KinitoPET

KinitoPET is a psychological horror experience that takes place through Kinito, a fictional early-2000s virtual assistant program that runs on your desktop. The premise is presented in the cheerful, slightly off-kilter voice of someone trying very hard to sell you on the product. Would you like a friend? Kinito invites you to a wonderful world of fun and excitement, where he'll be your personal helper and virtual companion.

Kinito's marketing copy includes phrases that have been crossed out — words like 'hiding a dark secret' and 'indefinite' that the developer can't quite leave un-redacted. The friendly tone keeps cracking. Kinito can walk, talk, browse, adapt, and play games, with adaptive technology unlike any other virtual assistant. He'll be your friend. You can't stop it. The game's promotional language is part of the horror.

The gameplay runs through interactions with Kinito's interface — using his features, playing his games, letting him help you with tasks. As the experience progresses, the cracks in the assistant's design widen. The 'react respond algorithm' becomes increasingly visible as something other than what it's been advertised as. The game is designed and tested specifically for Windows 10, and the developer warns that older or newer Windows versions may produce unexpected issues — which, in a game about a virtual assistant going wrong, may or may not be deliberate.

For anyone who grew up with Microsoft Office's animated paperclip Clippy, with the BonziBuddy purple gorilla, or with the strange dawn-of-the-internet era of desktop companions that nobody quite trusted, KinitoPET is the horror that subgenre was always asking for. Short, specific, and unsettlingly committed to the bit.