Otoropj (Оторопь) — a first-person horror series. Episode One: Quiet Harbor

Don't touch the tapes on the top shelf. Especially the one labelled “Harbor”.

— from Mum's note

Andrei comes to his late mother's flat in an old khrushchyovka to clear out her things. Everything is where it always was: the rug on the wall, the china cabinet, the phone in the hallway. On the top shelf sit videotapes. One is labelled in Mum's hand: “Son. 29.10.93”. Another: “Harbor 14”.

An episode of “Quiet Harbor”, a local cable children's show from 1993. Kind Auntie Vera, a papier-mâché lighthouse and handmade puppets. Bezzubik, the rag doll with no teeth.

He will play it. So would you.

Found footage

“Harbor 14”. Do not erase.

Auntie Vera speaks to the children softly and slowly. Bezzubik sits beside her and smiles. Just like back then, on cable, after lunch.

But the tape remembers more than you do. And it seems to know who is watching.

“Bezzubik will wait for you.”

Episode One

Quiet Harbor

3 chapters
65–80 minutes
Voskresensk · a tape from 1993

I · Chapter one
The Flat

Mum's flat, where every little thing still works. Neighbours on the stairs, a tape in the VCR, a hallway that somehow keeps leading back to the same room. And a night you will have to sit out.
II · Chapter two
The TV Centre

The last minibus, route 14, runs to the old communications building where “Quiet Harbor” was filmed. A turnstile at the gate, a freight lift, the control room, a studio with a lighthouse. Someone is here. One rule: don't look him in the eyes.
III · Chapter three
Go Inside

Something is waiting at the bottom.

The rest is in the game.

Coming next

Next episodes

Episodes two and three will be released as DLC for the game on Steam. Each is a complete story and a new case file. Rated 18+.

DLC 1 · Episode Two Soon
Department of Citizen Records

A summons with a QR code. An electronic queue. A service window that knows more about you than you do.

3 chapters · about an hour · 18+
DLC 2 · Episode Three Soon
Track Zero

The last train to Voskresensk left without you. Yet the board shows one more: “00:47 Voskresensk — track 0”.

A night commuter train · 1–2 hours · 18+

What Otoropj is made of

Quiet. Close. Familiar.

Dread, not jump-scares

Almost nothing leaps out from around the corner. Fear arrives slowly: from silence, from a sound behind the wall, from something that is no longer where you left it.

A living Soviet home

Every object responds. Taps run, the fridge hums, the toilet flushes, switches click, the hallway phone rings. Neighbours live behind the walls, someone smokes on the landing. A world your hands remember.

VHS and CRT

Tape hiss, rolling lines, the glow of an old screen. You watch a 1993 broadcast the way it was watched back then — in a dark room, on an old TV set.

Headphones on

Sound is half of the fear. Footsteps upstairs, drips in the bathroom, the whisper of tape. Put your headphones on and take your time.

Case No. 14

Every chapter opens with a typewritten sheet from a case file: date, address, weather. And along the way the hero thinks out loud — briefly, about what he sees and what he remembers.

A board of finds

Photos, letters, scraps of tape — every find is pinned to a cork board with a marker note. Come back after a break, and the tape rewinds itself: “Previously…”

Screenshots