The Visitor: the horror game where you play the monster
The Visitor came out on Newgrounds in October 2007, drawn and coded by Jay Ziebarth under the name Zeebarf, and it flipped the usual point-and-click setup on its head. You are not the person trying to survive the night; you are the thing that crawled out of the meteorite. It starts as a red worm the size of a finger, stranded on a rock in a pond, with a frog on the bank, a bird on a stump and a cottage in the trees with one window lit. Every scene is a small puzzle: click the objects in the right order and the worm gets a meal, and each meal is a new body. The frog is first. Then the bird. By the time the visitor is scratching at the cottage door it is a cat-shaped thing with too many teeth, and the rest of the game is getting through the pipes, the kitchen and the bedroom to the man asleep upstairs.
It is short, roughly six scenes and under twenty minutes on a first run, and it earns its reputation on the animation rather than the puzzles. The click order is rarely obvious but the scenes are small enough to brute-force, and the payoff for a correct sequence is a piece of cartoon body horror that still lands. The last scene has more than one ending depending on whether you let the man fight back. The copy on thevisitor.org is the original SWF served from this domain and run by Ruffle, so it plays on a Chromebook or a phone with nothing installed. Fair warning: the gore is stylised but it is gore, and the game was rated for teens and up when it came out.
Controls & mechanics
| Action | Control | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Interact | Left click | Click a branch, a rock, an animal, a knob or a door and the visitor reacts; there is no inventory and no dragging |
| Pipe puzzle | Click the coloured valves | The one sequence puzzle in the game: turn the valves in the right order or the steam sends the creature back |
| Kitchen | Click appliances in order | Blender, sink, drawer, knife, light switches and thermostat each need the previous step done first |
| Final scene | Click, or do nothing | Leaving the last scene alone gives one ending; clicking the bathroom objects gives the others |
| Touch | Tap | Ruffle turns a tap into a click, so the whole game works on a phone or tablet |
Getting the visitor through the cottage
- The shore is about the branch and the reel: Drop the tree branch into the water first so the worm can reach the bank, let the frog have its meal, then deal with the bird and the stump. The fishing rod is the exit: once it is set, click the reel repeatedly and the line does the rest.
- Watch what changes after every click: Most of the puzzles are order puzzles with nothing to collect. If a click plays an animation, something in the scene is now different, even if it is small: a shadow, an open drawer, a knob that turned. Look for that before clicking anything else.
- The valves are a sequence, not a toggle: In the pipe room each coloured valve only helps if the previous one is already turned. If steam blocks the way, you have the order wrong; there is no penalty for trying again.
- Decide the ending before the last click: Once the visitor is in the bedroom the man wakes up. Do nothing and the creature wins; send him to the bathroom and there are two ways it can go, one with the gun and one with the bathtub. All three are short, so play the last scene three times.
Key features
- You are the monster: The camera follows the parasite, not the victim, and every puzzle is about feeding it and getting it closer to the house.
- Six hand-drawn scenes: The shore, the cottage door, the pipes, the kitchen, the bedroom and the showdown, each drawn in Zeebarf's thick-line cartoon style.
- Three endings: The final scene branches on what you click, so a fifteen-minute game has a reason to be replayed.
- The original 2007 SWF: Not a remake: the Flash file served from this site and run through Ruffle, with the sponsor links disabled so nothing leaves the page.
Game info
- Title: The Visitor
- Developer: Zeebarf (Jay Ziebarth)
- Category: Point-and-Click Horror
- Platform: Web browser (HTML5)
- Content: Cartoon gore, teen and up
Pro tip: The game never tells you when a scene is finished. On the shore, for instance, the rock the visitor lands on is a hotspot after the fishing rod is in place, and the reel needs several clicks, not one. If you are stuck, click every object once in a slow circle and note which ones animate; the ones that do are the ones the puzzle is built on, and the order usually goes from the far side of the scene toward the exit.
Frequently asked questions
What is The Visitor?
A point-and-click horror game by Zeebarf (Jay Ziebarth), released on Newgrounds in October 2007. You control an alien parasite that eats and takes over animals on its way into a lakeside cottage. It is about six scenes long with three endings.
How do I play it?
Mouse only. Click the objects in each scene in the right order; a correct click plays an animation and changes the scene, a wrong one does nothing or gets the creature killed. There is no inventory.
Is this the original Flash game?
Yes. It is the 2007 SWF served from thevisitor.org and run by Ruffle, an open-source Flash Player emulator, so it works in a modern browser with no plugin. The preloader shows a Play button before the Newgrounds intro.
Is it suitable for children?
No. The Visitor is cartoon horror with blood and creatures being eaten. It was rated for teens and up on release and we describe it that way here.
Are there other Visitor games?
Two: The Visitor: Massacre at Camp Happy (2008), set at a summer camp, and The Visitor Returns (2012), which sends the survivor back. Only the original is hosted on this site.