I'm On Observation Duty is a series of horror games by Notovia. In each game, the player controls a character who is observing a house on the lookout for "anomalies." Anomalies range from objects moving around and disappearing to strange shadows to mysterious naked intruders suddenly appearing in the home. The player must report anomalies as they are found in order for them to be fixed. Allowing too many anomalies to take place at once ends the game, and making it from midnight to 6:00 A.M. without being overwhelmed counts as a win. Anomalies are randomly generated, so each playthrough of the games is unique.
There are currently six games in the series, with the fourth having released on December 22, 2021, the fifth on May 13, 2022, and the sixth on September 1, 2023. Each game (except the third) take place from a fixed-camera perspective that the player can flip through to monitor rooms, while the third is a first-person exploration game where the player character is actually inside the house. Jump scares and general weirdness abound. The games can be purchased individually or in a bundle on Steam and itch.io.
This game contains examples of:
- Anti-Escape Mechanism: Some anomalies, usually intruders, prevent you from switching camera screens once you enter the screen they're on, and if it's an intruder, it will make the camera closer to them in the process. These anomalies have to reported ASAP or else it's Game Over.
- Anti-Frustration Features: The sixth game now tells you what anomalies you missed if you get a Game Over. It also introduces a more convenient reporting method for more mundane and applicable anomalies that is simply clicking on them. You still need the old reporting method for specific types of anomalies.
- Art Shift: The "House of the Past" level in the second game is in the style of an older, blockier video game and features blue text boxes and dial-up sound effects akin to that of a late 90's PC.
- Body Horror: Some of the intruders are normal people, but others have limbs that are far too long, twitchy, swollen heads, limbs where they don't belong, and other such fun features.
- Camera Abuse: Some intruders will do this if they're allowed to Jump Scare you, since you're looking at them through cameras. In the sixth game, certain intruders will actively attack the camera (such as the !!HUGE MAN!!), and failing to report them before the camera breaks will end the game.
- Creepy Changing Painting: One of the standard anomalies that can occur is paintings in the house changing into a creepy image or shifting position. The normal paintings are mostly surreal or creepy on their own, so spotting the changes can be difficult at times. Some changes are simply goofy like a portrait gaining a pair of googly eyes.
- Creepy Doll: One of these can appear in the balcony area of the Old House map in the first game.
- Darkness Equals Death: Some anomalies that you wouldn't want to build up are known as Abyss presences, pitch-black circles that gradually expand throughout the room if they're left alone. The fourth game has one that takes the form of a three-dimensional sphere of pitch black darkness that can gradually envelop the whole screen.
- Deliberately Monochrome: The first, fourth and fifth games are almost entirely in grayscale, to simulate the look of security camera footage. The second, third, and sixth games are in full color, however.
- Demonic Head Shake: A few Intruder anomalies will do this when they show up, and some have their whole upper body do this as well.
- Difficulty Levels: The sixth game has a "Hard" mode option to accompany the standard difficulty, which not only adds more anomalies that are more difficult to find, but also grants a penalty for making false reports too often, causing your system to force a reboot, forcing you to lose time, and anomalies can still show up when rebooting.
- Early Game Hell: While the more blatant anomalies that show up later in the day are terrifying, they're also extremely obvious and thus easy to report and fix, a few more aggressive intruders aside. It's in the earlier hours where lots of subtle and easy to miss anomalies can quickly build up without you noticing that you're more likely to actually lose.
- Easter Egg: There are several easter eggs throughout the games
- On the Old House map in the first game, a panel on the kitchen wall will begin flashing around 1 or 2 A.M. Clicking it will activate a sound clip of a voice telling you to go to the balcony at a certain time and input a certain year, which will take you to a secret interactive cutscene.
- On the Cursed House map in the second game, the photo on the desk will ask you to find the woman's body. Once you move to the foyer, a message will tell you that she is near the house. Going to the outside/yard camera and clicking on the flowers will lead you to a secret interactive cutscene with Timothy.
- On the Headquarters level of the third game, there are 3 images that can be collected that are scattered throughout the level. Upon collecting them all, the phone will ring. Picking up the phone will show a cutscene that throws the fate of Timothy into question, given how it mentions that he both dead and alive, as well as there being "more than one Timothy" As well as other information that ties into the lore.
- Enfant Terrible: Some intruders resemble abnormal babies, including one in the fourth game that has Glowing Eyes of Doom.
- Evil Principal: The sixth game introduces one as a rare named anomaly, known as simply The Principal, who appears if you report an anomalous painting of him, and will attempt to end your game if you don't report him quick enough.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The recurring Intruder known as !!HUGE MAN!! is exactly that - a huge man.
- Exact Words: There are some anomalies that can only be seen in certain rooms, but if you report them being in the room you see them in, the report will fail because they weren't actually in the area you saw them through. You'll have to report them being in the area they're actually in, even if you can't see them through that area's camera. A common example is seeing anomalies outside through exterior windows in normal rooms, that are reported as Outside despite not being visible on the Outside camera.
