How to play
PURSUED is a first-person horror chase. It is night, it is raining, and something about 2.7 metres tall, pale and eyeless, has just burst out of the dark behind you. Every run opens the same way: a crash behind you, the camera is pulled round to see it rear up and scream, then the word RUN. From then on there is only one goal: stay ahead of it for as long as you can.
Move with W A S D or the arrow keys and look with the mouse. Hold Shift to sprint. Run straight at a fence, car or dumpster and you vault it automatically without losing speed, and you duck under low boards and half-shut gates on your own too. Space jumps (and vaults from a little further out), Ctrl or C slides, E or F opens a door or slams it shut behind you, and a left click shoves the nearest bin, trolley, shelf or cart over into your wake. Hold Q or the middle mouse button to look back while you keep running. P pauses, M turns the sound on or off, and after a catch R, Space or Enter runs again.
On a phone, the left thumb runs (push the stick right to its rim to sprint), the right thumb looks, and buttons cover sprint, jump, slide, shove, door and look back. The II button pauses.
Your score is the seconds you survived times ten, plus every metre you ran.
Tips and strategy
Never stop. Standing still is how most runs end.
Spend stamina carefully. A full bar gives you about fourteen seconds of sprint. Sprint to break away, then jog to recover, rather than holding Shift until the bar is empty.
Break line of sight, then go quiet. It hunts by sight and by sound. Sprinting, slamming doors and things crashing over are all loud. Get round a corner and out of view and it loses you, goes to where it last saw you and searches, head snapping round. Holding Ctrl or C to crouch in the dark makes you much harder to spot.
Use the city against it. A slammed door costs it time to smash through, a bin knocked into its path can trip it, and every fence costs it a leap. It will take another route round a shut door if that is quicker.
Watch the red edge. A red glow on the side of the screen it is coming from beats with your heart, and grows as it gets close.
Learn the dead ends. Some alleys end in a tall brick wall and some back doors are locked. The city is the same every run, only where you start changes, so knowing which ways go through is the biggest advantage you can get.
Expect it ahead of you. Lose it while you are running and every so often it comes out of a side street in front of you, with a screech and a red flash. Turn at once.
What's in it
A rain-soaked city of wet streets and sodium lamps, some flickering and some dead, with a back alley through every block, fenced backyards, narrow gaps between buildings and walk-through apartment buildings with lit corridors, stairwells and fire escapes down into the yards behind. Lightning lights the whole sky now and then.
The thing itself moves wrong: stop-motion jerks, skittering on all fours in bursts, rearing up to full height. It starts at about your running speed, bursts faster while it can see you, and grows quicker the longer you last, and better at running to where you are going. When it catches you, it grabs you, rears over you and its jaw opens, and the results screen tells you what went wrong: a dead end, a stumble, running out of breath, or simply "It was faster."
A QUALITY switch on the title screen lowers the graphics for slower computers and phones.
Questions
Is it gory? No. There is no blood or gore, but it is made to frighten you, with jump scares and screams.
Can I win? No. It never gives up. The challenge is to beat your own best time.
Do I need an account? No. Your best time, score and settings are saved in your browser.
Should I use headphones? Yes. Its footsteps, clicks and screeches come from where it is, so you can often hear which way it is coming before you see it.