About this game
A small, quiet game about the specific satisfaction of scraping something away to see what is underneath.
Most people know the feeling from a scratch card, or from peeling the film off a new screen, or from rubbing a coin over a lottery ticket. There is a particular kind of attention in it: your hand is busy, your mind is not, and there is a small question sitting underneath — what is under there?
That question is the whole game. There is nothing to beat and nothing to lose.
Why there is no timer
There used to be one. Every round had a countdown, and if it ran out you lost whatever you had not uncovered yet.
It was a mistake, and an obvious one in hindsight. A countdown makes you hurry, and hurrying is the opposite of the thing the game is supposed to give you. People who came to relax were being made anxious by a clock in the corner. So the clock was removed. A round now lasts exactly as long as you want it to — finish a scene in twenty seconds or take five minutes on the last corner, it makes no difference to anyone.
What ASMR means here
ASMR usually describes the tingling, calming response some people get from quiet, repetitive sounds and textures. This game leans on the texture side of it: a scratching sound that changes with the surface, a faint vibration under your finger, and something slowly appearing. If that does nothing for you, it is still a perfectly good scratch card.
The scenes
Underneath each surface is a photo of an animal caught somewhere it should not be, holding a key it should not have. A cat in a freezer full of frozen peas. A dachshund buried in the snack cupboard. A chameleon in its terrarium with a brass key in its mouth.
These images are generated with AI and then hand-picked — most of what gets generated is discarded. The keys are drawn as part of the scene rather than added afterwards, which is why different scenes have different numbers of them.
No account, no server
There is no sign-up, no email, no password. Your album, points and streak live in your own browser and nowhere else. That means nobody can look at your progress, including us — and it also means that clearing your browser data clears the game. It is a deliberate trade: less convenience, far less of your information sitting on somebody's server.
Who makes it
It is made by one person, as an independent project. It is not run by a studio and there is no team behind it. If something is broken or you have an idea, writing to me actually reaches me — see contact.
What it costs
Nothing. There is no purchase, no subscription and no paywall. There are optional short videos you can choose to watch in exchange for extra energy, and that is the only advertising in the game — no banners, nothing that interrupts you mid-scratch.