Stillwell
Minesweeper meets horror. Deduce where spirits hide in an abandoned 1950s sanatorium.
Your sister went missing investigating Stillwell Sanatorium. Now you're going in after her.
MINESWEEPER IN THE DARK
Each ward is a grid. Spirits are hidden. Every step costs oxygen.
- Lantern - reacts to nearby spirits. Steady means safe. Trembling means caution. Extinguished means danger.
- Flashlight - reveals what's hidden, but exposed spirits move. Information at a cost.
- Chalk - marks confirmed danger without disturbing the board. Safe, but limited.
Three record fragments per ward tell the story through bureaucratic documents and your sister's fragmented messages. Not all records survived. Connect the pieces yourself.
No jump scares. No combat. Only the weight of institutional failure and the stories of people who deserved better.
Coming to Steam 2025 - Wishlist Now
Comments
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Played all the levels and I liked it! The timer and trial and error were a bit jarring, but as the game progressed I got used to it. I enjoyed the writing and the whispered voice acting is unique, but good. I gathered every piece of paper except for one. Nice job on the itch page theming too!
Thank you so much for playing all the way through and leaving a comment! Really glad you enjoyed the writing and voice acting.
On the trial and error feel, the game is actually fully deterministic, every level is solvable without guessing if you read the lantern, chalk and flashlight logic. But the fact that it felt like trial and error early on is really useful feedback, it probably means the first few levels could do a better job teaching how the deduction works. I'll keep that in mind.
Which record did you miss? Would guess the one on level 11!
Sorry, I don't know exactly which one I missed. I think it was somewhere halfway through.
Regarding the trial and error, maybe its more that the limited moves (oxygen) conflict a bit with the puzzle aspect of trying to find the position of the ghosts. I'm using the lantern and flashlight to explore the level, but when I move around too much I have to rush to the exit and will probably die, thus having to redo the level with more knowledge. This means I'm just going through the motions, marking ghosts that I already know the position of, instead of deducing where they are. Hopefully this explains it better.
To be clear I think the levels are great and enjoyed the game a lot!