
Paperback is a short horror game that takes place in a public library at night with an aggressive thunderstorm raging in the vicinity where you take on the role of the newly hired novice librarian, Max.
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About
Dawn Of The Millenium - the year is 2001. You're a novice librarian tasked with keeping things running smoothly and closing up shop for the night. Sort out the shelves, maintain the utilities of the library and take calls as they come in - but keep your ears to the ground; there's something sinister unfurling in Maple Falls County.
Logic-oriented puzzles and mechanics make up most of this game with a fully integrated physics and object-grabbing system, drawing inspiration from horror games of the past and present.
The game takes roughly 30-60 minutes to finish depending on your own individual pace. It features multiple paths the player can take, and even has a secret easter egg. Think you can find it?
Highly recommended for playing in the dark - the muted orange hue of the library coupled with the dark atmosphere should be very easy on the eyes. An ideal game for those seeking a cozy indie horror experience. Also, headphones are a big must if you enjoy immersive 3D sound design.

This game does not feature any AI content. All voice lines, assets, texts and sound effects have been produced naturally by verified users and commissioned artists. If you think a particular asset featured in the game was generated by AI, please reach out to me at morningraininteractive@gmail.com
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Languages: English**languages with full audio support
Engagement
Reviews
Paperback is a slow build atmospheric horror game which is surprisingly impressive given that the game is only an hour long. It does have a lot of repetitive task fetching in the first half of the game. But don’t let that fool you. The second half of the game makes up for this. It got me good… I look forward to seeing what else this developer has to offer.
Nice short horror game. It has two endings and expect to finish both in under an hour, but definitely worth the small download. Ambience is nice, decently scary and good horror elements without being a jumpscare game. Has some decent voice acting too considering its scope and budget.
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Concurrent players on Steam, sampled daily since tracking started.
Hours played at review time, across 36 reviews with recorded playtime.
Very much a slow burning horror game. The scariest part of the game is how incompetent Max is at using a broom.
No ai is absolutely a good thing, play this game over any game that has ai in it, 100%. Also this game had more production value than I was expecting from a free game, but on to the review. There are two aspects to this game: 1) The video game 2) The video tapes The video game is wildly boring and janky, you're just doing chores until you get jump scared like everyone says, and carrying/holding stuff is overly as I said: janky. It's just a boring video game with a pathetically weak jump scare that didn't land. The video tapes? Way too good for this video game, I'm assuming that's what their real passion is, or they got someone who did a good job to do it. While I don' think it's anything groundbreaking, it's night and day more atmospheric than the actual game, and of much higher quality. If the video tapes were on a youtube channel, I'd have interest enough to watch them and more for a bit of a baseline horror experience or arg setting. It's however thrown into the middle of this mediocre video game that couldn't even do it's singular scare well after being hard carried by those video tapes. Like genuinely it felt like watching a saturday morning cartoon in comparison, almost comedic with that last scare. I will give the game credit for being willing to sit on just the quiet that a lot of other media and video games especially aren't willing to do, but you're doing boring chores during that, trying to find a book you're missing or something. The main character is also 1000% too non-chalant for having a serial killer in their suburb, the main character is barely there. Oh and quite early on when I had to box books up, I pressed a button sending the book barreling INTO the front desk where I could never get it, effectively stopping any progress without a hard reset (there isn't saving in this game so it required a full reset) Make sure you look up a youtube video for the other ending if you do end up playing, it's 100% not worth playing through it all again. Good video tapes with proper horror, in a chore simulator who's end scare was laughably bad. It's atmosphere in the beginning was scarier but it quickly loses that once you start becoming familiar with the library. (another reason the chore sections weakened the experience) For free it's not insulting or anything, if you take out 70% of the chores + improved the last jump scare (or made it more vague like the video tape stuff where you mainly see the mc get attacked but not clearly by who), there is the bones of what could be a more enjoyable game (bar holding things + glitches), or even a good game, but that's not the game we got.
Paperback is a great free game with really nice visuals and sound for what it is. The gameplay is simple and easy to get into, but still fun enough to keep me playing. I completed both endings and enjoyed the replay value. For a free game, it’s definitely worth checking out and surprised me in a good way.
