By: Julia Yang

Warning: before watching/playing, this game may include trypophobia (fear of holes), ommetaphobia (fear of eyes), unsettling faces, mutation, blood, stitches, and drooping organs/skin. This is a mild horror game with horror elements.

‘That’s Not My Neighbor’ is a game developed and released by solo developer Nacho Sama.

‘That’s Not My Neighbor’ is a game where you are playing as an employed security guard by the Doppelganger Detection Department (D.D.D) for an apartment building. Your job is to detect and call in any Doppelgangers who are trying to enter. Scan through identification cards, call apartments, analyze the individual, ask questions, and protect the residents.

It’s a lot harder than it seems, a change even as small as a few numbers off of a 12 digit number on their card can lead up to your failure.
Keep a watchful eye and take your time.

As to why it’s a popular game is due to the increasing number of “spot the anomaly” games. Ever since the release of ‘The Exit 8’— the anomaly game took the internet by storm— other game developers have been picking up on the trend and giving it their own spin. Developers as popular as Puppet Combo have released an anomaly game.

If you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, let me explain the premise of “spot the anomaly”: the point is to spot changes and differences in a person, place, or thing. You’ll be able to see the person, place, or thing in its normal form, afterwards, you’ll have to be able to tell if something has changed or not. One wrong move, one wrong “it’s probably fine” or “looks good to me” can completely ruin your run.

Anomaly games like ‘That’s Not My Neighbor’ are games that are going to be released— for what I think, a while. Since it’s such an interesting and interactive plot to a game, no one can really get tired of playing as every run is a new anomaly, new gameplay.

I myself have not played any anomaly games, but watching others play is fun too. Watching them miss things that you notice are different, and having the same “wait what did I miss” moment as them is super enjoyable since you’re also trying to look for any anomaly— even if you don’t really mean to.