A globe on the shelf. A floor lamp in the corner. A waste bin nobody remembers putting there. One of them is a player – and the longer you look at it, the more dangerous it gets.

Prop Revolt is an asymmetric hide-and-seek game for 2–10 players. Props disguise themselves as everyday objects and try to survive. The Hunters have a specific time to find every last one. The twist that makes it a different game: being watched doesn't only put a Prop at risk, it charges the Revolt.

Being seen is a resource

Every second a Hunter holds you in view, your Nervousness climbs – faster the closer they are, faster the more directly they're looking at you. A Hunter with their back turned charges nothing at all. A Hunter close by and staring straight at you fills your bar.

At 100 a skill check decides what happens next: stop the spinning needle in the right zone and your Prop calms down and stays an object. Miss it and you're torn out of your disguise, locked out of it for some time, and left with nothing but your legs and a very obvious robot body.

But that same nervousness is the fuel. Every living Prop's nervousness pools into one shared team charge. Staying hidden keeps you safe. Staying watched makes your team dangerous. Every second under that gaze is a decision, and it's rarely an easy one.

The Revolt

When the charge is high enough, any Prop can reach the Revolt trigger in the level and set it off – for everyone, at once, for a small amount of time.

For that time the rules invert:

• Tackle – charge the Hunter without ever dropping your disguise!

• Melee – once you're revealed there's no more hiding, but you can fight, in mid-air as well as on the ground!

• Together – every Prop's nervousness paid into that charge. It runs out for all of you at the same moment, whether you spent it or not.

Then the charge runs dry and you are furniture or a robot unable to fight again. The Revolt is not how you have to win. Props win by having anyone at all left standing when the clock stops. The Revolt is what you do when hiding has stopped working – and knowing it's coming changes how a Hunter searches a room.

What you become is how you play

More than 500 objects across the maps can be worn as a disguise, and every one of them carries its own stats. Picking one is picking a build:

• Tiny (vase, desktop computer or globe) – Small HP and fast, but disappears into a shelf of clutter. Cannot tackle at all in a Revolt.

• Small (waste bin) – Some more HP, a little slower and a real hiding spot that can still throw a punch.

• Medium (television) – Default HP, normal speed and the honest middle. Not that disappearing, but has a good punch.

• Large (floor lamp or fridge) – Huge HP, slow and too heavy to jump, and everybody sees you easily. Bad for hiding, good for raising the Revolt and deals good damage during a Revolt.

You place and turn your object yourself, so it ends up standing exactly where a real one would. And you can transform again whenever you like – except shortly after a forced reveal, when you're stuck being yourself. Dropping down to a vase to survive the next sweep and trading back up before the Revolt lands is a completely legitimate way to play, and a completely legitimate way to get caught mid-swap.

Taunt them into it

A disguised Prop is never entirely quiet. At 25, 50 and 75 Nervousness it gives itself away with a noise on its own – and you can set that noise off deliberately at any time. Do it close to a Hunter and it earns you nervousness, which is exactly what the Revolt feeds on. Dance in front of a Hunter with one of 37 emotes and you are taking the same bet: the cheekier you play, the faster your team charges.

At a glance

• Asymmetric hide-and-seek for 2–10 players

• Nervousness – being watched is the risk and the resource at the same time

• A skill check at full nervousness that can save your disguise

• Revolt mode – a shared team charge that lets Props tackle and fight back for a small time

• More than 500 objects to hide in, in four size classes trading concealment against health and damage

• Taunting on purpose: tell-tale noises, a decoy call and 37 dance emotes

• Four Hunter weapons with armour plates, a weapon wheel and pickups placed in the level

• Modular robot and Hunter customization

• Three maps to start with and more on the way, a tutorial for both sides and a lobby with its own obstacle course

• Watch a running round as a spectator, join in from the next one, free camera at the end

• Full controller support, including an on-screen keyboard

• 40 Steam achievements, a server browser and invites for friends

• English, German, Spanish (Spain and Latin America), French, Italian and Simplified Chinese