- Exorcist Head: An Intruder anomaly sitting on a toilet in the sixth game will perform this if you report the anomaly, with a very infuriated expression.
- Fan Disservice: Several of the intruders that can appear are fully nude men and women, but their weird designs and tendency to Jump Scare the player ensure that it is not titillating in the least.
- For Doom the Bell Tolls: Every passing hour in the sixth game is punctuated by a church bell ringing in addition to the regular bell.
- Four Is Death: You'll get a warning about multiple anomalies being active after 3 anomalies are active for a while. Once a fourth anomaly becomes active, the game ends.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: You can see some anomalies appear or occur right on-screen if you're on the respective camera at the time, which usually occur nearly-instantly, like the "Object movement" anomalies. There are even a few intruders that can walk into your camera this way!
- Gaslighting:
- The vast majority of the anomalies can be summed up with this word. Paintings changing, objects disappearing / changing positions / duplicating... even the floor tiles of certain rooms in the fourth game are not exempt. Players will be constantly second-guessing whether or not something changed, or if that particular object was always in that orientation.
- The fifth game's Metro map has a more direct example with a twitching figure at the Metro's gate, which looks like your usual uncanny man in a suit. Once you report the anomaly, however, the camera briefly glitches out, and in that quick second, the anomaly's appearance changes to that of a white, still mannequin, poses changing even. The report fails and the system even asks you if the anomaly you saw is actually a doll after failing to find signs of active life. Reporting it again as an "Extra Object" will clear it away, as if to mock your initial suspicions.
- Haunted House: Each game features at least one of these, which the player is monitoring, and they are certainly haunted. By what, exactly, varies by playthrough.
- Humanoid Abomination: It's not clear what exactly the "intruder" anomalies are; they look mostly human, but clearly are not. Most are weirdly deformed and twitching, and they can appear in such places as on top of your furniture or hovering outside a second-story window. It's not always clear what makes them distinct from the ghosts, aside from ghostly translucence.
- I Know You're Watching Me: A lot of the Intruders will face the room's camera after they get reported. Sometimes, they'll do this on their own, and eventually they begin to enact Camera Abuse if active for too long.
- Instakill Mook: The fifth game's School map introduces a new special named anomaly known as the Skinny Prince, an Intruder anomaly that shows up in the gym camera. The system warns you when he appears, and tells you not to look at the camera he appears in until you remove him, lest he kill you the instant you check on him. Of course, you can ignore the warning just to satiate your curiosity on his appearance.
- Interface Screw: Some anomalies will make images flash on the camera, distort the view, or trap you on a particular screen until they are reported and resolved. There are also some anomalies, aptly named "Camera malfunction" anomalies that can cause some screens to not appear outright.
- Jump Scare: Several are sprinkled throughout the games, usually in the form of intruders or ghosts that will surprise you as you're flipping through screens. Some may also do this to you if you activate their special Non-Standard Game Over, usually by attacking the camera (or in the third game, you). It can work well here due to the fact that the player will be looking at the screens with much focus due to the smaller and more subtle anomalies.
- Kung Fu-Proof Mook: In the sixth game, the !!HUGE MAN!! can't be reported with the new method. If you try, nothing will happen, and he'll hit the camera. Try too often and he'll destroy the camera outright, giving you a game over. You must use the old method to report him.
- The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday: Inverted with one of the New House anomalies in the first game where a building outside the bedroom's window completely disappears outright.
- My Rules Are Not Your Rules:
- One of the first game's anomalies in the New House is an intruder in the Kitchen room, and if you report him as an "Intruder" anomaly, you'll get a message later stating "Failed to fix anomaly" instead of the usual "No anomaly of type X found in Y" message. The man will now be right in front of the camera staring at you unhappily. After the initial report, you'll get a new type of anomaly to report for that intruder, appropriately called "!!HUGE MAN!!", extra exclamation marks included.
- This continues when the intruder reappears in the fourth game, but doesn't require an additional report although the game still considers them as their own category, named "!!!HUGE MAN!!!".
- The fifth game gives !!HUGE MAN!! another special appearance where he forces you to stay on his camera, right up at his face. The "!!HUGE MAN!!" option is available as a report choice right away, but it now moves around the screen in an erratic manner, so you have to chase it down with your mouse cursor and click on it to send the report. Also, you're only given a few seconds to handle this unique encounter.
- He returns in the sixth game, and unlike most Intruders, he cannot be reported with the new reporting method, and will slap the camera if you do. You'll have to report him in the old-fashioned way to get rid of him. Aside from that, it is not much different than the fourth game's method, but will give players too used to the new reporting method a wake-up call.
- Nonstandard Game Over: Most games that end before the clock hits six will end because the player allowed more than three anomalies to become active at once. There are a couple of anomalies (mostly intruders or ghosts) that will end the game regardless of the number of other active anomalies if you don't report them in time or look at them for too long, however. In the sixth game, the !!HUGE MAN!! will destroy the auditorium camera if you report him incorrectly, which will also end the game.
