Footsteps

I’m a big fan of Roblox and the unnerving games it hides deep beneath it. A few days ago, I discovered the weirdest, unnerving, and one of my favorite games I’ve ever played on Roblox so far, I don’t think anything would ever be able to top it.

I really like this game, and I’ll tell you why I’m sharing this story at the beginning of the secrets section.

My First Playthrough
It was late into the night, I had nothing else to do but to play Roblox and the weird games it has to offer. I don’t really remember many of the games I had played that night, due to the fact that it was overshadowed by a significantly weirder game. The game was simply called ‘Footsteps’. After all of the games I had played, this one seemed significantly more odd than the rest. It had no thumbnail or images, no description, no visits, no nothing, just a blank slate of a game, that had just been updated the day before.

“Well, I certainly hope this one is interesting,” I said out loud, confused as to what this game had to offer. “Eh, it’s probably going to be trash. But I like trash.” I clicked on the green play button, and started to load into Roblox. The screen was pitch black, with white text slowly fading in, saying ‘Loading’. As the game continued to load, I heard footsteps approaching, turning from a slow walk, to a sprint slowly over time. As the footsteps got louder and louder as they got closer, the game finally stopped loading, and I appeared in the middle of the map.

I was in the first person, with slow breaths coming from my character. I was in the middle of a square gray room with a tile floor, with four doors on each wall, and a wooden trapdoor on the floor. The ceiling was... well, there was no ceiling, it was just darkness. I decided to check out the trapdoor, which I tried to open, but it said: “2 minutes of peace, find the key before it finds you.” It seemed like it was going to be one of those games, being hunted down by an unknown creature that was intending on killing you.

Knowing that there was a time limit before I was in danger, I decided to move as fast as possible, I moved and looked through the second room quickly, with cracks on the walls leaking a black substance, the room immediately after had a spinning gold key. “Well that was easy.” I then ran back to where I started, the monster not even halfway to chasing my character. However, this wouldn’t be the case for the next level. Speaking of the next level...

The next level was similar in appearance to the first, but a slightly darker shade of gray, and the trapdoor looked like it had been hacked at by an axe. I went to the trapdoor again, to see how much time I had this time. “1 short minute of peace, find the two keys before it finds you.” I had to find two keys this time, it seemed like I’d be seeing whatever ‘it’ is.

I saw that one of the keys was in the immediate room to my left, so I went to go to it. I was surprised by what happened next, a large stone door fell into the formerly open doorway. I was obviously a little angry at this, from now on, it seemed like the game won’t play fair. I had to take another, slightly longer route to make my way to the room with the key, it may have not took a long time, but my minute of peace was almost up. Once I obtained the key, I heard a spine-chilling scream.

After the scream, I heard small footsteps taking the same route as I did to get to the room I’m currently at. I immediately started running, searching for the second key, the longer it took me to find the key, the faster, and louder the footsteps got. As the loading screen, the light footsteps started to turn into a sprint, the footsteps almost caught up with my character right before I got the second key, after I got it though, the footsteps slowed down significantly. I ran back to the middle of the map and opened the trapdoor to deal with another floor.

The third level was a dark gray, with cracks on the walls, the floor tiles on top of other tiles, and the trapdoor was made out of rusty metal this time. And to nobody’s surprise, the level was even harder than last time. “30 quick seconds of peace, find three keys before it reaches you.” I assumed that the wording was changed at the end because it had seen me, but that didn’t exactly matter. I didn’t have much time too even get a single key before the chase was on.

10 seconds were left before I found the first key, it was made out of a rusty metal this time, and just as I retrieved the key, the footsteps started again after a loud screech pierced my ears, I shouldn’t have worn headphones while playing a game like this. Instead of a slow walk this time, the monster started out with a sprint immediately, with a scraping noise following it every so often. I tried to run into the room in front of me, but surprise surprise, the door slammed shut, thankfully for me though, that was the door where the monster was coming towards.

My relief didn’t last long though, as the door slowly started to open again, allowing the monster a shortcut towards my character. I ran behind where I was facing, but I took a sharp left before the door in front of me closed too, thankfully, another key was nearby. But the monster was running very fast towards my character, it wouldn’t take too much time to catch up with my character and kill him. The next room I entered had black holes on the floor, I was confused for a second, but then spikes popped out of certain holes in the ground. The spikes went back in the holes, and I stood on them, right before the monster entered the room and more spikes popped out. A loud roar was heard, the spikes seemed to be able to harm the monster chasing me. I collected the final key, and made my way back to the trapdoor immediately.

The fourth level was an even darker gray than before, had cracks on the walls seeping a black liquid, and overall looked like a mess. The trapdoor was rusted and banged up. “15 seconds of fear, find four keys before it’s too late.” Running I did some more, I couldn’t find the first key before the monster started running after me. All of the doors inside of the room I was inside of slammed shut, the monster began to slam on the stone door and it began to crack, the door got smashed into small rocks, and the monster made its way through the now open doorway.

