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# A cult that scores your smile heads to gamescom
- URL: https://www.killscreen.com/a-cult-that-scores-your-smile-heads-to-gamescom/
- Published: 2026-08-24T18:35:05.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-24T18:35:05.000Z
- Description: Zeitgeist Studio's WINGS-winning debut makes performed happiness a survival mechanic, ahead of a Q1 2027 release through HYPER REAL.
- Author: Kill Screen Staff
- Tags: Zeitgeist Studio, Name of the Will, Mandy Wong, hong kong, gamescom, A MAZE, steam, Psychological Horror

The recruiting pitch of *NAME OF THE WILL* is the part that stays with me: pain is salvation, grief is a design flaw, and the compound will fix you. You play Neighbor 3279, newly arrived at HOPE, a 34-floor facility whose masked members wear mandatory painted smiles. The mechanic that carries it — laid out on [the game's Steam page](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2079920/NAME%5FOF%5FTHE%5FWILL/?ref=killscreen.com) — is a seven-strike Conduct System that logs every hesitation, every failed quiz, every interrogation answer, and calculates your fate from the tally.

0:00 

/0:09 

1× 

Days are performance: attend Education courses, cooperate during interrogations, and — the design choice I can't shake — select which fellow member undergoes the day's Reformation ritual. Nights are for hacking restricted systems and dodging the Benevolent Father through the backstage floors. Zeitgeist Studio, a woman-led team of four Hong Kongers scattered across the world, calls the register “daylight horror”: nothing gothic, everything well-lit and cheerfully wrong. Creative director Mandy Wong locates the fear in [“the pressure to conform, even when everything in you resists.”](https://www.capsulecomputers.com.au/2026/08/hyper-real-to-publish-horror-cult-mystery-name-of-the-will-launching-early-2027-exhibiting-new-demo-at-gamescom/?ref=killscreen.com) The look is 60-plus hand-drawn scenes with the density of an imagined Hong Kong; the score, by Golden Melody Award-winning composer hirsk, is built from the city's soundscape.

The news: after taking the WINGS Award at [A MAZE. / Berlin](https://2026.amaze-berlin.de/award-winners/?ref=killscreen.com) in May — the prize that funds and amplifies gender-diverse teams — the game now has a publisher in [HYPER REAL](https://www.gematsu.com/2023/07/japanese-indie-games-publisher-hyper-real-established?ref=killscreen.com), Sankei Digital's Tokyo label, and a Q1 2027 Steam date. A new demo plays at gamescom's Indie Arena Booth in Cologne, August 26 through 30, filed under a curated grouping called “Democracy at Play,” which feels like the right shelf. A free demo is on Steam now.

Killscreen has been on this beat a long time: games that deputize you into the system you're trying to escape run from *Papers, Please* to [*The Westport Independent*](https://www.killscreen.com/the-westport-independent-does-understand-censorship/). What *NAME OF THE WILL* adds is the smile.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/84/2584b75d-4bd6-4cce-8259-f1d1c65abbb5/content/images/2026/08/notw-1.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/84/2584b75d-4bd6-4cce-8259-f1d1c65abbb5/content/images/2026/08/notw-2.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/84/2584b75d-4bd6-4cce-8259-f1d1c65abbb5/content/images/2026/08/notw-4.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/84/2584b75d-4bd6-4cce-8259-f1d1c65abbb5/content/images/2026/08/notw-5.jpg)

Education quizzes, hallway commutes and Conduct System notices inside HOPE. Images: Zeitgeist Studio via Steam

Killscreen has spent 15 years on games that treat play as political — the ones where the scariest system is the one you agree to. The free newsletter brings the next **NAME OF THE WILL* to your inbox before the algorithm does.

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