Don’t! Fret - TV Tropes

Stay sharp, Fret, lest your song fall flat and your life be laid low.

Don’t! Fret is an indie horror puzzle game created by Scary Kid Studios (run by the creator of Rockit Muisc). It is planned to release in late 2025 or early 2026; a demo, entitled Don’t! Fret: The Audition, was released on October 18, 2024.

One night, the father of a boy named Fret returns to his family’s house, bangs on the door, and demands to the fearful inhabitants that Fret come with him, for he has somewhere to take him.

The next morning… no, it must still be that same night- Fret awakens in Harmony Heights (a prestigious music academy which he attends) with no memory of how he got there. While searching for answers, he discovers an oddly intelligent fortune-teller-like machine called the Conductor (voiced by The Stupendium), who promises to help him escape- and comes across a mirror and realizes he’s been turned into a humanoid guitar.

Things have been going very, very wrong at Harmonic Heights- students are going missing, mysterious monsters roam the halls after dark, and a shady organization known only as the Foundation is pulling strings behind the scenes. And, as Fret searches for a way out and a way to restore his form, he finds himself filled with questions- why do some doors cause you to teleport, or plunge you into a distorted, red-tinged version of reality? What are “talent canisters”, and why does the Conductor want them? And why are there missing posters of himself- depicting his guitar form?

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Trope! Fret:

• 555: All of the phone numbers you can dial into Harmonic Heights’ payphone begin with this; for instance, the one you get in the commercial for the music light is 555-7886, or 555-STUN.
• Absurd Phobia: According to a fact card released on the developers’ Twitter, Fret is afraid of… cheeseburgers.
• Air-Vent Passageway: This is how the Missing get around in Harmonic Heights; a devlog released after the demo came out also reveals that Fret will be able to enter the vents himself in the full game.
• Alliterative Name: The school Harmonic Heights.
• Animate Inanimate Object: Fret is a humanoid guitar, although that isn’t actually his original form.
• Anti-Frustration Features: One of the first puzzles in the demo involves playing four glowing notes on a piano; while Fret can read music, there’s no guarantee that the player can, so which notes correspond to which keys is helpfully written on a nearby blackboard. Additionally, only one octave- the one containing the four notes- is actually available to play.
• Big Good: The Conductor sets himself out to be this, claiming he’s here to help orchestrate Fret’s escape. Unfortunately, as he’s a fortune-telling machine, he can only do so much to help Fret.
• Bland-Name Product: In Harmonic Heights can be found vending machines selling “Cord-A-Cola”.
• The Blank: Ms. Whole has a black void where her face is supposed to be; when she starts violently banging her head on her desk, it’s revealed that the “void” is actually filled with some sort of black fluid.
• Character in the Logo: Fret, with the “o” in “Don’t” being formed by Fret’s sound hole.
• Creepy Good: The Conductor is a fortune-teller machine that would look creepy even if its mask weren’t broken over one eye, but he gives Fret the means to get new strings for himself, warns him about Tapehead, and says he’s here to orchestrate Fret’s escape.
• Creepy Stalker Van: The news broadcast about Cooper Allen’s disappearance mentions that a white van was seen leaving the neighborhood.
• A Dog Named "Dog": Harmonic Heights’ mascot is a humanoid hurdy-gurdy named Hurdy-Gurdy.
• Early-Bird Cameo: In the demo, the Janitor appears in an area Fret can see but can’t reach; he and something else known as “Meatball” can also be seen on some of the posters scattered throughout the school.
• Easter Egg: In the demo, some of the openable lockers contain the logos of YouTubers who worked on the game, including The Stupendium, Rockit Music, OR30, Jakeneutron, and SoundFXGuy; a developer post confirmed that even more of these would be featured in the final game.
• Epunymous Title: “Don’t fret” is an expression telling someone not to worry, but the protagonist of the game is named Fret- and the exclamation point makes it seem like someone is shouting at him not to do something.
• The Faceless: As part of the game’s style, all human characters have their faces blurred, pixellated, messed-up in photographs, or just plain out-of-view.
• Four-Fingered Hands: Fret’s got these in guitar form.
• Ghost Butler: In the demo, a metal fire door slams down once you enter the Loading Zone, preventing you from returning to the game’s starting area; Fret even comments out loud that there’s no going back now.
• Holy Pipe Organ: Alluded to in the HHTV commercial for the music light:

  HHTV Announcer: Now, rumor has it, this one here has been blessed by THE ORGANIST himself.

