# The Flashlight — Bcube Lab [View the page and interactive demo](https://www.bcube.ae/lab/the-flashlight) Updated: 2026-10-05T19:40:50.451Z Built by Bcube in Dubai, UAE. Independent demonstration. Free to try; no account required. Bcube builds browser games, interactive stories and shareable campaign experiences for brands, agencies, venues and seasonal launches. Play this five-minute Halloween horror story, then discuss a version built around your own brand, product or event with our team in Dubai, UAE. An abandoned house, a dying flashlight and three fuses to find before it goes out. You move the light; the house does the rest. A five-minute browser horror story built by Bcube for Halloween, with four endings, hidden photographs and something that only moves in the dark. ## About the demo Most browser "experiences" ask for a lot and give little back: a loading bar, a tutorial, controls to learn. We wanted to find out how much tension a page could build with one input and nothing to download. The answer is a flashlight. Where you point it is the only decision you make, and the house makes every other one for you. One control There is no walking, no inventory, no menu. The cursor or your finger is the beam. Hold it in the middle and you look at the room; push it to the edge and your body turns, slowly, which is the point: you can flick the light somewhere, but turning to look takes a moment. Hold the light on a door and you go through. Hold it on a fuse and you have it. The battery drains faster the more you swing the beam, so the natural thing to do, moving it carefully, is also the frightening thing to do. A house that reacts Nothing in the house is scary while you look at it. A chair, a photograph, a wardrobe, a fridge. It is what happens when the light leaves and comes back: the chair faces you, the photograph has gained a figure, the wardrobe has closed again. The presence is never thrown at you. It is seen first at the very edge of the beam at the end of the hall, and it is gone when the light reaches it. By the time it is close enough to matter, you have been taught not to trust the dark, and it only moves in the dark. The story has an objective, because fear without a task is just a screensaver: find three fuses, restore the power, get out. The power coming on is the one moment the whole house is lit, and the one moment you see what has been standing behind you. There are four endings, seven hidden photographs, a wall that tells you not to look left, and a second pass through a mirrored house with thirteen percent in the cell and something else holding a light. Nothing downloaded The build is about 600 KB of code. Every wall, floor, plank, jar, cardboard box and polaroid is built from primitives when the page opens; the wallpaper, floorboards, plaster and concrete are drawn from seeded noise; the family photograph is painted on a canvas and repainted as it changes; the writing on the walls is lettered one scrawl at a time while you watch. Every sound, from the drip in the kitchen to the footsteps behind you, the knocking, the whisper at your ear and the contactor slamming when the power comes back, is synthesised with the Web Audio API and placed in the room, so it is behind you in the headphones when it is behind you in the house. The light itself is a shadow-casting spotlight held a little off the eye, with a softer spill around it, dust drifting through the beam, a sway that becomes a tremor when something is near, and a cell that narrows and yellows the beam as it goes. Darkness is kind to simple geometry: with a hard light and long shadows, boxes read as furniture and a stack of capsules reads as a person. What we learnt The hardest part was not the scares but the control. A beam that turns the camera with it slides off whatever you are trying to hold, so the middle of the frame is a dead zone where pointing does not turn you, and a hotspot you are holding forgives a slip of the hand. The second hardest was restraint: every event we cut made the ones left stronger. The chair turning once is a story; turning five times is a mechanic. Where this goes next The house is ours, but the method travels: a short, replayable, shareable story in a browser, with no install and no account, built around a brand, a product launch, a venue or a season. It is the same base we would use for a campaign microsite that people send to each other, an exhibition piece that reacts to where visitors look, or a game that runs from a link on a poster. ## Try this 1. Put on headphones, press Enter and keep the light moving slowly: swinging it fast drains the battery 2. Hold the beam on a door to go through it, and on a fuse, a key or a photograph to take it 3. Light the armchair in the living room, look away, and look back 4. Do the same with the family photograph on the wall, more than once 5. Find the key, open the pantry, and listen to what the house says when you have the second fuse 6. When the wall tells you not to look left, decide for yourself 7. Collect all seven photographs for a different ending, or follow the knocking for the one you were not meant to find 8. When you get out, say yes to the question ## Requirements Status: Working prototype A current browser with WebGL 2 on desktop, phone or tablet. Sound on, headphones recommended. Mouse, trackpad and touch all work; nothing to install. Contains sudden sounds and jump scares. Download: About 600 KB on first load: the house, its pictures and every sound are generated when the page opens Built with: three.js, WebGL 2, Procedural geometry, Generated textures, Web Audio, Spatial sound [Run the demo](https://www.bcube.ae/lab/the-flashlight/run) ## What it could become ### Brand activations and seasonal campaigns A five-minute story people play and send on, built around your brand and your season, from a link and with nothing to install. ### Games and interactive storytelling A browser game with real-time 3D, spatial sound and endings worth replaying, designed for phones first and desktop too. ### Attractions, exhibitions and venues A reactive dark room or a haunted-house preview that visitors control with a light, on a screen in the venue or on their own phone. ## Want a story people will share? A playable story built around your brand, product or season is a short, well-defined project, and the mechanic here, one light and a house that reacts, can carry very different content. Tell us the occasion and the audience and we will come back with a scope. ## Questions before you start ### Can you build a game like this around our brand? Yes. The Flashlight is an independent demonstration; a commissioned version is built around your brand, product, venue or season, with its own story, look and sound. The mechanic, one light and a house that reacts, can carry very different content, or we design a new one for you. ### Does it work on phones without an app? This demo runs in a browser on desktop, phone and tablet from a link, with nothing to install and no account. A client project is tested on the devices and browsers its audience actually uses, and can be embedded in your website or run on screens at an event. ### How long does something like this take? A short, replayable browser experience of this size is a matter of weeks rather than months once the story and the brand are agreed. The scope sets the timeline: the number of scenes, endings, languages and integrations such as leaderboards, sign-ups or sharing. ### Can it collect leads or feed a campaign? Yes. A campaign version can end in a share, a sign-up, a voucher, a leaderboard or a hand-off to your site, and can report how far people got and what they chose. What is collected, and the consent around it, is agreed in the scope. ### What should we send to start? The occasion and the audience, where the experience will live, the launch date, your brand guidelines, and anything it should be built around: a product, a place, a character or a story. Bcube reviews the brief and proposes a scope with options. ## A playable story for your campaign. Tell us the occasion, the audience, where people will find it and when it needs to be live. Brand guidelines, a product or a venue to build around, and any reference experiences help us scope the work. [Discuss your campaign](https://www.bcube.ae/contact?about=The+Flashlight&lab=the-flashlight#enquiry) Bcube replies to enquiries within one working day. [Development services](https://www.bcube.ae/services) · [Delivered client projects](https://www.bcube.ae/projects) · [All experiments](https://www.bcube.ae/lab)