White Day: A Labyrinth Named School (2001 / 2015 Remake / 2017 Western Release)

“A simple gift of candy becomes a descent into the most haunted school you’ll ever step into.”


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Lets start by showing y’all the trailers shall we?

🎬 Trailers

The trailers leaned into claustrophobic terror — long hallways lit by flickering bulbs, sudden ghost faces lunging at the screen, and the echo of janitor’s footsteps. The selling point was clear: a first-person horror experience in a Korean school, drenched in folklore and nightmare logic. The remake’s trailers doubled down with sharper graphics and scarier ghost encounters, marketing it as one of the most terrifying school-set horror games ever made.


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📖 Non-Spoiler Plot Overview

You play as a teenage boy sneaking into Yeondu High School late at night. His motive is innocent enough — return a diary and give White Day chocolates (a Korean tradition similar to Valentine’s Day) to the girl he likes. But of course, he picks the worst night possible.

Once inside, the school gates lock. The building reveals its horrific secrets: it is haunted by the spirits of former students and teachers, cursed by tragedies that piled up over decades. The boy must survive the night, solve puzzles, avoid aggressive janitors, and unravel the truth about the school’s bloody history.


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👥 Character Rundown

The Protagonist (You) – A nameless transfer student who just wanted to return an item and confess a crush. Wrong night, wrong school.

Han So-Young – The girl you’re trying to give chocolates to, drawn into the nightmare alongside you.

Ji-Hyeon and Ji-Min – Other girls encountered during the night, with their own dark connections to the school’s curse.

The Janitors – School guards by day, relentless hunters by night, their minds twisted by possession.

The Ghosts – Dozens of vengeful spirits tied to the tragedies of Yeondu High. Each has its own horrific story.



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🕹️ Gameplay & Horror Atmosphere

First-Person Survival Horror. Exploration-heavy with emphasis on stealth, hiding, and puzzle-solving.

The Camera Angle makes the school feel like a maze: long dark hallways, locked classrooms, bathrooms that become your only refuge.

Janitors roam with flashlights and baseball bats. They hear footsteps from absurd distances (sometimes three floors away), and once alerted, they sprint straight for you. The only way to survive is ducking into bathroom stalls and praying they leave.

Puzzles require reading notes, solving riddles, and interacting with objects. The problem: in the Western release, many remain untranslated — they’re in Korean. Without knowing the language, you’re essentially locked out unless you brute-force or use translation guides.



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👻 Ghost Encounters (Spoiler-Light Tease)

Here’s where the game shines — a haunted school with ghosts hiding in every corridor, classroom, and shadow. Some highlights:

The Scissor Teacher: A cruel teacher who cut students’ hair as punishment. Bullied and broken, she killed herself in the mountains. Her vengeful spirit haunts the halls with phantom scissors.

The Starving Girl: She died of self-inflicted starvation, her emaciated ghost crawling the classrooms.

The Broken-Neck Girl: Murdered by her jealous ex-boyfriend, her spirit snaps her neck over and over as she stalks students.

The Locker Ghost: A woman’s body stuffed inside a locker. Her ghost bursts out when you least expect it.

The Pale-Armed Demon: A specter with abnormally long arms, pale skin, and a nightmare smile. No origin story, just pure terror.

The Decapitated Woman: A construction accident dropped a pipe on her head. Workers buried her head under a flowerbed and her body in the yard. Her ghost walks the school, headless.

The Drowned Girl: A girl whose corpse was dumped in the school’s river. Her spirit twisted into a mermaid-like entity that haunts the swimming pool.


Every encounter reinforces the same question: Why hasn’t this school been shut down?

Here’s two videos explaining the different ghost. Encounters, and here’s a video of every scary moment.

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⏳ Pacing / Flow

The game is slow and suffocating. You inch through corridors, double-check shadows, and hide constantly. The pacing is broken up by puzzles and ghost scares, but the janitors can make exploration frustrating. The constant fear of being heard or seen makes progress nerve-wracking.


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✅ Pros

Brilliantly eerie atmosphere — one of the most haunting school settings in horror gaming.

Wide variety of ghosts, each with a unique and disturbing backstory.

Multiple endings depending on who you interact with and what you uncover.

Effective use of sound — creaks, whispers, footsteps all keep you paranoid.



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❌ Cons

1. Puzzle Translation Issues: Many puzzles weren’t properly localized for the Western release. Unless you know Korean, you’re stuck using external guides.


2. Locked Ghost Encounters: To see all the ghosts, you must play on Hard Mode — a design flaw that forces players into punishing difficulty just to access the best content.


3. The Janitors: They can hear you from ridiculous distances, sprint unnaturally fast, and force you into endless bathroom stall hiding. This quickly becomes more annoying than scary.




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💭 Final Thoughts

White Day: A Labyrinth Named School is one of the most unique horror games out there. It trades gore for atmosphere, weaving folklore and urban legend into an unforgettable setting. At its best, it feels like you’re really trapped in a haunted Korean school.

But the flaws — untranslated puzzles, unfair difficulty locks, and frustrating janitors — hold it back from perfection. Even so, if you’re willing to endure its quirks, it’s a tense and eerie experience well worth your time.


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🎯 Rating: 7/10


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⚠️ Spoiler Warning – Extended Breakdown

The deeper story revolves around rituals gone wrong and a curse tied to the school grounds. Many of the ghosts are victims of corruption, cover-ups, or cruelty — teachers abusing power, classmates bullying each other, workers hiding their mistakes.

You encounter two girls throughout your night: one seems like just another student, but in the climax, she reveals herself as one of the vengeful ghosts. Her goal is to open a portal, unleashing the curse beyond the school. She becomes the final boss, her ghostly form battling you in a nightmare-like sequence.

The protagonist defeats her, breaking the ritual and escaping the school alongside Han So-Young, the girl he originally came to see. The ending varies depending on choices, but the core theme is the same: a school haunted by cruelty, lies, and unquiet dead.