Scratches is a somewhat older game from 2006, and seems to have trouble running properly directly out of the box on most modern computers
A bunch of information was shared on Senscape's discord, but a lot of this seems unknown to users playing the game on steam, as such, this guide has been made to help others.

Some of the notable problems:
- The game is stretched from a 4:3 aspect ratio
- Camera speed control issues
- Mouse pointer mismatching issues with objects clicked on.
- Problems booting the game
And there might be possibly some more.

This game is designed to be played in a 4:3 aspect ratio and is configured to be 1024 x 768, Editing the configuration file to force a higher resolution is NOT recommended, and known to cause major problems with the game.
It is worth to note that the game (with exemptions of some basic assets) will not benefit of a higher resolution anyways, so changing this resolution will not increase asset resolution.

This game is designed to run properly under a 4:3 aspect ratio with a resolution of 1024 x 768.
However, depending on your system settings, the game will likely stretch to fill the screen, causing things not to be displayed well.

In your NVIDIA control panel, set the following as your display settings:
- Scaling: Aspect Ratio
- Scaling: GPU

Whatever your pointer is ontop of, might be mismatched with what it will actaully click on, causing it to interact with objects you did not want, supposidly the following seems to fix (most?) of this:

In your NVIDIA control panel, set the following setting:
Change "Vertical sync" from "application controlled to "off"
Change "Vertical Sync" setting from "Application Controlled" to "Off"

This might or might not fix some issues in the game, however it's unlikely to cause any problems and seems to possibly fix some issues, though i could not find direct proof of this.

Open the folder and go to the compatibility properties of "scream.exe"
Set the following Compatibility Mode: Windows XP (Service Pack 3)

It might be that default mouse control in the game is behaving in a weird manner, either being to fast/slow, uncontrollable spinning etc.
Make sure you've done all the above fixes first, as GPU scaling among some other fixes could solve this problem.

If not, in-game go to your options, and set Alternative Control to "DISABLED", then in-game, press on the F9 key to set the Camera Speed to "SLOW"

In-case they are needed, here is a list of all function keys and what they do in the game: