The Missing Rune

The Missing Rune is a first-person psychological horror puzzle game. You play as a low-level researcher at the O.B.J. Foundation, working at a control panel outside a containment cell. You must banish demonic entities with rune incantations without looking directly at them.

The Foundation

Around 1971, the O.B.J. Foundation uncovered an ancient churchyard called “The Church of the Missing Rune” and built a facility around its consecrated grounds. The ruins contained fragments of a book called “The Grimoire of Runes.” When pieced together, the fragments gave instructions for beginning the second coming.

Although the Foundation had always renounced religion, the book gave its researchers pause: its pages contained writings by Foundation members who had never seen it, as well as members who did not exist. The pages were already highlighted and annotated in the exact manner the Foundation instructs researchers to use. The researchers followed the book’s instructions, opening a rift. Trumpets sounded from its white glow, then became screams as the rift turned to blood. Entities emerged, and researcher ████ ██████ was engulfed by the crimson vortex. Every entity known to have escaped has since been contained; sending them back is your task, following several predecessors who failed.

Observe the entities

Looking directly at an entity lets it tunnel in through your eyes; looking away lets it slip in behind you. You must hold it at the edge of your vision. The campaign has six shifts, each with six cycles, and every cycle has two phases.

During Manifestation, the shield opens and the entity appears. Keep it in your peripheral vision for 30 seconds as it tries to anchor itself in reality. Memorize what happens in the cell: lights change color, sounds come through the microphone, your vision becomes corrupted and, eventually, the entity speaks. The glass absorbs one mistake. Once it breaks, the next mistake is fatal.

Work out the runes

During Quantum, the entity vanishes and it is safe to look down. You consult the in-world Rune Operation Manual to identify the entity, then apply a modifier for each thing you witnessed in the order given by the manual. Enter your three-rune answer at the console within two minutes. The answer becomes the starting sequence for the next cycle, so a mistake carries forward. Some rune combinations are fatal when entered, and the manual’s warning about them is on its back page.

The first shift is guided; after that, the Foundation stops guiding you. Entities powerful enough to speak tell you things about your handler. Perforations in your vision can only be closed by staring directly into them, which means taking your eyes off the entity. The facility loses power, and on the final shift someone replaces your manual with one you have never seen.

Campaign features

• Six-shift story campaign, fully voiced over the intercom
• An in-world manual you open and read; answers never appear on screen
• Three entity types, four categories of anomaly and a final encounter that rewrites the rules
• No weapons or combat; observation, memory and deduction are your only tools
• Steam achievements