Horror in a box room: setting up HAUNTED in a 2×2 m bedroom

The British box room is a category of space all of its own. A single bed, a wardrobe, a radiator under the window, and in between a patch of carpet you generously call a “play area”. Plenty of VR games need more. HAUNTED: Are You Alone? works in any room size, according to the studio, because it turns your room into the level instead of forcing a different room into it.

Any room size doesn’t automatically mean safe, though. In this how-to we’re setting up HAUNTED in a typical small bedroom with roughly 2 × 2 metres of free floor space. The measurements are an example; the steps apply to any tight space.

The example room

Picture this room:

• Floor area roughly 2.7 × 2.4 m
• Single bed against one long wall
• Wardrobe in a corner
• Radiator under the window
• Door opening inwards

Once you’ve taken off the bed and the wardrobe, you’re left with about 2 × 2 metres of free space, and it isn’t a square free space either, because the door swings into it.

Setup checklist

1. Close the door and keep the swing area clear. A door that opens inwards is otherwise a hole in the scan, and anyone coming in will hit you with the door.
2. Everything off the floor. Shoes, bags, laundry basket. In a small room, anything on the floor is right in the middle of the play area.
3. Run Space Setup. Capture the bed and wardrobe as furniture, the walls in full, and don’t forget the ceiling.
4. Draw the boundary with a buffer. At least a hand’s width from the bed, more from the radiator.
5. Mark the start point. The centre of the free area, not the centre of the room.
6. Test your swing space. Stretch your arms out, turn once, reach up once.

The start point

The centre of the room is rarely the centre of the free area in a box room. The bed shifts everything. Stand where you have the most arm room in every direction, and mark the spot with a piece of tape or a small mat you can feel under your feet. That way you can find your way back after a turn without looking.

HAUNTED doesn’t put you in a fixed spot: you see your room through passthrough. Even so, a fixed starting position helps, because plenty of moments have you turning. Footsteps come from behind, knocking from a wall, and you don’t want to drift slowly towards the radiator while it happens.

Bed, wardrobe, radiator: the three problem zones

The bed is almost always within reach in a box room. The good news: it’s soft. The bad news: the edge of the bed at knee height is hard, and if you duck or step back, your calves will find it. The boundary should exclude the edge of the bed cleanly.

The wardrobe is the biggest obstacle above head height. It should be captured in the scan as a piece of furniture, not as a wall. Otherwise wall effects end up on the wardrobe door.

The radiator is the most dangerous thing in the room: hard, angular, often warm. Leave plenty of clearance here.

Swing space in tight rooms

HAUNTED gives you an axe in the story and a baseball bat later on. You swing these weapons with your real arms. In a box room that means:

• Shorter swings. Swing more from the forearm than from the shoulder. The game scores the hit in the virtual space, not the force with which you sweep through the air. The studio doesn’t reveal the exact hit logic, but controlled swings are always the better choice in tight spaces.
• Check above you. A ceiling light in the middle of the room sits right above your start point in a box room.
• Walls are close. If an arm comes out of a wall, it’s also physically close to a real wall. Never swing at full force towards a wall.

What feels different in a small room

A small room can actually work in horror’s favour. The walls are closer, so anything coming out of them is closer too. Sounds the game places at real positions in the room, knocking in a wall or footsteps behind you, don’t feel any less near at two metres.

The flip side: less room to dodge. The arcade modes, especially Grave Rush with zombies coming through a hole in the wall, demand movement. If you’re playing in a box room, focus on turning and aiming rather than running away.

Hide my room in a small space

If you stream or don’t want to show your bedroom, you can use “Hide my room”. Instead of passthrough you then see a virtual padded cell built on your real walls. In a small room that has one important consequence: you can no longer see the bed and the radiator. Your boundary and your start point matter even more then.

The crawling section

A later chapter asks you to crawl on all fours. According to the studio, the tunnel adapts to your room. Even so: in a box room the free floor space is often right next to the bed, and on your knees the edge of the bed is at head height. Drop to your knees just before it and check the room from that perspective.

Arcade in a box room

The three arcade modes are endless, and in a small room that turns into a test of endurance for the room and your body. A few observations from the mechanics:

• Skull Hunt suits a small room well. You stand, turn and aim with torch and revolver. The beam freezes skulls, and you barely need big movements.
• Arm Cutter calls for swings with axe or sword towards the walls. In a box room the walls are close, so keep your cuts short and leave enough clearance.
• Grave Rush is the shooter: zombies come through a hole in a wall. Here, room to turn matters more than room to run.

Which mode suits you best in a small room is a matter of taste. For safety, Skull Hunt is the most relaxed place to start.

Comfort tips

• Crack a window open or air the room beforehand. Small rooms warm up quickly during a horror session.
• Take breaks. The story is short at around 25 to 35 minutes, but a break halfway through never hurts.
• Leave the light on. Inside-out tracking needs light; the game provides the darkness itself.

Scaler’s take: HAUNTED is one of the few room-scale games that genuinely makes sense in a box room, because it uses your room instead of demanding a bigger one. Our view: with a clean scan, a buffer from the radiator and short, controlled swings, the horror works at two metres by two as well, maybe even better. More info in the Meta Horizon Store.