Viruses are the worst! They infect your hardware, mess with your ability to navigate your device, and often compromise the information stored on said device. Viruses from the 1990s and 2000s that would infect your screen with popups, advertisements, and never ending tasks were especially egregious; some going as far as to hijack your search page and redirect what a user was looking for. These particular types of viruses were so invasive and so prevalent at the time that they have now become a modern day meme referenced in a slew of media.
Pictured Above: The Amazing World of Gumball (Top Left), Aqua Teen Hunger Force (Top Right), Night in the Woods (Bottom Left), and Ralph Breaks the Internet (Bottom Right) referencing classic 90s/00s era virus popups (Center)
While My Helpers, a brand new fake-OS indie coming soon to Steam, isn’t inherently a reference to invasive viruses like I’ve described, it takes the concept and integrates the feeling into a game you can play on your computer, “infecting” your hardware and interacting with every action you take on your PC. While the full release isn’t until the end of the year, I took the time to play the free demo recently and I was absolutely blown away! Usually I won’t dedicate an entire article to a single demo, but I wanted to talk about this one in a bit of depth, in hopes that perhaps I’ll hook a few people into playing or wishlisting it. So, before you go any further, know that I will not spare the details like usual and I will be going into full spoiler territory ahead. My Helpers is not a terribly long demo, so I highly suggest checking it out and then resuming this article once you’ve finished it.
My Helpers Demo is a short experience about desktop helpers similar to ones like Clippy. If you’re unaware, Clippy was one of many “office assistants” that could pop up on your PC and help you with specific tasks, namely the Microsoft Office suite of applications like email and word. Taking clear inspiration from the entire Microsoft Office Assistants program, My Helpers has multiple helpers, each with their own distinct design and personality that inform their corresponding puzzle. You see, when you launch the program, it doesn’t want to be launched and is even corrupted, so you have to find each of the Helpers before moving on.
Pictured Above: Many of the assistants you can get in the Microsoft Office Assistant program, an inspiration for My Helpers
This is where the game goes from cool to absolutely inspired. I’ve spit-ball the idea of a horror game that feels like an actual virus on my computer with people many times before, aching for an experience that really felt like it spread across my entire computer, rather than just within the game itself. Well, My Helpers does just that. From the launch of the game to the very puzzles that assist you in finding the Helpers, this game integrates itself completely into your computer and the puzzles in particular take wonderful advantage of that feature. Like I said, I will be discussing these mechanics in-depth, so if you don’t want to be spoiled this is your last chance to walk away unscathed.
Doxxing my own desktop setup? I truly am a woman on the edge.
One of the first Helpers to find is named Immaculartist. The program you’re running to find all these Helpers gives you clues to assist you in your search. You will start with one clue before eventually unlocking the ability to “update” the helper, showing you another clue, then another, before eventually being able to unlock the answer. The starting clue you’re given for Immaculartist is “...I’m starting to question if you even like art.” If you update you’ll be given a drawing program first and some essential art fundamentals second. Can you guess what you have to do to find him? There’s nothing more in-game than what I described.
To solve this puzzle you have to go into your actual PC programs and open up Paint (more commonly known as MS Paint). The moment Paint opens on your PC it will solve the puzzle and Immaculartist will appear before you, giving you some dialogue before you unlock additional Helpers to search for. This isn’t unique to one or even two Helpers; every single Helper in the demo, and presumably the full release, needs to be found by navigating your actual computer for clues, puzzle pieces, and more. Similar to a virus, it will save files onto your computer for you to use as ways to find Helpers. Similar to a virus, it will read your search bar to interpret what you’re typing and react to it. Similar to a virus, it can even access a printer that is hooked up to the PC you’re playing this game from and physically print a real note to you, the player. To call this impressive is an understatement.
One of the next Helpers to find is Spacehead, with a clue that reads “researching ███ ████ again? Just don’t let her see it, I can’t stand another hour-long meeting about satellites…” Updating reveals a video to you about a conspiracy tied to “the moon”. Load up your preferred browser, type in “the moon”, and magically a Helper will populate your screen.
Maybe next you want to find the Helper named SilenZZZ. Their clue reads “...no, this won’t work. Even the chance of something being heard has to be zero.” Update to reveal an MP3 titled “bestSongToRelaxTo”. It is silent. Another update reveals a program called Sound Viewer that, once loaded, shows you the current audio level of your computer. The trick here is to mute your audio through your PC’s sound settings. There’s also a really fun deviation you can make here, unlocking some additional lore and teasers for the future of the game, but I’ll let you figure that one out yourself. Just know, there’s even more interaction to these puzzles than it may seem at first.
And these interactions are, frankly, mind boggling. What do you mean your game that I downloaded off Steam can read my search bar and specifically respond only when I type the words “the moon”? In what world does muting my PC’s audio trigger a puzzle in a video game? What do you mean this game can save a file to my computer and then react when I edit it? These interactive moments push the limits of what we as gamers and developers thought was possible with a video game. I’ve never experienced anything like My Helpers before but I’ve always dreamed of it and it’s been realized more beautifully and wholly than I ever imagined.
My Helpers goes a long way to make it feel like just another program on your PC, including placing itself amongst the rest of your desktop icons
The programming on display here is truly stunning. Of course the art is lovely, the puzzles are interesting and well composed, and the UI goes a long way in convincing me that this is a real program sitting amongst the rest of them on my PC. But to be able to interface with 3rd party applications and devices and actually interact with them not just call on them to populate something or trigger at a specific moment is mighty impressive, especially from a coding perspective. I am whole-heartedly blown away by this demo and now I’m just biding my time until it releases later this year.
Check out My Helpers on Steam, give it a wishlist, play the demo, and I’ll see you on release day.