Now might as well be a good time to describe what the monster even was. It’s invisible, the only way to tell where the monster is at is by looking at a small shadow and the sound of footsteps and an occasional scraping sound. The fact that the monster is invisible made this game very annoying sometimes, not being able to see what’s chasing you isn’t exactly the best design choice, but I won’t question that any further.

The only way I was able to escape the monster was to enter the way it came from, easier said than done, considering the monster was at a full sprint at this point. Obviously, I had made a fatal error in going to this room, which is when I got the first ending.

The Bad Ending
If the footsteps ever reach your character, the following sequence will help you. If you’re facing away from the monster, you will be suddenly spun around to face the monster. A dark silhouette appears in front of you, with red eyes and teeth appearing afterward, right before it suddenly rushes towards the screen and a loud screech pierces your ears. The words game over appear, one letter at a time, before the words “2 chances left...” appears. After you get the bad ending, you will restart at the beginning of the level you lose at, all of your progress reset.

Attempt Two
This time, I didn’t go in the same room I did last time, after entering the room, I took a sharp turn to the right, where I found the first key for that level. The key was rusty and bent, and the monster has been released. I did what I did the previous three rooms, run around the monster, trick it into falling into a trap, collect the remaining keys, and made my way back to the trapdoor.

I was now at the final floor, the room was black, with black puddles on the floor. The trapdoor was... well, there wasn’t a trapdoor, just chains and five locks stopping the player from reaching the ending. Instead of me going to the trapdoor to see the message, it automatically appeared. “5 useless seconds, find the keys before the inevitable...”

5 seconds wasn’t exactly a lot of time to prepare, but thankfully, to the room directly to my right, was the first of five different keys. A door suddenly closed in front of my character, and the monster roared as it started to run towards my character at an absurd speed. Running into trap rooms was required to stun the monster for a short period of 10 seconds, second key obtained, the monster almost caught up to me when I obtained the third key, but when it was about to enter the room I had, the door closed shut. Third key obtained.

I had to run into several dangerous rooms to evade the monster for only a few seconds, fourth key obtained, I had a lot of close calls on the fifth floor, but thankfully I didn’t need to replay it that night. Fifth key obtained, that stunned the monster for 15 seconds. It was enough to make my way to the “trapdoor”, and finish the game.

The Good Ending
After you finish the fifth floor for the first time, you get the good ending, a giant stone tower is shown, and the camera moves upwards to the top of it, high above the clouds. It cuts to inside a black hall, with a white light at the end of it. After entering the light, you appear in a forest, and after walking down a trail for a few minutes, a small town is revealed. After walking towards it, the screen cuts to a bright blue, the same color as the sky, words then appear, saying: “To be continued in Chapter 2...”

Credits start to play after that, though, to my knowledge, unfortunately, there is not a sequel to this game. However, there is still more to this game that you haven’t seen yet.

Secrets
So, unfortunately, if this story has interested you in playing this game, it’s too late, the game has been removed from Roblox, and the account that created it has also been terminated for unknown reasons. The good news is, I believe I have discovered most of the secrets this game has to offer, it’s not like I’m going to know if there’s more if there even is any.

The Cheat Menu
Throughout the game, there are numbers on certain walls. 3, 8, 5, 1, and 20, are the numbers. To access the code menu which leads to the cheat menu, you have to press the following buttons: up up, down down, left left, right right, and shift. This will open up a menu that has numbers 1 through 20, input the previous numbers and you will gain access to the cheat menu. Inside the menu, you have several options.

God Mode - This allows you to be invincible to the monster.

Footsteps - This allows you to turn the footsteps sound effect on and off.

Monster - This allows you to enable the monster, but will disable the bad endings.

Sprint - This allows you to have infinite sprint, which can be helpful if you’re having too much trouble.

Noclip - This allows you to go through walls, making secrets easy to find.

Endings - This option takes you to four more, some of them will be disabled depending on if you have seen the endings for yourself or not.

That’s all of the options, it was very helpful for finding the secrets, and completing the sixth floor. I’ll get to that after the hidden rooms.

Hidden Rooms
On each floor, there is a hidden room somewhere. Using Noclip and God Mode, finding these hidden rooms was easy, and was also required for all of them except for the first one.

Floor 1: This room is the only hidden room that can be entered without cheats, and even without them, it’s very hard to get it done fast enough. The first secret room is found in the top left corner, the 2 minute timer for the monster appearing just barely makes entering the room possible without cheats.

To enter the room, you have to step on 3 differently colored tiles, which will then reveal a hidden passage. Inside of the passage, there are black holes on the floor, which have spikes shoot out of them every five seconds or so, once you’ve made it through all of that, inside of the room is a broken TV with red text on the wall. “SSBzYXcgaXQuIERpZCBpdCBzZWUgbWU/”, I have no idea what it means, but it’s probably some kind of code. By the time I took a screenshot of the text, the monster had already killed me.

Floor 2: This room is only able to be entered by using Noclip and the monster disabled. To enter this room you must exit the maze by using Noclip, and to disable monsters to disable the obstacle guarding this room, a secondary monster. The appearance of this monster is unknown due to being outside of the map being pitch black, but it seems to be some sort of non-human creature, possibly a bug, due to the noises it makes.

