The Excuse Plot is that you are locked up in a house by Granny, a zombie-like killer grandma(?). You must find items which will let you escape the house, as well as avoid Granny. Be careful, she hears every sound you make and will even leave Bear Traps on your path.
Despite the low quality that would normally leave a game ignored, Granny, in early 2018, received major attention and became an indie Survival Horror hit in the gaming community for its still effective Nightmare Fuel and unique incorporation of Room Escape Game mechanics.
Watch the trailer here
. If you wish to try the game out, download it from the App Store, Google Play, or Steam.note
On September 6, 2019, a sequel, Granny: Chapter Two, was released, introducing Granny's new companion and Spear Counterpart, Grandpa. You also have to escape a new house, as well as avoid the two of them. Download it from Google Play, App Store, or Steam.
The third game was released June 3rd 2021, and a commercially released Fan Remake titled Granny Remake was released in 2023.
Compare Hello Neighbor and Saiko No Sutoka, two other Survival Horror games that also have puzzles and a stalking Big Bad. Not to be confused with Armed & Delirious, which is also called Granny in Germany.
Granny and the series in general provide examples of:
- Action Survivor: The game's Featureless Protagonist is this. They're just an ordinary person who utilizes tools around the house to help them escape.
- Adjustable Censorship: The Nightmare option makes the game more disturbing, such as adding in even more Bloody Horror, "Psycho" Strings when Granny chases you, and a Scare Chord plays whenever Granny hits you.
- Alone with the Psycho:
- Granny and you are the only sentient beings in the house, and Granny really wants to kill you.
- In Chapter 2, you have three psychos in the house: Granny, Grandpa, and Slendrina's Child.
- Antagonist Title: Granny's the main antagonist of the eponymous video game.
- Apocalyptic Log: Someone else who was previously captured by Granny has marked several signs of their struggle with her in the house, such as "FIVE DAYS", "HELP", and of course the blood splatters. They even left this note written with blood on their final day:This is my fifth day in this house. She chases me wherever I go. I'm quite injured and my body hurts. The only thing I remember before I woke up in this house is that I was driving when my car suddenly broke down. I went out to see what the problem when someone suddenly hit me in the head. I have managed to open a pair of locks on the front door but that's all. Why does she do this? I hope no one will experience the same thing as I do. If I do not survive and if someone find this message I have noticed that she sometimes hide things inside fruits.
- Artificial Brilliance: Granny lays Bear Traps near where she last saw you.
- Bald of Evil: Granny barely has any white hair on her head. So does her husband Grandpa.
- Batter Up!: Granny's main weapon is a bloody baseball bat.
- Bear Trap: Granny leaves bear traps as a way to trap and eventually find and kill you. Fortunately, you can always pluck them off if you step onto them and drop items into them to clear the bear traps off.
- Black Eyes of Evil: In the remake, Granny either has black eyes or no eyes at all.
- Bloody Horror: As usual to a horror game. Blood splatters all over the house, and your vision gains blood splatters on the fourth day.
- Car Fu: You can run over and knock out Granny with that rusty old car in the garage. She also uses it on you in one of the Game Overs.
- Close-Range Combatant: Granny only attacks with a baseball bat, meaning that she has to get close to you in order to knock you out.
- Continuity Cameo: As Easter Eggs. Throwing the teddy bear into the crib in the baby room will summon Slendrina's ghost and unlock the alternate Teddy ending. If you place a book on the pedestal in the secret Bookshelf Room, the back wall will roll away and reveal Slendrina's mother's corpse chained to a wall.
- In Chapter Two, Slendrina's Husband can be found and dropped out from the cabinet in either the Jail or Attic.
- Crazy-Prepared: Granny has locked up the main door with all kinds of locks she has and attached a bell trap to the door. She has also bricked up the exit way through her garage door and wrote a message across the bricks saying "You cannot escape".
- Creepy Basement: The Basement of Granny's house has a suspiciously giant blood puddle in there, guaranteed to creep you out..
- Creepy Crows: Update 1.7 introduces Granny's pet crow that will stun you and alert Granny. It can be distracted with birdseed.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Some of your Game Overs, from being Eaten Alive to being rammed in by a car, are this, but the Attic Game Over, which has your head being crushed by a Bear Trap, is by far the cruelest.
- Deadly Rotary Fan: Trying to grab the jail ventilator while it's on will splice your fingers.
- Difficulty Levels:
- Practise, Easy, Normal, Hard and Extreme. The higher the difficulty, the longer Granny's sight range is and the faster she goes. The lower the difficulty, the shorter her sight range is and the slower she goes. You can also enable darkness and extra locks to increase the difficulty on any level.
