This solo dev is making a retro PC horror game that taps into Y2K internet fears perfectly

The late nineties and early noughties were an exciting time for technology, though they also brought fears and anxieties, as seen in the Y2K problem and the dot-com crash. It's this period, specifically the year 2002, that solo developer Frostwood Interactive's Armaan Sandhu explores in Shutter Story, an upcoming psychological horror game where you use technology to investigate the paranormal.

The best indie games often draw from pop culture, and inspirations for this game actually came from a more recent film, 2023's Late Night With The Devil, as Sandhu said he and a friend kept spotting unusual things hiding in the background, and that pausing and rewinding to find these anomalies already felt like playing a game. But what really solidified the idea was watching the 2001 Japanese film Pulse, a techno-horror in which ghosts move through devices and the Internet.

"After watching that movie, I just related to the computer screen of seeing things which you don't notice at first, but then slowly you see something is hiding in plain sight," Sandhu tells me. "As a kid, seeing ghost photos and documentaries about hauntings always scared me a lot more than something like a slasher."

Paranormal investigations

Playing as a first-person character whose best friend Eli believes his family is being haunted, you use a computer software called SpectralAware 2.1 for analyzing photos, playing around with image settings in order to find evidence of paranormal figures hiding in plain sight.

Sandhu admits not digging into the (pseudo-)science of paranormal photographs and just came up with the idea that the player is able to adjust exposure, contrast, and noise, as well as gradually unlock various filters, such as night vision, that allow you to adjust a photo's image, potentially revealing something you didn't see before.

"It's the first thing I thought of, ghosts and photos, how do you make them more visible? I do a little bit of photography and have made some videos, so that seemed instinctive," says Sandhu.

The fictional software was created by a programmer named Charu Tak, but the overall design, including the Clippy-esque mascot offering you advice, is very much based on the Windows XP era, as that was the time Sandhu says he has the most nostalgia for.

If the title didn't already draw a comparison, then the idea of sifting through seemingly real archival media on a desktop from another era certainly made me think of Sam Barlow's FMV detective masterpiece Her Story. A key difference is that Sandhu hasn't used actors to create the photos you're investigating, nor has he used generative AI.

"They are stock photos from websites like Getty Images, not advertising but real vintage photos from people's lives that have been uploaded, with licenses released," he explains. "I felt that was the only way to get that creepy kind of a look from real photos - It has to be from someone's life."

After picking the photos, it's a matter of blending in the game's characters' faces and inserting paranormal elements. There's also the challenge of trying to make these photos feel consistent so that it looks as if you are investigating photos dating from as far back as the 1900s of this one family, when in fact these are random people who may not be related, and two photos depicting the mother may not even be of the same person.

"Honestly, it's 50% luck, and the mother in one photo looks pretty different from the mother in the next photo, but I feel somehow people don't really realise that because they're in that state of mind that this is the mother, so maybe a few years later she looks a little different," Sandhu explains. "If with Photoshop I get 70% of the way there, the rest the player's imagination fills in and they just go along with the fantasy that this is the same character."

Another difference from Her Story is that Shutter Story's gameplay isn't just confined to the desktop interface, but you also get to explore Eli's home and interact with his family members. Sandhu says, "That's just my taste. I really enjoy games where you can embody a character, move around, and I personally love dialogue and cutscenes with characters."

It's partly why he has been running a Kickstarter campaign to secure additional funds to add extra features and polish to the game, including voice acting for all the characters. Even without the extra funds, you could argue that the low-budget uncanny character models and sound effects for the scrolling dialogue text add to the game's eerie atmosphere.

Shutter Story is coming to PC in 2026. You can download the demo on Steam, while there's still time to back the Kickstarter. If you're feeling nostalgic after reading this, read our list of the best retro game consoles.