A monster with my face keeps stabbing me to death in back alleys

It Has My Face has a simple premise: you’re in a crowded city, and someone else in this place is your clone. Your clone stalks you through the dystopian environment, waiting to find and stab you. There’s only one way to stop them: find a weapon and kill them first. Developed by NightByte Games and published by Behaviour Interactive, this is a weird, unsettling little game that wormed its way under my skin, leaving me with lingering questions.

I originally struggled with It Has My Face, not on the game’s merits, but because of my expectations. I expected something more drawn out; a game of cat and mouse in a slightly more realistic depiction of a city. It Has My Face’s urban centers are an OSHA nightmare, dream-like warrens with acid moats, free access to prisons, cruel enforcers, and giant chambers with tesla coils open to the public, with a switch to activate the coil and fry everyone in its vicinity. Even the parts of the city that seem more functional feel... wrong. In commercial districts, you can see neon signs stacked so high and packed so densely that they’re each illegible.

But there’s no time to linger on the peculiarities of this world’s urban design: there’s a clone hunting you. Each level begins with a new character; I check my reflection in a little hand mirror. Once I know what I look like, I know what my clone looks like. The hand mirror also allows me to check my six, which is a great way to avoid sneaky ambushes. Then, I have to rush and search weapon cases around the level to find a weapon. Without one, I’m completely at my clone’s mercy. Once I’m armed, the hunt begins in earnest.