- Chapter Two allows you to choose your main enemy to run from: Granny, Grandpa, or both, only if you're on Easy or Normal mode. Otherwise, you'll have to face them both.
- Don't Go in the Woods: The PC intro shows the player walking alone in the dark forest. Then they approach Granny's house... and then Granny finds, knocks out, and locks them up in her house.
- Draw Aggro: Sometimes you need to deliberately make noise in order to draw Granny near for a useful purpose, such as to unlock the door of the starting bedroom. Granny relies on sound over sight when it comes to finding the player.
- Easier Than Easy: Practise mode, where there's no Granny and the player is free to explore and escape the house at their own pace. There are still other hazards, though.
- Eaten Alive: One of your unfortunate fates... has Granny lunging towards you with her mouth open.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
- Granny will go into Unstoppable Rage mode if you kill her pet Giant Spider or Creepy Crow.
- Implied when you pick up the teddy bear, which unleashes Granny's Unstoppable Rage also. Dropping the Teddy Bear into the crib will summon Slendrina's spirit and unlock the ending which has Granny sitting at the door with the Teddy Bear in her head and Slendrina behind her, which implies the Teddy Bear was Slendrina's favorite toy and Granny cares about Slendrina a lot.
- Evil Laugh: Granny lets out one sometimes while walking about in the house.
- Evil Old Folks: The main antagonist is a(n at least humanoid) killer grandmother who'll do anything to catch and kill you, and she can never be killed herself. Chapter Two doubles the trouble by adding her Spear Counterpart, Grandpa, who is just as deadly.
- Excuse Plot: You're locked up in a house by a killer Granny and have to escape. That's all to it, besides the Previous Victim.
- Fake Difficulty: The PC Port makes the house pitch-dark, only allowing you to see things with a flashlight, but you can't see what's hiding behind shadows. Good luck to those who have mastered the mobile version.
- Faux Affably Evil: In the first version, Granny would sometime pretend to be harmless, saying to the player "Don't be afraid" and "All I wanted to do was play with you", while still expressing her cruelness.
- Featureless Protagonist: There's not much known about the protagonist you're playing as, besides the fact that they're trapped by Granny.
- First-Person Ghost: The game does not have a model for the player, which means you're just controlling the camera throughout. It's more obvious in the Car Escape ending and a glitch that keeps the gameplay during the Game Over cutscene.
- Game Over: If you use up all of your 5 days (6 if you've completed the painting puzzle), then you get one of the four different endings: Granny throwing you into the basement and eating you alive, Granny beheading you with a guillotine outside, Granny trapping you in the garage and hitting you with a car, and Granny knocking you through the attic hole into a Bear Trap. In Practice difficulty, only the "Game Over" text will show.
- Giant Spider: Downplayed on the giant part. As of the version 5 update, Granny has an enormous spider for a pet. It's about the size of a small cat, which is still bigger than any real life spider. It's so big it can eat a piece of meat in a few seconds.
- Harder Than Hard: Extreme mode. Granny is faster than the player (though it's possible to outrun her), darker option and extra locks are turned on, iron bars are put in front of the Tunnel, creaking floors cover almost everywhere, and Granny can only be disabled for 5 seconds.
- Holiday Mode: Version 1.6 gives Granny a nice Santa hat and places a Christmas tree in the Study.
- Hope Spot: If you're in Granny's line of sight and hide in the closet or chest or under the bed, she'll stop outside as normal, making the player think they're home free for a few seconds, before opening the closet/chest and whacking you, and if you're under the bed, falling to the ground in a stance similar to a spider before lunging at you.
- Humanoid Abomination: Granny. She looks like a zombie, has Prophet Eyes, can hear noise from faraway, cannibalizes, can't be hurt by anything, and is connected to Slendrina.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Blood splatters and one of the Game Overs which has Granny appearing to eat the player imply Granny to be a cannibal.
- Interface Screw:
- Your vision is clotted with blood whenever you're injured, and goes away after a way. Starting on the fourth day, your vision has this as default.
- The Darker option places black fog over the vision.
- Kill It with Ice: You can set up a freeze trap and let Granny step on it, which will turn her skin cyan and freeze her there for a while. Her body will fall apart into Ludicrous Gibs if you bump into her frozen. You can also step on it and freeze there, while still living.
- The Joys of Torturing Mooks: Some of the ways you can defend against Granny, such as running against her with the car or locking her up in the Sauna of Death, and all kinds of amusing things you can do with her dead body (courtesy of Ragdoll Physics).
- Jump Scare:
- Granny creeping up and attacking right behind your back, suddenly turning your face towards her. What a surprise.
