How to play
Don't Flinch
It's midnight. Your homework is due at 6 AM. Finish it without reacting to anything that happens in the house tonight, because your webcam is watching your face the whole time.
Before you play: Don't Flinch has jump scares, sudden loud sounds and flashing images. A warning appears before every night, and Settings has a Reduce flashing option. If you're sensitive to any of these, please don't play.
What you need
- A webcam on a computer, or the front camera on a phone or tablet.
- A normal browser such as Chrome, Safari, Edge or Firefox. Links opened inside TikTok, Instagram, Facebook or Snapchat use the app's built-in browser, which won't share the camera. Open the page in Safari or Chrome instead; the game shows a button for it.
- Your face in good light. Sit so your whole face is in view, with a lamp in front of you rather than behind you.
- Headphones make it far scarier, and some sounds move around your head. Tell the game you're wearing them in Settings.
Your camera picture never leaves your device. The face tracking runs inside your browser, and nothing is uploaded to us.
How a night works
- Calibration. The game spends a few seconds learning what your face looks like when you're calm: how wide your eyes are, where your head sits, how much you move.
- The homework. The night runs from 12 AM to 6 AM. You have 30 questions to answer: simple sums, spelling, quick general-knowledge facts and reading the time. Each has four answers and you get one try.
- The clock. You have 10 seconds per question. Run out of time and it's marked wrong. The sheet hands out five questions each hour, so you can't race ahead and finish early.
- The house. While you work, things happen. Some build up slowly, some come with no warning at all, and some build up and then nothing comes. You can't tell which is which.
- Morning. Survive to 6 AM and the night is over. Your score and every clip of the night are waiting on the results screen.
What counts as a flinch
After every scare, the game compares your face in the moment after it with your face in the second before. It looks for:
- your head jerking back or forward,
- your eyes widening or your eyebrows shooting up,
- your jaw dropping or a grimace,
- looking away from the screen,
- and, only if you've said you wear headphones, a scream picked up by the microphone.
One strong reaction is enough, and several small ones add up. Because the game measures the change from how you looked just before, someone who was already talking or fidgeting is judged on the jump itself, not on the fidgeting.
Choose how strict it is in Settings: Chill forgives more, Normal is the standard game, and Brutal catches the smallest twitch.
Lives, score and grade
- You have three lives. Each flinch costs one, and the third flinch ends the night early.
- A flinch also ruins the question you're on: it's marked wrong.
- Your score is your homework accuracy, minus 15 points for every flinch. 90 or more is an A, 80 a B, 70 a C, 60 a D, and below that an F.
- Wrong answers have a cost of their own. Each one creaks your bedroom door a little further open, and after the third, something decides to come in.
Scares that play by your rules
Some of what happens in the house reacts to you, not to the clock.
- Don't blink. A figure appears in the doorway and only moves when your eyes are closed. Every blink brings her closer.
- Close your eyes. The lamp dies and something walks in. Keep your eyes shut until it leaves. Open them too soon and it's standing right there.
- The music box. On some nights the room goes silent and a music box needs winding. Drag around the key (or tap W or Space) and listen. Leave it unwound and you'll regret it.
Every creature you meet is added to your Journal, with its name and its story. You won't meet them all in one night, so filling it takes a while.
Ways to play
- Tonight's night: everyone in the world gets the same scares in the same order each day. Compare your score with friends and share your night as a row of faces.
- Free play: a random night. When you share it, the link takes your friend to that exact night, so they can try to beat you on it.
- Streamer mode: enter your Twitch channel and your chat sends the scares by typing commands such as !face, !door, !window, !lightsout or !scare for a random one. No login or key is needed.
Clips for TikTok, Reels and Shorts
Every scare is recorded as a vertical clip: your face on top, the scare underneath, and the verdict stamped on it. Save or share them from the results screen. They're made on your device and only leave it if you share them.
Tips for a clean night
- Breathe out slowly when the music drops away. Silence usually means something is coming.
- Keep your eyes on the homework. Staring at the door or the window doesn't help: the scares are timed for when you look.
- Answer every question. A timeout counts as wrong, and wrong answers open the door.
- Don't pull back from the screen. A head jerk is the most common flinch. Sit comfortably close and stay there.
- Start on Chill. Learn the house before you try Normal or Brutal.