apartment story
Third-person drama meets The Sims in a single-room thriller
A story of three people and a gun unfolds in a single apartment through a third-person narrative and a Sims-esque needs-management system.
The player is cast as Arthur, a hard-up videogame journalist living in a London flat. Arthur receives a visit one evening from Diane, a posh and determined 27-year-old who used to live in the apartment. You soon discover the purpose of her arrival: an urgent search for a gun hidden in the apartment. The evening unfolds in a haze of booze, weed and dancing, and when you wake up the next day Diane is gone. Upon walking into the living space the player observes that the entire place has been ransacked, and staring at you from the sofa among the debris of your life sits an aggressive looking man. Blondey, as he is called, cautions you to never see his wife Diane again.
As the story unfolds, the player will manage Arthur's needs – eating, sleeping, hygiene – in order to be able to make a living (play and then write game reviews) so that he can keep the electric meter topped up and the lights on.
Features
· Absorb the player in a fast paced and dramatic thriller centred around 3 distinct personalities that develop as the gun is introduced and stakes are raised
· Invite the player to take an active role in the protagonist’s life and welfare through a deep and immersive needs management system
· Allow the player to express their own personality through gameplay choices made in the downtime between narrative beats. For example – you are covered in the blood of someone you just shot – do you shower, take a cold beer from the fridge or sit at your desk to finish an article?
· This is a Videogame about life now; it is about not having money, the way we value our home spaces and the craving of narratives we were raised with instead of the monotonies we find ourselves in. The presence of a gun acts as an accelerator to these contemporary afflictions within our three characters.
