A horror game where you play as a guitar may sound odd on the surface, and it’s even odder when you actually play it. In my Summer Game Fest 2026 demo, I quickly learned that Don’t Fret is a finely tuned game with scares and notable influences. All of which are discussed in my special interview with the game’s creative director and producer.
Don’t Fret is a play on words as you take control of Fret, a literal guitar trapped in a musical school nightmare. It has that cutesy Five Nights at Freddy’s and Poppy Playtime vibe that makes its actual contents even more unsettling, from faceless enemies to other monstrosities I won’t spoil.
I had the privilege of speaking to Scary Kid Studios owner Russell McKamey (and met co-creator Ryan Giordano) at Summer Game Fest 2026, shortly after playing Don’t Fret, to see how on earth he and the team concocted this symphony of strangeness.
‘Silent Hill and Resident Evil Are Big Inspirations’
My first question had to be answered: ‘ Why a guitar for the main character?’
The response:
‘My first instrument was a guitar, so growing up, I learned to play. It’s a really challenging instrument, like most things from a design standpoint. I think that the guitar lent itself to the character design more than other instruments might. Yeah, you have like a flute or a trumpet or a piano, and I did feel like that guitar is probably the most universal of instruments, where just I don’t know, it’s a cozy instrument, you know, felt like it felt like a younger kid could be a guitar, right?’
This told me everything I needed to know about Don’t Fret and the vision here.
You can’t help but love passion projects, something with emotional and historical attachment. It makes even more sense when I realised that Russell is also the co-owner of the Rockit Music YouTube channel—specializing in nerdcore songs, with an audience of 1.5 million.
Music is a central mechanism and plot device in Don’t Fret, and I learned a little more about how big of an impact it has on the game:
‘A lot of games focus on just jump scares, and the cheap thrill, and we want to focus on storytelling, building up tension, and making these really cinematically cool moments.
It’s not a rhythm horror game, you don’t need to know music, but music is embedded in everything: In every puzzle and in every core aspect of the mechanics of the game, you see music everywhere, and so I think that in that regard it’s one of the most unique things in terms of like a horror game that’s out there.’
From my own experience, one second I was hiding from the clutches of a monster, unable to fight back as I was only armed with a Guitar Tuner that simply distracts rather than devastates, the next I was thrown into a desperate escape sequence with a thumping track that briefly made me think I was in a Blade nightclub.
Russell explained how you upgrade the Guitar Tuner as you progress, but this feels very much like an isolated horror game where fighting back isn’t nearly as effective as hiding and keeping quiet—again, playing into our sound and music themes.
I expected the usual hide-and-seek motif you get with this brand of horror game, like an Outlast, for example, but I was caught off guard by a couple of puzzles that made me think twice. One required me to flick back and forth between several notes to accurately play a certain jingle, all the while being watched by a faceless teacher that still gives me the heebie jeebies even now.
Interestingly, some puzzles will be randomized, some won’t, and this should add to the game’s replayability. The five-person-strong development team has managed to whip up a complete adventure of roughly ‘six to eight hours,’ and there will be some DLC in the future.
If you’re wondering if this is for you, then talk of other famous horror games could lure you in further:
‘Silent Hill and Resident Evil are big inspirations, I think. We went after this to try to have a visual aesthetic that was reminiscent of a Bioshock, but on the surface, it looked kind of like a nice game, but when you dive into it, it’s got a really gnarly story. It starts to get darker and darker as the game goes on, and there are really nasty elements.’
Russell claims it’s an ‘8/10’ on the Scaro-o-meter scale, and I can definitely see that. Don’t Fret is a visually striking and audibly enchanting experience, and you can check out its release date trailer below.
There’s also a free demo on its Steam page.
The Insider Gaming Discord is the perfect place to let me know what you think about Don’t Fret, and if its sound is cool enough for you.
We also have SGF 2026 previews on Turok Origins, Clutch, Blood Message, Valor Mortis, Escape Academy 2, and Saw: Genesis.
Andy is Insider Gaming's Senior Evergreen Editor and has been in the games journalism sphere in one way or another for over 7 years. His video game taste is as…
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