imagine that instead of a human we’re a guitar, with arms and legs and a terrible penchant for getting nearly killed by the paranormal.

That’s Don’t Fret, the upcoming game from Scary Kid Studios.

In the game, we take control of said guitar and the first thing we notice is how our perspective is inherently different than other games we typically play in the genre. We’re a shorter character so we’re lower to the ground, putting the camera into a spot where we normally would be crouching as a human. Every step and move is a little more stiff because, well, we’re made of wood. The demo has us making our way through a run down building, a sort of abandoned carnival-hotel place, while exploring rooms and picking up objects that may be useful. Every so often we hit an obstacle, like a stack of chairs or boxes that our short self can’t get over, so we either have to go around or we have to throw a bottle at the fluorescent light fixture above to drop it onto a collapsed shelf into a makeshift ramp. We can find rooms with strange bits of lore or supernatural books, we can find vents that can be popped open (and it’s kind of charming to imagine a guitar crawling around on all fours through the walls), we can try to solve little puzzles that we come across.

And that’s all while spooky stuff is happening around us. Strange sounds, dark corners, and then ghastly monsters that jump out (there are a few intentional jump scares we come across). Luckily we have a tool, a sort of portable CRT TV, that can emit sound waves to paralyze the beasts while we make a run for it. The tool can also be used to scan our surroundings for hints or items, which are crucial to getting past a few parts of this small demo area.

It’s not necessarily a violent game, but there are definitely, uh, NOTES of survival and problem solving and keeping away from hazards. From that standpoint, I’m curious to see what takes beyond the initial area that was on display, what the actual meat of the Don’t Fret experience is going to be. It’s a short, focused demo but enough of a tease that I hope there’s a full band ready to jam out.

Don’t Fret is scheduled to arrive October 1, 2026.