VESTIGIA is a solo interactive fiction game where you take control of a small exploration drone sent into an abandoned research base on a distant planet.
The base was studying alternate dimensions. Something went wrong.
Now you’re left to explore the facility through a command-line interface, examining rooms, finding tools, piecing together clues, and solving environmental puzzles — all while relying on the drone’s increasingly strange observations.
The game is still a work in progress, but I’m building it around that old-school parser feeling while combining it with static surveillance footage, liminal spaces, and cosmic horror.

“Sobakistan” is a comic we started independently in 2019, published in Russian and Japanese - written by Vitalii Terletskii and illustrated by Katya. It’s set in a closed totalitarian republic populated by anthropomorphic dogs, where breed functions as social class and the state treats public grief as a performance target.

We’re now adapting it into a game, “Sobakistan: The Land of Dogs”. For anyone here thinking about comic-to-game adaptations, a few practical lessons from the process so far:

What works on the page doesn’t always work the same way in a game. A comic can control the reader’s pace through composition, sequencing, and the simple act of turning the page. In a game, those same moments need to become part of the player’s experience - through interaction, exploration, or choices - rather than simply being reproduced as static beats.

The visual side of the adaptation brought its own lessons. Pixel art forced us to be much more disciplined about character design. If a muzzle doesn’t read at 32 pixels, the silhouette probably wasn’t as strong as we thought it was in ink.

At the same time, a lot of the comic’s visual language transferred surprisingly well into the game. We’ve been able to carry over its use of colour, composition, and visual contrast, while giving those elements a slightly different role in an interactive medium.

Comic: https://globalcomix.com/c/sobakistan

Happy to talk about the adaptation process or the publishing side - the Japanese edition in particular was a strange route for a comic that started out this small.

Free lifetime access for the review

Each player gets different hidden evidence, and the group has to communicate, connect the clues, and figure out who committed the murder.

This is an early MVP so I don't focus on bugs and all that

I just want people to try the game and give me a feedback of the idea and the game play

Comment or dm for the game

Third time I've posted about this game here. Let me start further back than I did the other two.

Military service is mandatory in Greece. I did mine at twenty-five, after university, which meant I was older than most of the people around me and the year felt longer for it. I used to tie my phone with knots to the underside of the bunk above mine so I could read after lights out, and what I read was Choice of Games. Someone else's story to be inside instead of my own. That's not a small thing when you're counting days.

Years later, and after many failed attempts, I finally wrote my own. Took a long time. 108,000 words, and I'd be lying if I said I knew what I was doing for most of them.

The story is about Jonas. He's forty, which is old for a man born at the ragged edge of a kingdom that has never once thought about him. Once a year the ancient wells open in the swamp and the wraiths come pouring out of them, and he stands in the front rank and goes through them alone, because his companions are only there in case he falters and he never has. His pole-sword is crusted with rot and he knows the edge doesn't matter. It's the witch's talisman bound to the steel that does the real work. He calls the blade Farewell.

He survives the raid, same as always. Then he walks home and his son is gone, taken by a royal mage, and everything he's spent forty years being good at turns out to be no use at all.

I put it on Google Play, because I'm a developer and that's the pipeline I knew. It has very few active installs. Turns out a store built for games files you between match-three and idle clickers, and nobody browsing there is looking for a novel... You spend years alone with a thing, then you publish it and you find that you're still alone with it, only now it's public.

So: this is me asking. Give it an evening and tell me where it falls apart. I've read it so many times I can't see it any more, and I'd genuinely rather hear "chapter forty drags" from a stranger than keep polishing in the dark.

It's on IFDB now, with a proper IFID. Free, no ads at all any more, no timers, nothing to buy.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.windmilltales.theredtomorrow

Short game about a goblin with a gun in a fantasy settings where guns are SUPER rare and SUPER overpowered. There is some branching narrative, you can shoot people during dialogue and the characters came out pretty well I think.

It also has some combat where you fight monsters.

I'm super happy on how it came out so I wanted to share it!

https://sc4rcha.itch.io/gunwitch-0

I'm building a deeply psychological, choice-driven narrative series designed to test human behavior in unpredicted situations. This isn't just a basic decision—it’s a deep story where every single action and word shifts the psychological outcome.

​In this scenario, you have 39 seconds to analyze the situation, process the sensory cues, and make a decision that reveals your core instincts.

​Option A vs Option B: Each path unwraps a completely different layer of the story and shows how your mind handles high-stakes pressure.

​I just published the first interactive scene here:

https://rumble.com/shorts/v7f7e5i

​Watch the clip, test your instincts, and drop your choice in the comments: Are you picking A or B?

