IT WANTS IN is a first-person survival horror game on Roblox set inside a two-story house in Hollow Pine on Halloween night, 1986. A curfew is in effect from midnight until dawn, a tall horned creature prowls outside, and a television keeps feeding you Emergency Broadcast System instructions. Your job each night is simple to state and hard to do: keep the house sealed and the fireplace burning until 6:00 AM.
Quick answer: Follow the broadcast rules, keep the fireplace fed, and seal every door, window, and curtain. Survive from 12:00 AM to 6:00 AM to clear a night and unlock the next one.
The setup: a curfew night in Hollow Pine
You spawn downstairs beside the fireplace at 12:00 AM on OCT 31 1986, with the clock and the HOLLOW PINE COUNTY location shown on the HUD. The living room television carries the Emergency Broadcast System, which opens by telling you this is not a test and that a curfew runs from midnight until 6:00 AM. From there, the broadcast delivers numbered rules and occasional bulletins that shape what you have to do.
The broadcast also closes off any thought of leaving. A special bulletin states that county roads are closed, that you should not try to drive, and that your vehicle will not start. The only way out is to last until morning.
The broadcast rules
The TV reveals rules one at a time as the night goes on, and each one adds a task to your checklist. These are the core instructions it issues:
- Rule 1: Remain indoors.
- Rule 2: Close all curtains.
- Rule 3: Do not look at the treeline.
- Rule 4: Lock all exterior doors. If you hear knocking, do not answer.
- Rule 5: Keep noise to a minimum. Walk, do not run, and do not slam doors.
The broadcast adds a persistent reminder to maintain the fireplace: the creature stays clear of its flames. Later messages address a power outage and how to defend yourself. The first locates the main breaker in the basement utility room and cautions you against going there by yourself. The other says the creature will retreat if you shine a light directly into its face, and tells you to save your batteries.
Supplies scattered around the house
Everything you need is lying on floors and shelves across both floors. You pick items up with the [E] prompt and they slot into a numbered hotbar. The five item types each feed one of the defense systems.
| Slot | Item | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Matches | Lighting the fireplace |
| 2 | Light Bulb | Replacing burnt-out fixtures |
| 3 | Battery | Powering the flashlight |
| 4 | Firewood | Keeping the fire burning |
| 5 | Plank | Boarding up broken windows |
Matches, bulbs, and batteries tend to sit on floors near furniture, firewood is stacked around the living areas, and spare planks turn up in the basement as well as elsewhere in the house. Collecting extras early matters, because a bulb or plank is useless once the creature is already inside.
How you keep the creature out
Survival runs on a handful of systems that you juggle in parallel. Four meters on the HUD track the state of each: NERVES, FLASHLIGHT, FIRE WOOD, and YOUR NOISE.
The fireplace
The fire is your anchor. As long as it burns, the creature will not step into the flame, so a lit hearth is the one safe spot in the house. The fuel meter drains over time, so you keep taking firewood and adding it to the hearth through the night. If the fire dies while the entity is inside, a warning reads “It’s inside. Get to the firelight.”
Curtains and the treeline
Every window on both floors has curtains that must be drawn closed, from the downstairs rooms to the upstairs bedroom and nursery. Closed curtains stop the creature looking in, which ties directly into the rule about never looking at the treeline yourself.
Doors and knocking
The exterior front double doors and the kitchen backdoor both need to be locked. Once they are, the creature announces itself by rattling handles, knocking, and pounding, with heavy footsteps circling outside. The broadcast is blunt about this: no one from the civil defense office will visit your home, so knocking is never a reason to open up.
Window breaches
Locked doors do not make the house airtight. The creature can smash a window, signalled by shattering glass and an on-screen objective to board it up. A breached window gets sealed with wooden planks, and until it is, the entity has a way inside.
Hiding in closets
When the creature gets in, you can duck into a closet and wait it out, watching it stalk past a cracked door. Hiding is not free, though. Your NERVES meter drains while you stay hidden, shown by the warning “You can’t hide forever – your nerve is draining away.” After you leave, a cooldown stops you climbing straight back in, with the message “You can’t make yourself go back in there yet.”
Power, bulbs, and noise
The power can trip, cutting the lights and leaving the house dark with the alert “POWER LOST / THE BREAKER HAS TRIPPED.” Restoring it means going down to the basement utility room and resetting the main breaker. Individual fixtures also burn out, such as the dining room ceiling light, and you swap in a spare bulb to fix them. Later in the night, noise becomes its own threat, with Rule 5 warning that the creature is listening and that running or slammed doors draw it in.
The flashlight
If the creature reaches you, a steady flashlight beam held on its face makes it shriek and turn away, buying you time to retreat. The flashlight runs on batteries, so the broadcast’s advice to conserve them is a real limit rather than flavour text.
The five nights and how they escalate
Each night runs the same 12:00 AM to 6:00 AM window, but the creature gains a new ability and the rules shift to match. Clearing a night unlocks the next “tape.”
| Night | Name | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | It Watches | The core rules: curtains, doors, fire, hiding |
| 2 | It Knocks | Boarding up windows becomes central |
| 3 | It Climbs | The creature climbs walls and ceilings |
| 4 | It Hunts | The broadcast fails and the creature moves faster |
| 5 | It Comes Inside | All earlier rules are rescinded as it breaks in repeatedly |
By Night 5 the defenses you relied on no longer hold, and surviving means constantly stoking the fire, replacing bulbs, and holding doors shut against relentless attacks until dawn.
Winning and losing a night
You clear a night by reaching 6:00 AM alive. The clock ticks to morning and the screen reads “NIGHT X SURVIVED: You made it to morning,” after which the next night’s tape becomes available. Clear all five and you get the final screen, “YOU SURVIVED ALL 5 NIGHTS: The emergency has ended.”
Getting caught ends the run with the “YOU WERE TAKEN” screen, which logs the exact time you were lost as a “last signal” and offers a respawn to keep the night going. In the footage of Night 1, that last signal reads 4:11 AM, after the creature pushed into the living room, drove the player up the stairs, and cornered them in the kitchen.
Taken together, IT WANTS IN is less about combat and more about keeping a fragile routine intact under pressure. The fire has to stay lit, the house has to stay sealed, and the broadcast keeps raising the stakes until either the sun comes up or the thing outside finally gets in.
