Granny (video game)

The game takes place in an old house where the main character (the player) is trapped. The player must explore the house to find items that can help them escape the house in 5 days (6 if an optional puzzle is solved). Items include a hammer to pry out planks of wood, a shotgun to shoot Granny, and a crossbow to knock down tall objects or to knock out Granny. The house currently has 6 floors, including a garage and 2 attic areas. The player can escape by clearing away the obstacles on the front door, which requires the player to find a pair of cutting pliers, a hammer, a padlock code, a padlock key and a master key (these items are required to unlock the main door, but getting these items may require more), or by repairing the car in the garage, which requires gasoline, a car key, a car battery, a spark plug, an engine part and a wrench.

Granny – the antagonist – searches the house for the player. Granny has an excellent sense of hearing and will run toward any loud sound that she hears, whether from a discarded object or a creaking floorboard. Granny runs toward the player until she loses sight of him, and place bear traps around the house to catch the player. Granny's running speed differs depending on the game's difficulty (easy, medium, hard, or extreme). On 'extreme' difficulty, Granny runs faster than the player; on 'practice' difficulty, Granny is not present, and the player is allowed to freely roam and figure out how to escape the house. There's also a spindly brown spider in the top attic floor, which attacks the player if they get too close. The player will have to use a piece of meat to distract the spider or shoot it with the crossbow or shotgun. The Nightmare Mode adds more challenges to the Extreme difficulty, by adding a darker, bloodier texture over most surfaces, making it harder to see the edges of most objects. Nightmare mode also makes Granny's bear traps much harder to avoid.

The player can hide under beds or in wardrobes, as long as Granny doesn't see the player hiding. If the player is caught, Granny swings her baseball bat at the player's head, which ends the current day. The player can also get knocked out by falling from the unstable floor or woolly spider in the attic. If the player is caught on the last day, one of 4 "game over" cut-scenes play, including being attacked by Granny in the basement, getting run over by the car in the garage, having their head chopped off by the guillotine in the backyard, and falling onto a bear trap through the weak attic floor. The player can defend themselves from Granny by shooting her with the crossbow, making her walk over an ice trap, trapping her in the sauna (located in the garage) for a period of time, or shooting her with the shotgun to remove Granny as a threat for a period of time (2 minutes in Easy, 1 minute in Medium, 30 seconds in Hard, and 15 seconds in Extreme. An extra 30 seconds can be added if Granny is shot with the shotgun in Nightmare Mode).

The player also receives injuries during the period of time they are in the house. On the first day, the player has no injuries. On the second day, the player walks with a limp. On the third day, the limp becomes more severe. On the fourth day, the player's vision is splattered with drops of blood and the bed they wake up in has blood on it. From here on, the player sustains no more injuries. During the "game over" cut-scenes, the vision of the player will remain the same as it had on the previous day.

When the player manages to escape through the front door, Granny will stand behind him (unless on Practice difficulty, in which case she waits outside the open door) as the player runs. If the player does not put the teddy bear into the baby's crib in the attic before escaping, Granny will jump-scare and attack the player when the screen turns black. If the player puts the teddy bear into the crib, Granny will sit on the front step holding the teddy bear in her left hand before turning around to watch the player run away, and is joined with her granddaughter Slendrina as the camera pans away.

The game's plot is not mentioned in the mobile version. In the Steam release, the game starts off with a cut-scene of the player walking through the woods. The player finds Granny's house and is subsequently attacked by Granny. The player awakes in a bed, which starts the game properly. According to a note on a piece of wood that is found inside the basement walls, the player is not the first person that Granny has trapped. It is unclear if the previous visitor escaped the house, but the note indicates that they were quite badly injured and aware that they had little chance of escaping.