SHUT UP! – ACCLAIMED COMEDY/HORROR GAME RECIEVES MASSIVE FREE CONTENT UPDATE FOR HALLOWEEN

SHUT IN is a short dark comedy/psychological horror adventure game which explores depression and isolation by trapping you inside your own house. Explore a hostile home, solve puzzles, and withstand sarcasm from a rude and unreliable narrator. Idiot.

The final major content update is out now, featuring more new rooms, items, and features designed to make your stay inside feel a little more… organic. There are lots of things to do in your newly expanded home, and it’s about time you thought about something other than yourself for a change, don’t you?

First released in Halloween 2020, SHUT IN is a game about being trapped inside your own house. Made by a solo developer in Manchester, UK, while in a stage of full lockdown; and supported by a multi-award winning theatre company while COVID had closed all the theatres. SHUT IN was very much a game capturing the mood of 2020.

Now, one year on, SHUT IN is receiving a substantial free content update, offering new rooms to explore, new puzzles, new items – and a final conclusion to its story, as we all try to unpick one of the most difficult couple of years of our lifetime. Have two years spent inside and self-reflecting been good for us? Is it time to think about other people for a change? Does there reach a point where we just have to… shut up?

Released in Halloween 2020, the game released to positive reviews, receiving 9.2/10 from FullSync, 9/10 from Cubed3, 86/100 from Buried Treasure, and 4/5 from Adventure Gamers.

Reviewers praised the game’s dark humour, its uncomfortably accurate and personal depiction of depression and isolation, and its original take on the themes of mental illness within the horror genre.

Now, one year on, the new SHUT UP update aims to take the mental health conversation further. Reflecting on the ways we try to accept our day-to-day struggles, inserting a little bit of hope by considering how we make the most of the situations we find ourselves in – no matter how trapped we feel. But it’s a hope that you will have to work very hard to keep alive.

As well as a more intuitive, redesigned UI – SHUT UP brings new features such as plants which can be carefully nurtured to life, but very easily die. A room to fill with nice decorations and painful memories. New puzzles which can very easily kill you horribly.

…yeah, if you want to find that hope, you’re really going to have to work for it.

Creator Cael O’Sullivan, who has their own experience with depression and agoraphobia, says:

“A lot of the advice around depression can be infuriatingly cheery. It’s all ‘Get some exercise! Eat healthy! Be positive!’ which can just be really frustrating if you’re struggling to get out of bed in the morning. Or the afternoon. SHUT UP explored a lot of feelings of isolation and helplessness.

With SHUT UP, there’s a lot more of 2021 in there. People are looking back on the past year and beyond with mixed feelings. I’ve seen a lot of introspection and nostalgia, which can bring out a lot of complicated feelings, and I wanted to explore the ways we try and process all that stuff whilst also having to just… shut up and get on with our lives. Also I got some plants. I would recommend plants.”

Available on Steam & itch.io, SHUT UP is the final free content update, following the SHUTDOWN update earlier this year, and will finally wrap up the SHUT IN story.

If you missed SHUT IN last Halloween, now is your chance to check it out.
Or, if it doesn’t sound like your sort of thing, then maybe just… shut up?

SHUT IN first released on Halloween 2020. The SHUTDOWN update released on 23rd May 2021, and the SHUT UP update released on October 18th, 2021.

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1438190/SHUT_IN/
Itch: https://hiddentrack.itch.io/shut-in

Price: $4.99/£3.99/€3.99

Created by Cael O’Sullivan
Music by Luc Wilkinson
Supported by Hidden Track