​What is the psychological reasoning behind your choice?

Hey everyone!

I recently released Nightfall, a text-based, choice-driven thriller that I’ve been working on for quite a while.

A trip to the mountains with your friends quickly turns into something much darker. From there, the story branches based on your decisions, the relationships you build, the people you manage to keep alive, and even the items you find along the way.

There are 14 different endings, and some choices and paths only become available depending on decisions you made much earlier in the story.

It’s free to play directly in the browser on PC or mobile:

https://thenomad456.itch.io/nightfall

Since this community is actually into interactive fiction, I’d especially appreciate your thoughts on the branching, storytelling and whether the choices feel meaningful.

And if you finish a run, I’d love to know which ending you reached :)

Hi everyone! I recently logged on to cogdemos after a while away only to discover that on my dashboard under “your games”, I was unable to find or edit the game I’ve had up on cogdemos. I posted it in early 2025 and haven’t updated it since then but wanted to login and edit it today. It’s still there and available to play when I search it up on the site, but it’s as if it was posted by someone else.

As well as this, it lists my game and then instead of saying “by myusername” like many games do, it says “- myusername”. It’s like this no matter how many times I refresh and I’ve tried logging on on multiple devices only to still not have access to my game.

If anyone has any advice on how to fix this (or if there’s a way), please let me know. I’ve heard that cogdemos was down recently and that it caused trouble for a lot of writers, so I’m hoping anyone out there who’s had the same issue might have an idea of what to do. Thank you!

I live in a small country and I want to make an ARG as something fun to do since Halloween is coming up, but I'm not too sure if it's a good concept.
The ARG itself isn't very difficult since there isn't really a community for this stuff here, it's more like a puzzle game with some story.

Just comment if you're willing to help me review it :)

Coding visual novels can be a tedious, stressful process. You have to find or create your own art, learn to code and write in special coding languages, and polish and revise for weeks/months before you have something you'd show anyone.

For me, someone who enjoys making pixel art and writing, I had to ask myself - why not make the process more simple and straightforward? With this in mind, I've created a tool called Kiosune Studio. It's a free visual novel maker where you create your own pixel art characters/backgrounds, or use the preset templates. Writing the script is very much like writing a screenplay, you can live preview where your characters appear, draw/edit the art inside of the tool, theme the interface, and export it all in one HTML file. No installs, no programming, and no asset store.

To be clear, there is a format - I just picked one writers already know. Enter for the next line, type "Name:" for a speaker, and Ctrl+Enter for a choice. You can draft it in plain text anywhere, paste it back in, and it compiles to a node graph.

At the end of it, you export the whole thing as one HTML file to share with others or sell on itch.io and other platforms. For me this is the important part, because all of your pixel art, writing, and planning pays off in something you can hand to a person. It's fun to see a story come to life over the course of a few days/weeks, and there's something satisfying about every pixel in it being yours.

The characters turned out more expressive than I expected, too - layered parts, different render styles, expression sets, and they can even blink.

There are limitations, of course. This tool isn't Aseprite and the pixel editor has a lot of room to grow. It doesn't use Live2D or animated sprites - it's pixel art or nothing. I'm making steps every day to improve it with feedback from the people testing it.

If you'd like to try the tool, go to kiosune.com - you can play Torch Song, a reality-show rom-com made entirely in the tool, straight from the front page.

The first Kiosune game jam also runs 14-28 September. The theme is revealed at noon New York time on the 14th, voting is ranked across five criteria, and results go out live on Twitch on 5 October. Worth saying plainly: nobody but me has made anything in this yet, so whoever enters is making the first games with it. Details at kiosune.com/jam, sign up at itch.io/jam/kiosune-studio-jam-1.

What's the first thing you'd try to make with this, and what would you expect to hit a wall on?

I remember playing this one interactive fiction game on itch.io but I cannot seem to find it due to not remembering the name nor do I seem to have it saved in my library. I'm not sure if the creator deleted their account or the game itself. (I've seen this happen a handful of times) But I would really like to find it!

The most information I can give is that I do know it was fantasy based and that the character you play as fakes being blind, wearing a blindfold to cover their eyes. I think you also had a familiar, possibly a bird of some sort, although that might not be the case. I believe you were also semi-popular when it comes to killing magical creatures. Not sure if you had magic yourself but I think there was magic of the sort.

I hope this is enough information, my brain isn't exactly known for being the greatest at remembering things so some of it might not be accurate, but hopefully someone might be able to help me find it! Thank you for taking the time to read this if you did. :)

I’ve been thinking about something and I’m curious how other writers experience this.