Once you’ve disabled the obstacles preventing you from entering the second secret room, you can enter it, the room seems to be that of a hotel room, a giant window showing a lighthouse in the distance. This room seemed to have no purpose before one of my friends discovered that if you wait for around 20 minutes (in real time), the lighthouse will start to flash, after a few minutes of it flashing, my friend discovered that it was morse code. It has been decoded to this message:

“I have become a monster. I kill these innocent travelers for no reason, yet it fills me with so much joy. Prepared to give me some more joy?”

After this message, nothing happens, but your character dies anyway. This section seems to be unfinished, which makes no sense considering how the rest of the game is polished.

Floor 3: This room requires Noclip to be reached, due to it being outside of the maze. This secret room in of itself has a maze inside of it, take note that it will crash your game, even if you have monsters off and god mode on. When you enter this secret room, a stone door will trap you inside of the maze, immediately after it closes, giant footsteps are heard throughout the room. These footsteps will get closer and closer until they eventually reach you and crash the game, not before a jumpscare happens though.

Floor 4: This room is only accessible if monsters are disabled. Normally, if you tried to enter this room, a skeleton will fall on top of the character, and the monster would reach the character before they could break free. But if monsters are disabled, you’re able to break free of the dead corpse without any danger. Inside of the room is a giant web with several skeletons and eggs.

If you touch the eggs, you will die due to baby spiders. If you touch the webs, you will die from a giant spider. If you’re able to avoid the webs and eggs, you will find this message carved into the wall.

“How did this creature come to exist? As if those damned footsteps weren’t enough... now there’s a spider infestation in this godforsaken place...”

After finishing that message, the spider will kill your character.

Floor 5: This room is only able to be entered by using God Mode, and completion of Floor 5 beforehand. There is a large amount of black liquid that kills your character instantly, however, if you have God Mode on, you will walk on it. After around 10 minutes, you will reach the end of the black liquid, TV screens were on the floor, and bloodstains on the walls. A journal was on the floor which reads the following:

“This place is the closest definition there is to the word Hell, I woke up here a few hours ago, and it seems like this is the end for me. I thought I had finally bested the monster, thought that I was more clever than it. I thought I was free, I thought. I thought wrong. To whoever finds this journal, I’m sorry.”

After closing that text, loud splashes of water is heard, before a loud screech is heard, which crashes the Roblox client. Turning off the monster will not prevent this sequence from happening.

The Sixth Floor
After the end of the credits, text appears that says: “Up, down, left, down, sprint, space, up up, sprint, right.” If you press these buttons on the first floor, the screen will flash a bright white, before sending you into the hardest floor. So hard in fact, that it’s actually impossible to beat without gaining access to the cheat menu. Why does this section even have an ending if it’s impossible? Well, might as well explain WHY it’s impossible, but first, give you an image of what this map looks like.

The map is almost pitch black, there is no trapdoor, just six different locks that IS the trapdoor. The floor is completely covered in the black liquid, and the message says: “You shouldn’t be here. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. No time left, no time left. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, you can’t find the keys. you can’t find the keys. I’m sorry.” Immediately, the monster emerges from the ground and kills you instantly, surprisingly, the hardest ending to get was the true bad ending. But you’ll know why specifically in a few minutes.

Now, the monster isn’t invisible anymore, it’s a pitch black, humanoid monster, with a rusted saw. The only real way to complete this level was to use the cheat menu, due to it being impossible, God Mode was required, because the monster would teleport to your position automatically, even if you were outside of the map using noclip. The sixth floor is the closest definition to hell in this game. It never stops, until you exit the game manually.

The True Ending (Good)
After you cheat your way through the sixth floor, you get the true ending, your character appears in a light gray hallway, with angel statues holding swords on the left and right walls. To begin the true ending cutscene, you have to be right in front of the giant doors. The doors will open to reveal a pitch black room, with a single light that reveals a wooden table with a journal and quill.

You then sit on the chair and write the following words: “This place is the closest definition there is to the word Hell,” the screen then slowly fades to black.

The True Ending (Bad)
This ending is very hard to get, due to the fact you need to get all 6 keys and die, which needs God Mode disabled, I don’t know the details of this ending exactly, but this is how one of my friends described it to me:

“Alright, it took a few hours for me to get this ending, damn jumpscares and all. But I think it was worth it. So basically the bad ending went like this. The monster demon thing slowly walks up to you, and says “Are you going to give those to me, or not?” and my character responded “...What?” then the demon thing went on about how he got trapped in the tower, and I skipped most of the dialogue. Eventually, the demon thing killed my character and stole his keys.”

The Shutdown
This game didn’t just shut down all of the sudden, it had some build-up to it. Exactly 24 hours before it got shut down, a message appears before the menu.

“It’s over. It has escaped. I’m sorry.”

The monster option on the cheat menu is automatically disabled, and can’t be changed back. But that’s all I really have to say about this game, it’s just a game I really liked, that happened to be a horror game, something that would fit well here.

I miss this game, despite only having started it a few days ago. If anybody finds a remake of this game, or an actual finished version of it, let me know. I’ll be waiting.