Deperson is a 2D psychological horror adventure with a hand-painted look, built around exploration through dreamlike and disturbing spaces. Its trailer, shown during the Game Devs of Color Expo Direct, introduces the game’s tone, its protagonist, and the kind of surreal encounters players can expect.
Quick answer: Deperson is a side-scrolling, hand-drawn psychological horror adventure from Error Thing and Parco Games, and it is available to wishlist on Steam.
What Deperson is
Deperson is a 2D side-scrolling adventure with a hand-drawn art style, developed by Error Thing and Parco Games. It leans into surreal, nightmarish imagery and a slow sense of dread rather than fast action. The name points to its central theme, depersonalization, the feeling of being detached from yourself, which shapes both the visuals and the mood.
The recurring imagery ties into that idea. Moths and butterflies, body horror, masked figures, and towering entities appear throughout, and the environments shift between painted cutscenes and playable side-scrolling sections. It sits alongside other psychological and surreal titles spotlighted during the event, but its painted aesthetic and dissociation theme give it a distinct identity.
The protagonist and on-screen controls
The playable character is a young boy with blonde hair. He wears a charcoal long-sleeved top, dark trousers, and red sneakers with low-cut ankles and white laces. Animated scenes also show a blonde woman wearing a white dress, connecting the story’s surreal moments with the sections you play.
The heads-up display shown in the trailer points to the game’s core systems. The corners of the screen carry simple icons and key prompts.
| HUD icon | Position | Key |
|---|---|---|
| Winged sneaker | Top-left | — |
| Gas mask | Top-right | R |
| Backpack (inventory) | Bottom-left | B |
| Journal / logbook | Bottom-left | J |
The gas mask, inventory, and journal suggest that survival and note-taking play a role, with the mask bound to R, the backpack to B, and the journal to J.
What the trailer shows
The footage moves between painted cutscenes and playable exploration. It opens on a banquet of pale, formally dressed figures at a long table beneath twisted red trees, then cuts to the woman in white standing on a cliff by a red sea, leaving a single high-heeled shoe behind before dissolving into a flock of white butterflies.
Several moments push further into horror: clown tumbler toys and a crow with a skull mask occupy a graveyard; in a dark forest, a small dog passes plush puppies of enormous size; and a blood-stained hand extends above a red expanse of water. The banquet scene comes back, now with a body suspended upside down over the table.
The clips offer a look at play: in a grassy field, the protagonist passes three towering, shadowy figures with blue-lit eyes, then steps into a red industrial room with enormous eyeball windows. Its graffiti warns “THERE IS NO WAY OUT; IT IS COMING TO GET YOU,” before the protagonist approaches a huge stone giant, chained as it rises from a crater. The horror imagery continues in a green room filled with skeletal, doll-like figures, then cuts to the protagonist’s face swarmed by green moths before the title card appears.
Where it was revealed
Deperson was one of many titles featured in the Game Devs of Color Expo Direct, part of the 11th annual GDoCExpo, which ran September 22 through 25, 2026. The showcase spotlights games from creators of color worldwide, spanning both released and upcoming projects.
The Expo also ran a Steam sale featuring demos and discounts on participating games, held September 25 through October 2. Deperson appeared in the surreal and psychological horror portion of the Direct, presented by Error Thing and Parco Games.
Availability
The trailer closes with the red Deperson logo and a prompt to wishlist the game on Steam. No release date has been confirmed, so wishlisting on Steam is the way to follow its progress and be notified when more details or a launch window arrive.