[b]W miękkiej oprawie[/b] Paperback, to sztywna historia w formie horrorowego symulatora bibliotekarza. Fani gatunku raczej nic tu nie znajdą, fani komplementarnych dzieł, tj. połączenia autentycznych postaci, wciągającej historii, odpowiedniej oprawy i dopasowanego miejsca akcji raczej też będą zawiedzeni - ja jestem. [b]jaki piękny jest ten świat - tylko czarne[/b] To jest okropne! Gra jest ciemna, czarna, nieprzenikniona. Jak to możliwe, skoro w budynku biblioteki świecą się wszystkie dostępne światła? Nie chcę krytykować stricte sposobu implementacji, ale efekt, gdy stojąc krok przed sufitowym źródłem światła widać wszystko (niby półmrok) a stojąc krok za, nie widać kompletnie nic, mówi sam za siebie. Coś jest nie tak, prawda? Co więcej pierwsze kilkanaście minut walczyłem z opcjami żeby cokolwiek w tym względzie zmienić, i co? Nic, żadnej zmiany nie zauważyłem. A nie, przepraszam! Po tych zmianach grę wywaliło do pulpitu :| Nawet rzucając światło na otaczające Nas obiekty, te nie prezentują jakiegoś wysokiego standardu. Przenoszone przedmioty, które choćby ze względu Naszej interakcji z nimi mogły by, to też nie zachwycają szczegółowością. Jest przeciętnie a w kilku miejscach zauważyłem też nieuzasadnione rozmycie i niewidzialne ściany :/ [b]mam pustkę w głowie, zgubiłem znowu się[/b] Jedną z kluczowych rzeczy, przy grach opartych o jakąś historię, czy wrzucających Nas w pewną postać i sytuację, jest wstęp. Z opisu gry na karcie Steam możemy się dowiedzieć całkiem sporo. Stąd też, strasznie dziwnie się poczułem, gdy po rozpoczęciu gry, pojawiłem się stojąc przed dystrybutorem wody i ni z gruszki ni z pietruszki moja postać stwierdza, że chce sobie zrobić kawę. Czemu? Czy to takie trudne wprowadzić Gracza w świat gry? Nawet zwykły opis byłby jakkolwiek lepszy niż nic! Przez to nie wiemy kim jesteśmy, nie wiemy po co tu jesteśmy i gdzie właściwie jesteśmy, wszystko musimy wyłapywać ze środowiska i "rozmów". [b]powiedzieć coś bym chciał[/b] Kolejny strzał w stopę, to rozmowy a w zasadzie, jednostronne monologi i wewnętrzne przemyślenia. Nie wiem jak to jest, ale dlaczego, skoro mamy z góry narzuconą postać, to wszystkie kwestie są czytane poza "naszymi"? Rozmowy telefoniczne to słowotoki, na które bohater reaguje rozglądając się niczym strażnik przyjmujący jakiś rozkaz. Zadania które "nasza" postać narzuca, również emanują jakąś niezrozumiałą uległością. Totalnie trudno się tu w cokolwiek wczuć, a to dopiero przedstawienie pionka i planszy! [b]nie mogę zrobić nic, sterowany jestem wciąż[/b] Każdy element tej gry jest ustawiony w bardzo sztywny ciąg zdarzeń. Tu nie mamy zadań w swobodnie mijającym okresie czasu, stąd pytanie "co i kiedy?" zmienia się na "co po czym?". Gdy to zauważymy podczas rozgrywki, to tracimy jakąkolwiek łączność z budowanym klimatem. I nie powiem, zadanka typu odkładanie książek czy zamiatanie, mimo mało wyrafinowanej formy, są spoko. Wielka szkoda, że właśnie w taki sposób to zostało rozwiązane, bo potencjał widzę dużo większy (szczerze liczyłem na pewne zdarzenia, które ostatecznie się nie wydarzyły). A to jak potraktowano pewne odłożone czy przerwane zadanie, również uważam za duży błąd! [b]jestem już zmęczony, to nie był dobry dzień[/b] Muszę przyznać, że odpuścić miałem już po pierwszych minutach gdy nie mogłem przeboleć tej "ciemnicy". Ale że z natury raczej nie odpuszczam tak łatwo to podjąłem tę rękawicę. Mimo wszystko starałem się i nawet dałem się, ponieść historii, która co i rusz wybijała mnie z rytmu swoją na sztywno skleconą hierarchią działań. Mimo tego, do rozwidlenia (do momentu podjęcia decyzji) nawet nawet skłaniałbym się ku pozytywnej Steamowej przeciętności. Bo próbuje budować napięcie w sposób subtelny i narastający. No ale ten moment, w którym serce powinno stanąć nam w gardle nie nadchodzi, bo raz, że jest poprzedzony anonsem, dwa, fatalnym projektem i pomysłem.
you can skate on books 10/10
Didn't make it all the way through this game because it was wearing out its welcome pretty quickly. It feels like a lot of stock assets/modules meshed up with very overused "do these chores until something scary happens" gameplay. I commend the developers for not using AI in any of their work, but I do think that a lot of what's in here feels like actual content I've seen in other free Unity horror games. I can see where they were going with it, but the moment I got to the cliche "voice on the radio talks about a serial killer" I was just over it over all. I have definitely played too many "chorror" games at this point, so it is likely a me problem. But if you are someone who plays a lot of short indie horrors, this one will not stand out in any way. I think the developers will go far if they continue to create, but I would look for something unique and memorable, hand made modules or visuals, or some kind of interesting gameplay elements to keep the player hooked.
Paperback is a game where you play a novice librarian closing up the library at night. Things couldn't be more simple.. right? I thought this was going to be another "working late at night" indie horror that's basic and generic. Instead it provided a unique library to walk around in and do your tasks. Typically these kinds of games end up being pretty generic, reused assets that aren't changed at all, and characters that are forgettable. In the beginning, I was thinking it'd be that - but it actually went so much further. I won't spoil too much, but the voice acting is pretty great (that one guy who calls you is kinda annoying, but I think that's the point) SPOILERS!!! I had no idea that a simple "there's a killer on the loose" game would go into a VHS, cult, creepy as ♥♥♥♥ storyline, but boy did it. I say it in my playthrough but I wonder if the VHS tape recording were made by the dev ?? Very curious about this. I do wish that the VHS/Cult type storyline was around for longer. It did feel like half the game was just doing chores, and then it got into a very interesting storyline I wanted to know so much more about, and bam the game was over just like that. I wish it spent more time on the story and dialed back on just walking around doing chores. I want to know more about this church, the cult type activity ect! Sequel??? Pls??
that was a really nice experience, the music and atmosphere was amazing, had me pretty scared sometimes. i chose the basement ending and it was really creepy.
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