• Ironic Fear: According to the official fact file cards, the Conductor- who is trapped in his booth- is claustrophobic.
• Gotta Catch Them All: The Talent Canisters; it’s still unclear exactly what they’re for, but the Conductor says finding all of them will be instrumental to escaping.
• Let X Be the Unknown: The letter to Dr. Reed regarding the recitals is from “X”; also, the official fact file cards for the Missing have “XXXXX” under every heading.
• Meaningful Name: Tapehead’s got a giant cassette tape for a head.
• Mirror Reveal: Fret doesn’t realize he’s been turned into a guitar until he comes across a mirror; this happens far enough into the demo that it makes one wonder how he didn’t notice beforehand.
• Morphic Resonance: When we see Fret’s human form in the intro, he has the same backwards red baseball cap that Guitar!Fret wears in the game.
• Multiple Reference Pun: Ms. Whole; she teaches music theory, so her name refers to a whole note, but she also has a great big “hole” where her face should be, ironically meaning that she is not “whole”.
• No Mouth: Fret’s guitar form is missing a mouth, although this doesn’t prevent him from talking to himself or the Conductor.
• No Name Given: We never find out the name of Fret’s (presumed) father; even the subtitles in the opening sequence only call him “Man”.
• Non-Human Head: The first major monster is Tapehead, a gigantic woman with a cassette tape in place of her head.
• Objectshifting: Fret was somehow transformed into a humanoid guitar overnight.
• Pun: Fret’s strings are referred to as Heart Strings; there’s also Cord-A-Cola’s slogan, “Amp up with cord-a-cola!”
• Punny Name: A lot of the staff of Harmonic Heights have obviously music-themed names- in addition to the above-discussed Ms. Whole, there’s Dr. Sharon Reed (as in the reed of a woodwind) and Nurse Lynn (as in a violin).
• Red Is Heroic: Fred’s got a red baseball cap on backwards; the Conductor and his booth are also mostly red.
• School for Scheming: Harmonic Heights; as of the demo, it’s not clear what the scheme is, but students are going missing, monsters roam the halls after dark, and the principal and janitor are worried by Fret’s presence.
• Shop Class: A devlog released after the demo came out contains a brief clip set in a wood shop.
• Shout-Out: In one of the lockers, the book Left Behind by Luke Minton can be found.
• Shrine to the Fallen: In one room can be found a candlelit shrine for Rachel McFadden, although she’s missing rather than (confirmed) dead.
• Single Tear: One of these is painted on Fret’s wooden face.
• Sprint Shoes: The more strings Fret has, the faster he can move; once he gets restored to full strings, you unlock the ability to sprint by holding down a key.
• Steven Ulysses Perhero: Of course the kid named “Fret” ended up getting turned into a guitar.
• Story Breadcrumbs: It wouldn’t be an indie horror game without these- there’s excerpts from Fret’s own journal to find, plus a lot of random scattered notes, plus cassettes (confirmed to be replaced by CDs in the full game) containing songs with possible lore relevance, plus phone numbers to call on an in-game payphone, plus secret rooms…
• Title Theme Tune: The game has one; it sound like a generic Pep-Talk Song until you listen closely and notice the lyrics about how you’re definitely going to die.
• Villain Song: “Talk” is supposed to be one, and the lyrics feature the singer calling on someone else to honor a contract they made with the singer.
• Was Once a Man:
  • Fret is an ordinary teenager who somehow got turned into a guitar-person.
  • It’s heavily implied that the small, childlike monsters who roam the halls- which the game refers to as the Missing- are the missing children mentioned in a few Story Breadcrumbs.
• Weakened by the Light: The Missing can be paralyzed by shining a music light at them; unfortunately, doing so causes the light’s batteries to start draining much faster than they ordinarily do.
• White Gloves: Fret’s guitar form, fitting his cartoon-character look, has these.
• You Wake Up in a Room: After the intro, the game opens with Fret waking up in a guitar case somewhere in the back of Harmonic Heights.

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