Hush Piñata

SHE GOT TIRED OF BEING HIT...

The rule of the party never changed: blindfold somebody, put a bat in their hands and tell them to swing until the piñata opens. Everyone in the circle screaming for a harder hit. It is the only ending a piñata gets, torn open on the floor while the room laughs and picks through what fell out of her.

One of them decided tonight's party would go differently.

She climbed down off the branch. She picked the blindfold up off the floor and tied it over her own eyes, because those are the rules and she intends to play fair.

Tonight, you are the one hanging.

One of you plays the blindfolded Piñata. Her screen is black. She cannot see the map, cannot see you, cannot see anything. She can only listen. And every sound you make draws a glowing silhouette in her darkness.

The other eight are Partygoers stuck at a party out in the desert, holding a chore list that can only be finished by making noise.

Hush Piñata is hide-and-seek where the seeker is blind, and your open mic is the sentence.

SOUND IS THE CURRENCY

There is no hidden health bar and no thermal vision. There is noise, and noise turns into an image:

Walking lights a small silhouette. Running lights a beacon.

Talking into your mic draws you in full. The game listens to proximity voice inside the match, and whispering saves nobody.

Standing still does not work either: your stomach growls, hunger climbs and your own body gives you up with an involuntary fart at the worst possible moment.

Walls muffle sound and kill the silhouette. Learning the map of acoustic risk is half the game.

And the symmetry: the Piñata makes noise too. She pants, she stomps, and her best weapon is always her loudest. Pay attention and you will hear the blindfolded hunter coming.

BEHIND THE BLINDFOLD

Playing the blindfolded Piñata is the best part, and the strangest. You hunt blind, on a black screen crossed by silhouettes that are already gone by the time you arrive. You navigate the map from memory, not from sight.

Nobody made you wear the blindfold. That is the point: you came to collect a debt the same way it was collected from you, in the dark, by touch, by ear. And the dark does not negotiate with anyone.

You start with the bat, and it never runs out.

The good weapon is an objective. Question-mark crates spawn around the map and only you can see them, the one visual target in the game that belongs to you. But crossing the map is loud, and grabbing the crate is very loud: everyone hears that you armed yourself, and from where.

Candy Boomerang (throw and return), Candy Launcher (short and brutal) and the rare LA CHANCLA DORADA, which does not aim, it locks onto a silhouette that stayed loud for too long, then flies on its own, and there is no outrunning it. And the LITTLE PIÑATA: dropped on the ground, it hunts on its own by sound and movement, and detonates on whoever it reaches.

Your voice comes out deep on the mic, the whole match. The Partygoers always know when it is you talking.

Every time a Partygoer goes down, the church bell rings across the whole map. Everyone hears it. The dead included.

THE CHORE YOU HAVE TO DO...

Her tail starts fastened. To loosen it, the Partygoers have to finish all four stations on the map, and all four exist precisely because they make noise:

Stack the cups into a pyramid, on timing. Knocking them over is a cascade that echoes.

Crank the rattle, which goes into your hand spinning and keeps spinning while you walk.

Pop the balloons with darts, and every pop is a problem.

Ring toss: the near bottle is safe and slow, the far one finishes fast and misses loud. Missing is louder than scoring, and the Piñata is walking while you decide.

Finished chores pay tickets, and tickets buy items at the stalls around the map. Buying is loud too, because nothing here is free.

THE COWARD'S ARSENAL

Felt slippers: silent footsteps, even at a sprint. They do not silence the fart.

Radio: leave it playing to bait the hunter, and anyone who walks past locks into a dance fever they did not ask for.

Snap pops: zero damage. They exist to be thrown next to a friend so the Piñata reads the silhouette as theirs. The cleanest betrayal in the game.

Rope of cans: tie it to a teammate and they become a walking rattle.

Rock: hit the Piñata and she drops candy on the ground. She is made of candy, after all.

Bottle rocket: flies straight and low, and lights up every Partygoer in the blast radius for 5 seconds.

Ultra Chili: the panic button. A fart-propelled launch throws you 15 meters over everything. The whole arc becomes a trail of silhouettes, the Piñata sees the flight from takeoff to landing and runs to where you land, not to where you left.

And then there is the goat. It smells whoever is carrying candy, latches onto you and starts screaming. You are a walking beacon until you shake it, by feeding it candy you were going to need, or by walking the problem over to a friend.

RIP OFF THE TAIL. THEN HOLD IT.

With all four chores done, the tail loosens and the whole map is pinged from her position. Now she knows she is vulnerable, and she knows you know.

Get behind her and hold E for two seconds. Pulling is not silent: you pulse as a silhouette stuck to her back, and she can turn around.

With the tail in hand, you rattle. There is no hiding while carrying the loudest object in the match.

Press G to pass the tail to a teammate before you go down. Downing the carrier delays the meter but never resets it, and the Piñata cannot pick her tail back up.

Twenty seconds with the tail off, and she BURSTS in a rain of confetti and candy.

Bursting is the only ending a piñata knows. The difference is that this one picked her audience, and made you earn the invitation.

DYING IS NOT THE END OF YOUR MATCH

Fall and you take control of La Catrina, still playing, on the other side. You cross the map collecting the bodies of the other dead and escorting souls onward, earning confetti to spend in the cosmetics shop.

Only the dead see the dead: to you, the living and the Piñata have stopped existing. And nobody can use you as an extra pair of eyes, because you cannot see their game anymore either.

THREE MODES

STEAL THE PIÑATA'S TAIL, the main mode. Up to 8 Partygoers against 1 blindfolded Piñata. Chores, tickets, tail, burst. Everyone wins together or dies together.

LAST ONE STANDING, no tail, no chores, no clock. Just survive. The last Partygoer alive wins, and only they take the confetti, which means the Partygoer next to you also wants you to make noise. The Piñata is frozen for the first few seconds. Run.

TEAM VS TEAM, Green against Red, 2v2 to 4v4, with the Piñata played by the game. The tail starts loose: the team holding it at the end wins. Best of three, and when you fall you watch through your teammate's eyes.

BETWEEN MATCHES

The confetti you collect becomes a wardrobe: character, hair, hat, moustache, outfit and several accessories at once. Try before you buy, and whatever you wear in the lobby is what walks into the match, for everyone else to see. In a game whose villain cannot see a thing, the Partygoers make a point of being looked at.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE BUYING

Headphones are not a recommendation, they are a practical requirement. This is a positional audio game; monitor speakers are playing with one eye closed.

A mic is the real experience. There is a closed-mic mode, but the game was designed around your own voice giving you away.

Online multiplayer by room code or from the public room list. Up to 9 players.

Short matches and role rotation, everyone wants to be the Piñata, and everyone gets to be.

Interface and tutorial in English, Portuguese, Spanish and Simplified Chinese.