A number on a toilet wall, connecting nowhere known.
A psychological horror text adventure with no jump scares, set in the Japan of 2005. In a park's public toilet someone has scrawled a phone number, and no one knows where it connects. From that single urban legend you follow the rumors and the digits into the strange things lurking in town, an omnibus across four episodes that does not lunge at you but stacks dread slowly through text. A 400-yen solo-made work by the Japanese creator EBA GAME, in the lineage of the omnibus Japanese horror text novel Gakkou de Atta Kowai Hanashi. The store is Japanese only, there is not even an English interface, and out of 87 reviews not one is English, so the West has not found it at all.
Published 2026-06-25
01First, the one feeling
- You read a phone number off a toilet wall that should mean nothing, and the not-knowing where it connects is the hook: the urge to dial, to trace it, to learn what the rumor is really about, pulls you one line deeper.
- There is no monster to flee and no face that leaps out; the dread is built entirely in the reading, sentence by sentence, until an ordinary Heisei town turns quietly wrong in your hands and you cannot stop turning the page.
- Each of the four episodes closes one loop of a local legend and opens the next, the omnibus tightening as the numbers and rumors start to rhyme, so finishing one only makes you reach for the following thread.
02Who this is for (and who it is not)
For you
- You love the Japanese horror text novel in the Gakkou de Atta Kowai Hanashi line, where the fear is built in the reading and the urban legend itself, not in a jump scare
- You want a quiet, slow-burn omnibus of Heisei urban legends told across four episodes, where a public-toilet phone number and a chain of rumors lead you into the strange
- You want a Japanese solo-creator doujin gem the wider West has not found at all, Very Positive at 98 percent, a 400-yen text horror novel with zero English reviews
Not for you
- You want action, monsters, jump scares, or anything to flee from; this is a reading-type text novel that stacks dread through prose, not through shock
- You cannot read Japanese, or you want a game that already plays in English; the store supports Japanese only, with not even an English interface, and there is no English version yet
03The roots of this taste
98% positiveonly 87 reviewsno English support yet — yet almost no one has found it
Kaii Bangou ~20XX~ Buried gem
A psychological horror text adventure with no jump scares, set in the Japan of 2005. In a park's public toilet, someone has scrawled a phone number, and no one knows where it connects. From that single urban legend you follow the rumors and the digits into the strange things lurking in the town. It is an omnibus told across four episodes, a reading-type novel that does not lunge at you but stacks dread slowly through text, where the horror is the story itself rather than a sudden face in the dark. Made by the Japanese solo creator EBA GAME, released in March 2026 for 400 yen. The store supports Japanese only, there is not even an English interface, and out of 87 reviews not one is in English. Very Positive in Japan at 98 percent, yet the wider West has not found this 400-yen doujin horror novel at all.
Give it your first passGakkou de Atta Kowai Hanashi The origin
The origin of this taste: in 1995, the Super Famicom title Gakkou de Atta Kowai Hanashi (planned by Takiya Iijima) had several narrators recount the scary stories, school legends, and urban myths of one school, building dread through text rather than shock. It established the form of the omnibus Japanese horror sound novel told as separate episodes through different storytellers, and it lived on for years as the personal, small-scale indie Apathy series, with a current Steam version, Apathy: Narugami Gakuen Gakkou de Atta Kowai Hanashi Kiwami. Kaii Bangou is a direct heir to that form: a solo-made Japanese text horror novel of Heisei urban legends, told as four episodes, that follows phone numbers and rumors and stacks fear through text instead of jump scares. This urban-legend omnibus ghost-story branch is distinct from the mystery sound novel, 3D horror, and looping-tragedy lines, so it stands as its own origin.
Give it your first pass04Make this gem shine
If it speaks to you, check it on Steam and give it your first pass. Your push is what makes a buried gem shine.
You gave it your pass. The gem just caught the light.
05The bloodline of this taste
- Gakkou de Atta Kowai Hanashi Root
- Kaii Bangou ~20XX~ You are here
- Read-and-build games another taste