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Grounded
6/10

Don't Look Back

A sweet stranger says they'll always keep you safe — survive the stroll home without triggering their obsession meter.

Core mechanic

Swipe forward to keep walking, tap to smile or wave politely; eye-contact meters rise if you linger, fall if you ignore them.

Controls

One-thumb swipe up to walk, tap to glance, hold to play coy.

Theme

Soft pastel yandere aesthetic with big-eyed admirer lingering just behind the camera.

Why now

Gentle Fall is pulling 691 ratings and 4.7 stars on itch; yandere content is trending hard across TikTok edits.

Signals · overall 6/10
Hook
7/10

Inversion of the yandere formula (reward = ignoring, not engaging) is a distinctive, memable hook; the 'don't trigger obsession' framing reads instantly in a store screenshot.Gentle Fall demo confirms yandere-soft-stalker premise commercially pulls on itch (4.7 stars, 691 ratings, 324 comments); the same premise ported to mobile swipe controls has not been benchmarked.

Virality
7/10

#yanderegame is a real, large TikTok bucket (23.7M views) and yandere edits/memes trend regularly; the polite-walk-away moment is the kind of cinematic beat that gets clipped and re-shared.23.7M views confirms yandere content as a steady TikTok discovery channel.

Simplicity
7/10

Three inputs (swipe up / tap / hold), single meter, one environment, no physics or inventory — extremely light for a hypercasual build, though expressive character art is needed for the sweet-to-menacing range.Reference builds as a Ren'Py visual novel (no real-time systems); this idea layers on a simple meter on top of that core, low art scope.

Monetization
5/10

Closest mobile comp 'Yandere Horror Game' only has ~120 ratings at 4.34 stars on App Store/Play — proving the theme ports to mobile but not yet proven at hypercasual scale; classic interstitial/rewarded-ad between levels is the realistic model, with upside from a viral TikTok creative.Apple App Store listing for closest direct comp — 4.34 stars, very modest install base as of Oct 2025.AppBrain data confirms only ~120 ratings for the named comp, signaling unproven scale.

Whitespace
5/10

Yandere/stalker-pursuit has incumbents on mobile (Nugroho's app, plus Yandere Simulator's long shadow) and hypercasual 'avoid the pursuer' exists in stealth-avoidance forms; the specific 'obsession meter punished by eye contact' angle is underused but the broader niche is not wide-open.Google Play listing shows multiple yandere pursuit games already on mobile storefronts.Long-running Yandere Simulator franchise shows the audience is established but competitive.

Gentle Fall [Demo]itch.io · 2026-07-26 (today)