- Nothing Is Scarier:
- The first in-game hour of each playthrough is relatively quiet, with only small anomalies occurring, in order to build up paranoia in the player about just when you're going to see something really weird. There's also no music overall, excluding the occasional bit of ambience, at least until a very blatant anomaly appears.
- We never see what becomes of the player character if you let too many anomalies stack up or fail to report some anomalies in time. all you get is a black screen saying "ITS OVER" and saying how many anomalies you missed. Judging by the descriptions of some victims in the 6th game though, your fate seems pretty grim.
- Not Quite Dead: The trope is zig-zagged with Timothy, who appears in the first and second game alive, but also as a corpse in one of the second game's houses. He can appear in the third game either floating towards you or wandering around akin to a zombie, and you do not want to touch this anomaly. But the secret of the fourth game shows that despite everything, the state of Timothy is an Ambiguous Situation, showing his body and a TV with him in some strange area and the game stating that the subject "is gone" and "only exists in the unreachable", but not if they're really dead. Then the fifth game states that "his demise" hasn't stopped the anomalies from appearing, putting the fate of Timothy in question yet again.
- Not helping matters is the third game, which has an easter egg that appears once you collect the photographs. The video states that Timothy is dead and also alive, as well as there being "more than one Timothy" apparently.
- Offscreen Teleportation: Some intruders can get closer to you, but only when you're not looking at the room they're in. A few others can move or change positions while you're looking at them.
- Ominous Visual Glitch: If you let anomalies stack up in the first two games, this occurs to mark your Game Over.
- Paper Tiger: The majority of Intruder anomalies are ultimately this. Sure, they're certainly very creepy and intimidating... but they're also incredibly obvious in a game where all you need to get rid of them is to notice and report them. You're far more likely to lose to more basic anomalies like small objects disappearing or moving simply because it's infinitely easier to miss them. Even the Intruders that can end your game instantly still give you ample time to report them beforehand.
- Peek-a-Boo Corpse: Some dead bodies known as Corpse anomalies appear this way. Unlike Intruder anomalies, they obviously do not move due to the fact that they are well, dead. The sixth game has a corpse that suddenly moves and has the camera close up on them when they are reported, revealing themselves to actually be alive before they are removed.
- Protect This House: From the anomalies that get into the houses you watch over, of course, including the Intruder anomalies.
- Randomly Generated Levels: The anomalies will appear in random order, and even if you succeed on your first try, you won't encounter every anomaly the games have to offer, including ones that may startle you, so it will certainly take multiple games to fully appreciate what these games have to offer.
- Recurring Element: Each game always has an Intruder anomaly taking the form of a fat, naked man with a squarish-chin, and covering his private parts with his hands, an object, or the environment. Said intruder never kills you in any appearance unlike a majority of other intruders. Starting from the third game, this particular intruder has appeared in every map of each game.
- Revenge of the Sequel: The second game's name, "I'm On Observation Duty 2: Timothy's Revenge" counts as this. Though unless you've figured out how to find certain secrets of the previous game, let alone the game itself, players may not know why or how this Timothy gets "revenge".
- Revisiting the Roots: The second game is in color in comparison to the Deliberately Monochrome first game, and the third game has you walk through the building in person instead of watching through security cameras. The fourth game from then on goes back to the first game's black-and-white camera style and gameplay.
- Slasher Smile: Timothy, the man in the secret cutscene in the first game, sports one of these before rushing the camera.
- Spooky Painting: Some paintings in the houses may be uncomfortable to look at before they get affected by a painting anomaly, if they're even targeted by anomalies and not a Red Herring. Usually played even more straight after said anomalies.
- Spotting the Thread: The game is essentially this, but with entire rooms, requiring the player to notice changes over time that are both subtle and blatant.
- Surreal Horror: In addition to the weird, twitchy intruders, the buildings under observation themselves are just weird. The furnishings inside are arranged in ways that don't seem to make sense, and the fixtures themselves such as paintings are unsettling.
- Uncanny Atmosphere: The unusual layouts of the houses, and creepy, surreal fixtures serve to disorient and unnerve the player before any supernatural entities actually show up. Furniture and random objects are scattered about in ways that suggest either nobody lives in the houses you're monitoring, or that whoever did live there left in a hurry.
- A Winner Is You: Making it to 6 A.M. gets you the message "Congratulations! You survived your work shift." and the option to play again or quit to the menu, and that's all.
- Yet Another Stupid Death: Some intruders take a very long time to approach and attack you once they appear, to the point where if you're cycling through the camera screens regularly, you are bound to catch them in your sight and report them unless you deliberately ignore them long enough for them to get up close and attack you. But one instance of this trope that stands out in the fourth game is reporting an intruder in the Country House's Gallery, which resembles a large, muscular man. After reporting the intruder, the game asks if you meant to report "!!!HUGE MAN!!!" which is very indicative for the reported intruder, and the only anomaly that prompts the question.
