IT STEALS Review: Zeekerss' Backrooms‑PAC‑MAN Maze Horror

6 minutes Kevin Leye

IT STEALS takes the timeless “collect everything while something hunts you” loop and turns it into a first‑person panic machine. Zeekerss distills maze horror into five tightly designed modes that constantly rewire the rules, delivering short, replayable runs that swing between sweaty‑palmed terror and fist‑pump escapes. It’s lean, mean, and smarter than it looks—perfect for horror fans who crave tense systems over cinematic fluff.

If you have ever wished classic arcade mazes could make your heart rate spike like a boss fight, this is that wish granted. From your first spawn, your world is a low‑visibility labyrinth: right‑angle corridors, oppressive darkness, and audio that does most of the heavy lifting. Footfalls skate along the floor, distant growls blur into the hum of the vents, and every clack of an orb feels like you’re broadcasting your position to something eager to cash the signal. The premise is bare bones—grab the orbs, don’t die—but IT STEALS builds a buffet of anxiety out of tiny rule shifts.

The best thing here is how each mode rewrites your survival instincts without bloating the controls or the UI. It’s always you, the maze, and a hunter that understands your habits just a hair too well.

  • Classic: The introduction marries simplicity to speed. The hunter plays coy until it doesn’t, accelerating from “where is it?” to “it’s right there” in an instant. The rhythm becomes an elegant dance: route planning, sound reading, and knowing when to save your sprint for a blind corner.

  • Shutter Mode: Vision throttled by strobing reveals. Think of the map as a flipbook: tap to refresh your sight for a fraction of a second, commit the layout to memory, then move into darkness. The monster thrives on your hesitation, so your heartbeat becomes part of the timing window. It’s equal parts navigation puzzle and courage check.

  • Hide and Seek: A short grace period up front lets you hoover orbs while the threat “counts,” then the search begins. The heat here isn’t just in the chase but in choosing when to freeze, when to divert, and how to leave yourself escape routes. Your best runs feel like heists pulled off with seconds to spare.

  • Living Halls: The maze breathes. Paths open and close, familiar corridors mutate, and “safe” loops betray you mid‑stride. It’s a mode that punishes autopilot. Every plan must be adaptable, every turn a gamble, and the sensation of the map moving under your feet is deliciously cruel.

  • The Phantom: Eye contact is a mechanic. Staring suppresses the threat but tunnels your awareness; looking away grants freedom of motion but invites disaster. It’s a tug‑of‑war between gaze discipline and situational awareness that forces you to play chicken with your fear.

None of these twists rely on cheap gimmicks. They’re friction points that push you to read space and sound like a speedrunner. Quick restarts make failure palatable, and the more you play, the more you internalize the maze’s grammar: leave “problem orbs” for last, route toward wide corners, bait the hunter into long straights where you can break line of sight, and never blow your sprint unless a hard turn is coming.

What elevates IT STEALS beyond a novelty is its consistency. The audio remains the star: spatial cues are crisp, enemy tells are legible without becoming trivial, and the soundtrack underscores tension rather than drowning it. Visually, the chunky, almost lo‑fi presentation works because it withholds detail—your brain fills in the blanks, which is far scarier than any high‑poly monster could be in these tight confines.

Is it fair? Usually—yet delightfully mean. Unlucky spawns happen, and the occasional squeeze between a bad wall shift and a hungry stalker can feel like the game rolled a nat 20 against your run. Thankfully, the snappiness of each attempt means you’re back in within seconds, and victories feel earned rather than handed out. When a route comes together and you thread the last two orbs with a hunter breathing down your neck, it hits that perfect arcade high.

A few caveats. Visual sameness can set in if you marathon the modes; the art direction is intentionally sparse, but some players may crave more environmental variety. If you’re allergic to one‑hit failure states, the game’s philosophy won’t sway you—this is a gauntlet, not a narrative theme park. And while the learning curve is shallow on paper, mastering the sound‑driven playstyle does demand focus and headphones.

For everyone else, this is easy to recommend. It’s the kind of design‑tight experience that understands how fragile comfort is in horror. There’s no bloated lore dump, no patronizing tutorial—just a set of rules to internalize and break, with enemies that feel mischievously alive within those constraints. It’s also a strong palette cleanse if you’ve spent dozens of hours in co‑op extraction scares; where Lethal Company thrives on group chaos, IT STEALS is a solo crucible where every mistake is yours and every escape feels personal.

Tips to survive your first night in the halls:

  • Use your ears first, eyes second. Sound telegraphs danger sooner than sight.
  • Plan partial loops. Don’t commit to a full circuit unless you control the chase.
  • Bank orbs near nasty intersections to clean up last when the route is safe.
  • In Shutter Mode, count your pulses and move a fixed number of steps per flash to build rhythm.
  • Don’t panic‑sprint. Save bursts for corners or when you’ve confirmed a long straight ahead.

Pros

  • Five distinct modes that meaningfully change how you think and move
  • Excellent spatial audio and readable enemy tells
  • Fast retries and high “one more run” appeal
  • Smart horror built from mechanics, not jump scare spam

Cons

  • Occasional unfair‑feeling deaths from bad RNG or shifting layouts
  • Visual monotony if played in long sittings
  • One‑hit failure design won’t convert the unconvinced

Verdict: IT STEALS is a lean, relentlessly tense maze‑horror masterclass from a developer who understands the psychology of pursuit. It turns a simple loop into a toolbox of terror and teaches you, over and over, that confidence is the most dangerous monster in the maze. If you want a single‑player rush that rewards nerve and knowledge, consider yourself hunted.