- If Granny sees you and you crouch under something, you may think you're safe until Granny gets onto the floor and lunges at you.
- After you've successfully escaped and the The End message pops up, Granny will appear on the screen suddenly. This doesn't happen in Practice mode.
- In the remake, the jumpscare that plays upon getting caught has been replaced with a new one that features Granny picking the player up, and opening her mouth wide while the entire screen shakes and flashes different colors, allthewhile glitchy sounds play.
- More Teeth than the Osmond Family: In the original game, Granny only had bloodied Scary Teeth. In the remake however, she now has countless rows of pointy, bloodied teeth.
- Multiple Endings: If you lose all of your days, you get one of four bad endings. If you successfully escape, you get the standard ending; you backing away from the house while a disappointed Granny stands in the doorway. Summon Slendrina's ghost by dropping the teddy into the crib and you get the alternate ending; Granny sitting on the door steps with the teddy in her hand and Slendrina's ghost standing in the doorway. Escape on Practice mode and Granny is standing outside instead.
- Nightmare Face: Granny's face looks like an intimidating rotting zombie, complete with Prophet Eyes and Scary Teeth.
- Nigh-Invulnerability: You can try to kill Granny by shooting her with a Tranquilizer Dart, locking her in the Sauna of Death, running over her with a car, shooting her with a shotgun, or exploding her with a gasoline can, but she only be disabled temporarily and always will come back.
- Non-Human Sidekick: Granny has a pet spider, rats, and a crow. The spider will knock you out, while the rats and crow only stun you and alert Granny.
- Offscreen Villain Dark Matter: Granny somehow has an endless supply of Bear Traps. She also managed to have all those gadgets for locking you within your house.
- Off with His Head!: One of the Game Overs has Granny strapping you to a guillotine and then releasing the blade.
- One-Hit Kill: You lose a day whenever you are attacked by Granny, bitten by the Giant Spider, or fall through the Attic hole.
- Prophet Eyes: Granny's eyes are white and blank. So are Grandpa's, Slendrina's, and the Child's.
- Sauna of Death: The sauna in the underground garage is able to burn up anyone who is trapped in it once activated. You can lure Granny in and burn her up.
- Scare Chord: On Nightmare mode, you receive a loud maniacal orchestral sound whenever Granny hits you.
- Scary Teeth: Granny's teeth is decaying and tainted with blood, all meant to scare the player.
- Schmuck Bait: The Teddy Bear, which looks quite harmless and doesn't seem to have some sort of use. Pick it up and Granny will start hunting you down.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: A buildable single-shot shotgun is one of the few ways of dispatching Granny.
- Silent Protagonist: The protagonist never speaks, though their lines, such as "I have to leave this house", do appear.
- Slasher Smile: In the remake, Granny's creepy smile from the original has been exaggerated to a perpetual creepy, humongous grin.
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Spiritual Successor: Granny is a game similar in concept to the Slendrina series, DVloper's earlier horror games, even going in to throw in appearances of Slendrina and her relatives. - Super-Senses: Granny can hear every sound you make, even far away.
- Spiders Are Scary: As of the version 5 update, Granny has a pet spider. It's a Giant Spider (formerly tarantula in version 1.5), with blood red eyes. It's extremely quick, and if it sees you it will bite your ankles and cause you to lose a day.
- Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: Slendrina, whose appearance is onryo-like, becomes an example of this when she appears in Granny as a ghost.
- Uncanny Valley: The Water Monster's eye is eerily humanlike, almost like It Can Think and it's actively Death Glaring at you.
- Unstoppable Rage: If you pick up the teddy bear or kill her pet Giant Spider, Granny will gain red eyes and chase you like a Super-Persistent Predator. She will stop this when you either drop the teddy or knock her out.
- Video-Game Lives: Your days are the amount of times you can try to escape. You can earn an extra one if you complete the optional Painting puzzle, though this isn't possible on Hard and Extreme.
- Vocal Dissonance: In version 1.0, Granny's voice sounded like a young woman, as her voice clips were voiced by a young man and then sped-up.
- You Dirty Rat!: If Nightmare mode is turned on, Granny has pet rats that will bite you, stunning you briefly and alerting Granny. Fortunately, they aren't that hostile.
Tropes specific to Granny: Chapter Two:
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Chapter Two replaces the Garage with a giant Sewer, where you can escape by boat and be Eaten Alive by a Sewer Monster.
- Affably Evil: The Sewer Monster uses its tentacles to wave goodbye to you when you escape by boat.