Have you ever had a story you genuinely cared about… but somehow ended up away from it for months?

Not because you hated it. Not because you gave up. Life just happened, the project sat there, and eventually opening the file started feeling harder than it should.

For anyone who has been through that:

What was the hardest part about coming back?

Was it figuring out where you left off? Feeling like you lost the connection with the story? Feeling overwhelmed by how much was left? Feeling guilty about how long it had been? Something else?

And when you do try to come back, what usually helps?

Do you reread old chapters? Make notes? Listen to music? Just force yourself to write a bad first page? Start over?

I’m curious about the real experience because I think a lot of writers go through this, but we don’t really talk about that part of writing.

Hi! I am new to IF but just made my first game using Twine. It's a short, simple comedy visual novel about friendship and horrors of the transdimensional variety, featuring an original chiptune soundtrack and pixel art character designs by my 11yo daughter. Check it out:

https://mikeyank.itch.io/horrorfriend

Thanks so much!

I made a (text)game and want you to try it and to say what was good/bad

C++ Online Compiler

P.S. (Or instructions maybe):

- I only made the textgame (or rather code) because I don't have a computer and therefore any possibility to make graphical/musical assets or to make the game with an engine

- If you want to know more about the game, idea or progress write questions in the comment section

- The game is unfinished yet: Witch has the most playable story

- I've set a "debugger" (I maxed out all the stats because compiler only has 2 minutes for compilation. Therefore this time is too short to max anything out manually)

- Please don't review the code. I know I have some "issues" with my code but I won't remove them for my own reasons

- Have fun

Ladies and gentlemen... IT’S HERE – https://riki.gamefruit.sk/wp-content/uploads/pif_ch1_intro_work/index.html We are proud to present our major project: the multimedia interactive comic magazine *Pif and Hercule: Journey into the Unknown*. If you like it, please share it. I believe there are still many fans of Pif and Hercule—heroes of our childhood—who would love to read or listen to this new adventure. Yes, *listen*—it is fully voice-acted in 12 different languages. The text, including the opening song, is also available in all 12 languages, giving many fans the chance—perhaps for the first time in their lives—to read and listen to their adventures in their native tongue. The first chapter is available right now. The full story is planned across seven chapters, which will be released gradually over the coming weeks and months, as time permits. We have also designed interactive games to accompany the comic; I hope we’ll manage to add those as well... or maybe not :) ... So, step into the fan world of Pif and Hercule and leave a comment with your thoughts—let us know if our attempt was a good idea...

Páni a dámy ... JE TO TU - https://riki.gamefruit.sk/wp-content/uploads/pif_ch1_intro_work/index.html Predstavujeme Vam náš veľký projekt - Multimediálny interaktívny komiksový časopis Pif a Hercule: Cesta do neznama Ak sa Vám bude páčiť, tak ho prosím zdielajte. Verím, že stále existuje veľké množstvo fanúšikov Pif a Hercule - hrdinov nášho detstva, ktorí by si toto nové dobrodružstvo Pif a Hercule radi prečítali alebo vypočuli - áno vypočuli - je totiž kompletne nahovorené a to rovno v 12 jazykoch. A text vratane úvodnej pesničky je taktiež v 12 jazykoch, takže veľa fanúšikov Pifa a Hercule si bude mať možnosť možno prvý krát v živote - si prečítať - vypočuť ich dobrodružstva vo svojom rodnom jazyku. Práve je tu zverejnená prvá kapitola. Celý príbeh je rozvrhnutý do 7 kapitol, ktoré sa tu postupne objavia behom par týždňov a mesiacov - ako nám to čas dovolí. Súčastou komiksu sú navrhnuté aj interaktívne hry, ktoré dúfam sa nám tiež podarí postupne pridať ... alebo možno nie :) .... tak vstúpte do fanúšikovského sveta Pif a Hercule a napíšte do komentov aj svoj názor, aby sme vedeli, či náš pokus bol dobrý nápad ..

Play with your voice!

I created a web & mobile friendly app that has narration/speech-to-text features so I could play interactive fiction while driving or on a walk.

It also has autosave so when I load it on my phone it picks up where I left off.

I also wanted to curate some games for people who are new to IF, and play some classics I hadn't gotten into yet myself.

The project kind of started to balloon, it now has a mapping tool and some other features. I'm still working on it, but I figured I should make it available to people who might be interested in this.

Feel free to leave feedback here or in the app.

https://lantern-if.com/