Source: Markiplier
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Cost of Trust: What You Need to Know
THE TL;DW
- Markiplier dives into Cost of Trust, a short indie horror game built in the same “spot the impostor” vein as That’s Not My Neighbor.
- Players take on a booth-operator role, scanning visitors for anomalies and unmasking faceless mimics before a ticking clock runs out.
- The game’s claymation-style visuals and diegetic terminal UI give the 10-20 minute playthrough a distinct retro-horror look.
The Jupiter Take
Markiplier continues his streak of spotlighting standout indie horror titles, and Cost of Trust taps directly into the doppelganger-detection formula that made That’s Not My Neighbor a hit on his channel. With its claymation art style and rapid-fire decision-making, it’s a quick but tense watch for fans of his Scary Games playlist.
Context
Cost of Trust comes from solo developer Alexey Nazariev, originally built as an entry for the Brackeys Game Jam 2026.2, where the game’s itch.io page describes it as a tense 10-20 minute experience packed with paranoia and rapid decision-making. The jam page describes the blend as essentially Buckshot Roulette’s visual style fused with Papers Please and That’s Not My Neighbor gameplay, and commenters on the jam praised the dithering shader and stop-motion-inspired look as standout achievements for a solo week-long build.
The comparison to That’s Not My Neighbor isn’t incidental — that Nacho Sama-developed game, which has Markiplier played extensively on his channel (see his other recent horror-game playthroughs), essentially created this doorman-style “spot the impostor” subgenre after its 2024 release. Since then, a wave of jam entries and indie titles have riffed on the same core loop of checking IDs and scrutinizing details to catch inhuman visitors, and Cost of Trust is one of the more visually distinct takes to gain traction, reportedly earning itself a direct shoutout from fans drawing the comparison in the game’s own comment section.