- Animalistic Abomination: The Sewer Monster, who resembles a cross between a one-eyed and three-tentacled octopus and lamprey. It inhabits the sewer and drain near the playpen and likes to eat humans.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- Grandpa cannot hear well like Granny, making it easier to avoid him, especially if either him or both are toggled.
- Unlike the Spider from the previous game, which knocks you out and loses a day, the Child of Slendrina only bites and disables you for a brief moment, then leaves you alone.
- Granny and Grandpa cannot access the Attic, which carries a lot of items used for any escape method and is where the helicopter can be accessed, alleviating the pain of having to gather lots of items needed to fix the helicopter.
- Berserk Button: Hearing his favorite black-and-white vase being dropped is enough for Grandpa to come hunting for you.
- Body Horror: The Child, whose body is shaped to have him walk around like a spider.
- Cane Fu: Grandpa's main weapon is a bloody walking cane.
- Easter Eggs: Chapter Two has Granny and Grandpa do more activities than just walking around, which some players can catch while sneaking around. Granny sometimes washes the dishes and plays piano, and Grandpa sometimes sings a garbled version of a snippet of "Diana" by Paul Anka, feeds the Sewer Monster, and dances.
- Enfant Terrible: The Child of Slendrina, who, despite being a baby, can already eat meat (and humans). It'll crawl and bite hard onto you when you step onto its territory.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Grandpa likes to call his wife "Granny".
- From Camouflage to Criminal: Grandpa is
confirmed to be a war veteran, who is now trying to kill the player. - Game Over: If you use up all your days, Granny and Grandpa will either be impale you in an Iron Maiden, feed you alive to the Sewer Monster, feed you to the Child of Slendrina, or electrocute you.
- Hellish Copter: It can be played straight or subverted. Attempting to fly the helicopter without the manual will result in you crashing because of lack of experience, but if you manage to fly with a manual, you'll make a successful escape!
- High-Voltage Death: One of your game overs has Granny trapping you within the iron cage blocking the door and Grandpa electrocuting you to death.
- Howl of Sorrow: Slendrina's spirit will come out and groan grimly when you kill her Child.
- Iron Maiden: Granny and Grandpa keep one in the house. You can kill one of them by enclosing them in. One of the game overs has them killing you with it.
- It Can Think: The Sewer Monster follows you from the sewer to the drain by the playpen and back, is loyal enough to not harm Granny or Grandpa, and waves goodbye to you if you escape by boat.
- Retired Badass: Grandpa's extensive security system, firearms, explosives, and helicopter imply that he's a war veteran, which was confirmed by the developer on Twitter.
- Shout-Out: What Grandpa is singing is "I love you but do you love me. Oh, Diana, can't you see. I love you with all my heart" part of "Diana" by Paul Anka, but it's so poorly sung it took a while for players to decipher.
- Spear Counterpart: Grandpa serves as the obvious male counterpart to Granny and accompanies her.
- Static Stun Gun: A Stun Gun and its single ammunition is available in the house for you to defend against Granny and Grandpa. Shooting it will electrocute and then disable them.
- Villains Out Shopping: As mentioned in Easter Eggs example above, you can find Grandma and Grandpa doing mundane things while they're not on bloodthirsty pursuit, like washing dishes and dancing.
- Voice of the Legion: Grandpa has a deep, demonic voice. It, along with his and his wife's eyes glowing red when they are angry and their ability to keep coming back after being killed clearly indicates that they are no longer human and have become undead entities.
Tropes specific to Granny 3:
- Ascended Extra: Slendrina appears as an antagonist instead of a mere Easter Egg like the previous games.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: If you take Slendrina's teddy bear to her crib, she will stop bothering you and give you an item to help you escape.
- The Bus Came Back: Granny's Creepy Crow from the first game returns after being absent from the second.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: One game-over has the player being blasted off the roof by Grandpa with his shotgun and sent falling into the mouth of the waiting alligator in the moat below.
- Good Old Fisticuffs: If Grandpa doesn't have his shotgun, he will just punch you.
- Informed Species: The creature in the moat is referred to as an alligator by the texture and model name, but it more closely resembles a crocodile.
- Never Smile at a Crocodile: Granny and Grandpa have a pet alligator in their moat, which will attack you if you fall in.
- Pistol-Whipping: If Grandpa is up close with his shotgun, he will use it as a melee weapon.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: Grandpa has a shotgun this time around, and can shoot you from long range. You can steal it from him and use it against him and Granny.
- Talkative Loon: Grandpa has several more lines than Granny does, and will say them when he sees you, when he loses you, when he investigates a noise he heard, or just at random.
- They Killed Kenny Again: Unlike in the first game, here the crow will respawn after each knockout.
- Augh! *whack*
